May 2017 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

mcculloch29 wrote: »

I've used cooked chicken instead of chickpeas in Jack Monroe's Peach and Chickpea Curry
That's quite low calorie and uses storecupboard ingredients.

Stir cooked strips/scraps of chicken through a stir-fry.

Chicken noodle soup with the carcass.

Use as part of a tortilla but with low fat cheddar, that works well.
You could try a terrine if you can find gelatine easily.

I have some higher calorie suggestions, mostly involving puff pastry, or cheese sauce, that you probably won't thank me for.

Lol! My go-to for using up has always been a pie, or white/cheese sauce, or even both!!! However, I'm 1 and a half stone down on a 5+ stone journey, so I'd like to be focused...

The children wanted spag bol after all that, so I'll do something with the chicken tomorrow. Curry does sound good, although so does the soupy-stew - potatoes are free foods, so all good there too. Oh, the choice! :rotfl::rotfl:

Nsd today, and the 500g mince I used was enough for four big dinner portions and three lunch portions for me for this week. Result!

PG x

t14cy_t

good morning everone! well, after last months £20 over spend I have decided to use cash only this month. will still use the usual £80 for us for this month, doesn't include alcohol or animals stuff. spent £11 yesterday, so £69 left in the pot. xx

Cappella

t14cyt - I find cash only works best for me. It's frightening how easy it is for me to go overbudget with cards. I leave mine firmly shut in the drawer these days, apart from using them for the weekly cash withdrawal.

Nsd yesterday, but we need milk today. Will pop in to L**ls on the way back from the library but only take enough cash for milk and resist temptation the easy way:)

mumofthetwins

so spend for me at the weekend but we are pretty sorted now (for a while in any way)
I did start with a envelope with cash and although its going down I still haven't spent on my card. pay day again in 24 days so slightly longer this month but fingers crossed lol

kscour

Going to join in with this as although I've kept a note of all my spending for the last few months I still don't feel totally in control of my spending. Hopefully this'll help nudge me back on the straight and narrow. Going for £100 a week for the three of us - some weeks I spend more than others depending on which shops I've visited so overall I'm aiming for £400 to cover 1st - 28th May

XSpender

I had an OK March and a terrible April so am back on it with a budget of £400 which is a real challenge. I have set the budget low (for us) as I have been through the freezers/cupboards and have meal planned for a whole month from what we have in!

We had friends for dinner at the weekend and this will be reciprocated at the end of the month so some additional cost there and I do have DS birthday this month but we are having an old fashioned birthday tea for us and 2 sets of grandparents and a shop bought cake so shouldn't bust the budget.

Scary when I see that I have spent £165.85/£400 already and that £65 of that was on booze :eek:

mcculloch29

I've been doing some alternative thinking within my budget. Sticking to £140, I can still take less than this from my bank account by using alternative methods of paying. I know some people use handfuls of copper in the self-serve coin hoppers, I can't see me doing that but one of our local supermarkets has a Coinstar machine that converts coins to a voucher. I have a large-ish bag of small change.
I had a £5 voucher for doing surveys, I normally convert these to Amazon gift cards, but this morning I printed out a £5 Tesco giftcard instead.
I tend to only use Tesco for the items I cannot get in Aldi or Heron, but there are a few of these - coffee whitener, dried milk, brown rice, cocoa, Crackerbread are amongst my regular purchases.

Coxy11

Hi everyone


Budgets updated to here. Welcome all newcomers!!


Coxy

Kayalana99

I did really well for April and came under budget but I spent a bit extra on the credit card (put food and petrol on the credit card and pay off monthly) so aim to keep the overall spend under £400 this month which gives me £250 for food and £150 for petrol.

We are away for a week though in May so not sure how I'll add this in as we have hoilday money saved, maybe I'll use a weeks allowance to cover the extra petrol and use h/money for the shop whilst we are there... I'll see how I go.

Just done my first online shop at £42 so £8 under this weeks budget

allmannerofthings

Thanks Coxy11 for adding me! Glad to be aboard!

Chicken for dinner for Mr AMOT tonight, with baby new potatoes and steamfresh microwave veg from the freezer. The leftover chicken will do his chicken salad for work lunches the rest of the week. I'll make stock/soup from the carcass in the slow cooker, I used to do that a lot but have got lazy lately. I don't eat meat and I forgot to plan something for myself, which is something I often do so I'll probably have eggs in some format. Or a sandwich. Anyone else cooking for a meat eater and a veggie?

Reading through the thread has really made me fancy Jack Monroe's Peach and Chickpea curry - not sure I've any peaches. I think i've got prunes and grapefruit - not sure that would be quite the same :rotfl: