May 2017 Grocery Challenge

Doom_and_Gloom

elsiepac wrote: »

No, that's great, thank you! I'm gathering lots of ideas at the moment as I want to develop a kind of list of go to recipes that I can rotate! I was probably more curious about which spices you were using and how you were cooking everything. I also have a rice cooker, I love it!

Oh one thing I missed was add water as needed while cooking, otherwise you'll burn the food to the pan. I also had 3 large cloves of garlic, to me this was a given but yeah.

Wouldn't be without the rice cooker. Perfect rice every time. Got it from Lidl last year as a thought of if it's not my thing it's cheap, was £12 or £13. I'm already looking for a better one; likely to get a multi cooker kind.

elsiepac

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Wouldn't be without the rice cooker. Perfect rice every time. Got it from Lidl last year as a thought of if it's not my thing it's cheap, was £12 or £13. I'm already looking for a better one; likely to get a multi cooker kind.

I had one that I got on offer - again about £15, but after multiple uses, suddenly the pot decided to burn against the element and melt!! Bit scary! Anyway they couldn't give me a direct replacement so they sent me a better one which has a saute function as well! It's this one! Very much recommend it!

Kayalana99

Done the shopping online for £50 to pick up Saturday so total spend is £137/£200 this month.

I'd done the shopping and only spent £33 (god knows how I managed that) so I bulked it out to £50 to include some extra meat and bits to freeze, all smart spending no silly extras though...our freezer is nearly meat free so I figured I can spread the cost out a bit if we have a bad week and somehow need loads of essentials in same week.

t14cy_t

spends of £10 yesterday, so no money left in the grocery purse. £80 total spent. xx

mcculloch29

I spent £19.95 on groceries in Mr T's yesterday, paid for with gift cards, there were also some non-grocery purchases that I'm not counting in.
This leaves me with £60.44 of April 20th's £140 left, to run with until the end of the month. A little spend tomorrow in Lid! and Pound!and, perhaps, with maybe an A!di spend before May 31st. Either way, I should come in £20-£30 under budget, having spread my challenge out for 42 days. Moreover £25 worth of that spend won't have come out of my bank account as groceries were paid for with gift cards.

As an aside, I am so grateful that I don't have to shop in Mr T's for almost everything now, as was the case before our A!di opened. Walking is very painful for me, I have to support myself with the trolley (I commented on FB that the mother of my trolley had been over-familiar with a crab) and with largely non-existant signage within the store, finding many items was not fun. I took one look down a couple of very long aisles and thought 'forget it'.
A few treats in with the mostly own brands, generally special offers. There were some good offers on baby wipes, which I use a lot of, so I'm now trying three new brands. I have packs in a variety of locations within my house!

XSpender

£6.50 on a takeaway for my fed up and stressed out DH last night and £5 on some beers that are still in the fridge.

Just under £30 in the kitty for a top up shop, snacks and probably another few cans for DH. It will be a bit tight I think.

Wysiwyg49

Have somehow crept over £400 with bits and bobs...going to start June's challenge from Sat 27th.

Revised meal plan for tonight because when I looked in fridge I have courgettes and peppers, so switching from bean chilli to ratatouille hotpot. (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2138648/ratatouille-hotpot)

YorksLass

Another small spend of £4.53 on Tuesday, so my Wk4 finished at a total of £22.15 with 5 NS days.

Practically all meals this week have come out of existing stocks from the freezer, fridge and cupboards and I've also done some baking to fill up the treats tins. No extra trips to the shops and a lot of stuff used up.

In my (almost empty) fridge I have: butter, margarine, an unopened block of halloumi, a tub of cream cheese, a small piece of Cheshire cheese, milk, one apple, one tomato, 3 small Polish sausages and the meat from 2 chicken drumsticks. The tomato, sausages and chicken will most likely end up on a pizza. No fresh veg or salady-y bits left at all.

The freezer is still pretty full so I'm going to carry on running that down over the coming weeks before stocking it up again. Today I counted 7 hm ready meals in there as well as mince, pork steaks, chilli sausages, liver and chicken breasts/thighs to make more meals plus veg, desserts and other odds & sods. They should give me a good start to next month's challenge.

In the morning I'll be buying fruit, veg and salad locally and in the afternoon I have an online sm delivery arriving. This will cost around £70 but it's all the heavy/bulky stuff and should last us at least a month.

I'm declaring now and have a surplus of £10.37 left out of the month's £160 budget, so really pleased with that. :j
Congratulations to everyone who's stuck to their budget :beer: and commiserations to those who haven't. See you in June!

Islandmaid

Spent £68 at Aldi on Wednesday, I updated my signature but forgot to write it here - Dohhhh... that did include a fair bit of household stuff and cat food

Another useup meal here, had half a Chorizo, mushrooms and a red pepper to use up so - Chorizo, pepper, Mushroom and Spinach Gnocchi

pamsdish

£40 spend in Morries inc, bottle of brandy and 3 chickens. to take advantage of 5p off petrol.