January 2017 Grocery Challenge. NEW BEGINNINGS!

mrs-moneypenny

Morning all

Made a veggie hotpot for last nights meal and while doing it did a veggie lasagne for tonight so I'm actually organised.
We are going to run down the freezer as we are going to swap the 30+ year old larder fridge and freezer for a more space saving and efficient combined one. It while hold slightly less so I need to learn to stop shop like I did while all five children were at home i.e. Siege mentality shopping-I think we're running out if I have less than 10 packs of veggie sausages in. It will be far cheaper to run and take up less space in the kitchen.

snowfox

£5.29 in Sains yesterday for milk, yogurts and some fresh veg. Signature updated, this is going quite well so far!

Hoping for NSD today since I have HM soup for lunch and stew from the freezer for dinner.

medsdemon

NSD yesterday and not planning spending today either. So that'll be 3 in a row ��

kkffoo

Art_Deco wrote: »

So mad , just got our bank statement and have £10.00 overdraft charge , was late transferring the shopping money into our joint account over xmas, all i keep thinking is that would have fed us all for 2 days!!! its never happened before and we will make sure it never happens again. The freezer is full , just need bread and milk so hoping not to spend anything else for the next 5 days to recoup it back, going off to sulk now.:mad:

Aaargh! These things feel so much worse when you imagine 'I could have done...' but really there's only so much you can think about at once, and Christmas has a way of filling up brainspace, and jiggling things around that somehow something always happens.

I forgot to ask my hubby to get cabbage at the weekend, and then I wrote white cabbage on the next list...so he would know what I meant and not get green loose leaf. Áldi didn't have any, and he didn't know red cabbage would have worked just as well for coleslaw. So our five a day has been depleted for several days this week.

I do find it satisfying seeing the basics come out of the shopping bag when he returns though. I think back to those shopping trips when so much more was spent, and what we had bought just didn't last. More time planning and a different attitude have saved us so much, and we are eating a better diet too!

Part way through week 2 of our 4 week 'month', £12.58 at Áldi, all basics, and son had lunch at work due to double shift, so now on £92.80/£273.08. Doing ok.

elsiepac

Made my three salads last night and what a success! They were all delicious too - if you want the recipes justshout and I'll post them











Me and mum had a huge plateful each of some of each, and I have enough left for at least 3 more meals if not 4 or 5. Plus still have the stuff to make my noodle salad which I think I will do for tea tomorrow night.

Lunch today is some of the Italian pasta salad plus some of the green salad (it was nice with the orange and almonds in and the dressing was asiany with sesame oil, ginger and rice vinegar).

Tonight I'm making a single portion of soup with a random portion of defrosted roast root veg plus my broccoli ends from last night. I can have toast with it from frozen bread if super hungry.

My freezer clearing down is going well - I've already been able to take one drawer out and have it defrosting in the sink at the moment! It occurred to me with the few bits I don't want to "use up", I could bring into work for the day, put them in the freezer here whilst mine defrosts, and then take them home again! Will have to plan very well for that if that's the route I decide to go down!

greentiger

ArtDeco, if it's unusual for you to go into overdraft, try speaking to your bank. They may waive the fee. Ours did it for us.

claireyfairy82

Can you count me in again please, sorry a bit late getting on board so much going on. I have used my bank card for everything so far so will total it and update my signature later.


I'm going for £225 this month.

Islandmaid

NSD here

Marinated Tuna steaks with Stirfry Veg tonight - still craving Veg after the Christmas gluttony

meg72

greentiger wrote: »

ArtDeco, if it's unusual for you to go into overdraft, try speaking to your bank. They may waive the fee. Ours did it for us.

I was also going to suggest this, It happened to me one Christmas when I accidently withdrew money from my current account instead of the Christmas savings account. I didn't realise until I got a letter from my bank with a horrific £40 charge. I went straight to the bank and explained what I had done and asked them to transfer the money. The young man who dealt with this for me was really lovely
and said as it was the first time I had gone into overdraft he would get the charge waived. I hadn't expected this at all and was so very gratefull.

meg72

Artic weather coming eh, its already here in my kitchen. Didn't shut the door on the freezer properly again result so frosted up I could build a snowman. Soooooooo kitchen units and floor covered in unidentified snowy frozen lumps.

Ahhhhh well its a good opportunity to completely sort it out, I was trying to only do one shelf at a time but now no choice but to do the lot.
At least it helps with the NGS, no going shopping, I will be kitchen bound for the rest of the week I think.

My plan has been to use everything up in this freezer and get rid o it was thinking a couple of months would see it off but looking at this lot its going to be a lot longer than that.