February 2017 Grocery Challenge

t14cy_t

morning all!! i have a slightly different approach to shopping! i make my shopping pop ins a bit of a game...what can i get for the least amount of money, using points, vouchers etc and the good old ys section, then its a challenge what to make for our meals! luckily we will eat/try most things, the dogs and chickens and ducks do well too, although all the animals are fed proper food if you know what i mean! the animals cost more to feed than we do!! but heyho, they are so worth it!! xx

Flat_Eric

I also hoard. I do know that when I was really small, the fridge wasn't exactly bursting with food but I don't remember being bothered by this as I didn't really know any different yet all these years later I seem to hoard food amongst other things.

I stuck to my meal plan last night and therefore used up the stir fry veg I had. It was yummy. I've got tonight's meal planned but I'm undecided about tomorrow evening. I'm sorely tempted by a valentines meal deal as a special treat What's everyone else doing? Do you bother with these meal deals or do you think they are overpriced?

oceanspirit

Just vegbox again this week, £10.95. Lots of meals in the freezer and doing well at using up older items from the storecupboard.

freyasmum

Flat Eric, I think we're making stuffed pork loin and dauphinoise with green beans - it was the first meal we cooked together and it delicious.

It's basically a pork loin butterflied and stuffed with, well, stuffing :rotfl: and chopped, dried apricots and wrapped in bacon. Meat on meat - definitely a man thing, but it's yummy!

We would always make double.. but we don't have any room in the freezer

XSpender

A spend yesterday of £19.48 on beer and YS pizza and kitchen towel on offer.

Total is now £192.40/£320.

I need to make it a priority today to go through the fridge and see what can be used up to avoid it getting wasted. I have been away a lot with work this week so fresh stuff has not got used as much as usual.

I still need to so a list of what is in the freezer and meal plan and then go to Aldi and my protein order will be made today which is another £50 to add to the total!

I have received my Mr T vouchers today, more than I expected, but will save these for the next Mr T delivery which will be late Feb/early March.

Ginmonster

I'm not convinced the valentine meal deals are that good. You could make a special meal at home by adding a pot of cream to just about any normal meal and spend the money on a nice bottle of wine instead. I know where my priorities lie!

I had a NSD yesterday and will deffo be having one today too as I'm feeling sorry for myself curled up on the sofa with a stinky cold and no voice. Glad I made some soup earlier in the week so I don't have to cook anything.

Fruittea

I quite enjoy the meal deals. I'm going for the Ocado/Waitrose one this time. I have a 3 month free delivery pass which I share with my Mum. She's housebound and relies on ready meals - so I buy all her shopping for her as she lives 200 miles away. But I only buy for myself things that are on offer. In the meal deals I often swap out items for other meals as I never eat a 3 course meal anyway. This is what I'll be getting and what I'll do with it for valentine. It costs £20.

1 Ocado Espresso Roasted Coffee Beans £6.46 - this is for a kilo of coffee and as I'm a coffee fan it's good value.
1 Higgidy 6" Spinach, Feta & Red Pepper Quiche £2.58 - I'll cut the pie into 4 and eat with salad for lunches.
1 Waitrose British Beef Ribeye Steak with Bearnaise Butter £5.81 - one for OH valentines dinner - one in the freezer. I will have salmon fillet (already bought) and serve new potatoes.
1 Waitrose Asparagus Tips £1.28 - for valentine.
1 Waitrose Cauliflower Cheese £2.49 - dinner for 2 with roast potatoes
1 BerryWorld Strawberry & Belgian Chocolate Valentine's Platter £2.58- for valentine.
I need some other non food things and some bread and salad next week and I just happen to have an £11 voucher which I need to use. So the shop is worth it.
I must admit I always go through the menu and pick out the most expensive items before I buy. I agree it can work out a bit more expensive but I also like to give myself the night off from cooking from scratch.
By the way - for those of you with delivery passes it's worth thinking about sharing it with a family member or friends as you can have one delivery a day anywhere. As mentioned I get my Mums and my brothers and occasional send something to a friend. So I get as much out of the pass as I can - you just need to remember to manage your address book.

Islandmaid

Managed to swerve a visit to the supermarket today by changing the weekend menu.

Valentines for us will be Steak (£3.50 ea), HM Dauphinois Potatoes (50p ea) Asparagus (30p ea)

Homemade Chocolate Fondants (approx £1.50 for 4, including cream on top)

Wine from Christmas stash 😍 £9.35 meal for 2 💋Even cheaper than a Martin Lewis recommend bargain bucket :rotfl:

kkffoo

We are half way through week two of our four week month, which to the rest of the world is mostly called February, but on my 13 month calendar I have named Crocus.
My grocery notebook is showing a marked migration towards !ldi shops, and away from our previous haunts.

I'm reminding myself that for us, habits and systems save more money than focusing too much energy on individual items. So my new habits to stocktake and menu plan before shopping are a better use of my time than hunting down the cheapest X this week (which I used to do). However, if I get X every week, then the system update would be to find out where it is usually cheapest, and develop the habit of buying that item there.

I'm working on reducing the amount of stuff that goes in and out of the freezer. I'm just too prone to lapses. I can cook the wholegrain rice for the month, defrost each portion in the fridge then microwave, but what often happens is we end up having something else, because I forgot or got the timing wrong and I'm poking lumps off to defrost faster.
I'm just as lapse prone with defrosting the batch made soup but because it gives us one of our five a day I'm going to live with it. Hopefully having less to remember will mean I do!

I've also responded to feedback on the midweek vegetarian meals. The family like the recipes, but say they would be better with some meat in, even just a bit. So I'm compromising. What would have been one portion of meat gets split between two meals and the rest of the protein is veggie. I say meat, most of it is fish, apart from the chicken breast so keeping up with the low fat theme, mostly...I'm getting bacon cravings.

Still working on making ONE meal for everyone. I may need to eat some fish fingery type meals once in a while.

We have identified who is using gallons of shampoo, and they have been spoken to.:D

Have 65% of our budget remaining.
(signature is currently wrong, forum glitch stopping editing)

Ginmonster

You could try putting stuff straight from the freezer to the microwave. Most have a defrost setting, athough I just whack everything on full power and give it a good stir every minute. It seems to work fine.