November 2016 Grocery Challenge

Caterina

NSD as planned, very pleased! Sig updated.

t14cy_t

nsd yesterday, yipee!! xx

XSpender

I have put my budget up by £10 to £360 to match the amount I have set in the NST challenge.

So far I have spent £187.24 (52%) including a shop last night for the coming week. I am away with work all of next week and DH is stocked up with RMs and I have bought a few bits to continue with my healthy eating plan when I am away.

Although some of the ingredients are expensive on my plan I am not buying snacks and rubbish which is cutting costs and I have been using up some store cupboard items. I have also had no takeaways or booze this week

I am sure DH will spend a little more next week on the days he forgets to take something to work or fancies a chippy tea.

pinkypig

Shopping later with a list:).
We have friends coming for dinner on Sunday but I'm keeping it cheap and cheerful. I've decided on Italian (ish) and will do a choice of lasagne and macaroni cheese with chorizo (there are loads of us so it's a bit of a running buffet!), hm dough balls, garlic bread with tomato and garlic bread with mozzarella and salad. Dessert will be a tiramasu that's lurking in the freezer and Irishcream Meringue. I can do this mainly from stores but I will need some turkey mince and chorizo.
My other 'extra' is DS food tech ingredients. Why do the always choose such expensive ingedients? :eek:
I'm not going to be on budget this month but I'm determined to minimise the damage. Wish me luck:)
PP x

Caterina

Good morning,

I hope to have another NSD today if I can.

Meal plan:

Breakfast: gluten free pancake experiment, going to try and make buckwheat and rice flour with the vitamix, will report on results. If it goes pear shaped, just egg and banana fritters.
Lunch: gf pasta with tomato sauce and soya mince. "Cicoria" from allotment.
Dinner: bean and veg stew, quinoa, salad.

Have a good day.

Edited to say: pancake flour came out excellent, used buckwheat, brown rice and dried green peas. Blended with one egg, almonds, banana, tsp of baking powder, water. Served pancakes with maple syrup, delish.

Also change of meal plan, DS is having the Cicoria to take to an Italian friend (and I can't be bothered to pick some more today!) and I forgot that I have a plate of cooked polenta from last night, the leftover I had after coating the fishcakes which I cooked not to waste it. Now it is nice and solid in a bowl, ready to be roasted and used instead of pasta, with the sauce. Will make salad for lunch and cooked veg for dinner.

[Deleted User]

Just over £31 left in my November food budget purse and NSD for me I have only shopped twice so far this month and have enough for around 10 days at least apart from my freezer which I am slowly eating my way through

Florence_J

Bought cucumber and Bread, Budget is now £9.82 over what I had as a target at the start of the month (£112) but for me the real goal is to keep it as much below the £168 budget I normally go for, and on that count I still have £46.18 remaining.

I am trying to put all that money saved towards the Christmas shop.

Wysiwyg49

Gone a bit off track with lack of planning - ran out of steam on about Wednesday of both weeks so far, so ended up with lots of top-up shops and expensive last minute food.

Made soup today and will do a proper plan later. Still likely to go over though!

pinkypig

I'm over budget with another shop to do before pay day:eek:
£33.20 in Aldi which included almost £5 on food tech ingredients that DS needs later this week and a few bits for a family get together.
Initially I felt gutted to have overspent as I've never had a month that's gone really off track before. However, when I thought about it, I've had family and friends here to eat three times this month which has cost a bit more but it was lovely seeing everyone and the kids really enjoyed it. We used to have family around a lot before the separation and I think they've missed it so rather than beating myself up about it I'm going to take some comfort from the fact that I've done three different meals with dessert for 8 people on each occasion for under £30.
I also think my £32 a week might have been a bit ambitious so next month I'm going back to £35. I'm also going to cost out my at home entertaining over Christmas properly so I can build it in to my December budget.
Hope everyone else is having a more successful month:)
PP x

Franalamadingdong

Great way to look at it pinky.

Nsd for me today. I'll have to buy milk at the shop tomorrow before we have a Mr S delivery on Monday. Thank you nice voucher. Instead of buying bread that will be stale I might get DS in the kitchen to make some - maybe focaccia. We can then use that as a base for his homework - describing things using lots of adjectives.

I was so busy folding OoS I didn't get to have my chocolate. So get some tonight instead!