June Grocery Challenge

elona

Welcome Carriel and enjoy the challenge!

I found that buying a breadmaker and making my own bread,rolls and jam was very popular with the family - they do not like the shop bought stuff now!

I also make my own pizza and they love it - it is also a lot cheaper and nicer:j

spendaholic

Both me and Misterholic get paid on the last working day of the month (or I will be from this month onwards), so our month starts as close as possible to the 1st of the month, but my linear brain needs to budget for however many Fridays there are in the month as that is the day I'd draw out my cash per week if I was drawing cash.

Last month we did very well with me spending closer to £35 and £40 on shopping instead of £65 to £100. Even the holiday shopping that I was fretting about (cos I had to buy for us and for my parents who were looking after the cat) only came to around £80, and this month is starting today.

Our shopping budget for June is therefore 4 x £50 = £200. I'm cancelling the milkman and buying Tesco milk instead as it lasted us very well in our little caravan fridge and is 17p per pint cheaper (although I'll get bigger bottles), so that's been included in the budget. Our budget also includes non-food items.

Janeryan

Well done Spendaholic & welcome Carriel

Queenie

:hello: carriel and welcome You've already successfully completed the first challenge ... by deciding to make changes ((hugs))
On the "sticky" Welcome to Moneysaving Old Style there are a goodly number of links which include, menu planning and shopping tips - grab yourself a cuppa, put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and have a good read - there are so many hints, tips and how-to's to kick start the new you
Good luck!

spendaholic: :T :T Very well done to you!!! I hope you have suitably patted yourself on the back - that's quite an achievement!

spendaholic

Thanks, Queenie - I'm about to go out with my new credit card to get our first week's shopping on the new budget, but I'm also tempted to continue using the Tesco one to max the points and just clear my monthly spend for the month plus whatever I can from the balance. Ooh, decisions, decisions. No doubt I'll have decided by the time I get there.

And yes, very big welcome to Carriel. You'll be amazed at how quickly this thing turns your life around!

HappySad

Hi Everyone.

My challenge is to have all my food shop and non essencial items to come up to £250. Last month it came to £300. I am already cooking more vegitatian dishes as they are cheaper than meat meals. I am also watching how much things are in the shops and going to different shops if they are cheaper there.

HappySad

cristin wrote:

Hello Happysad, when I bought the soya mince, the girl in the H&B shop gave me a really good piece of advice, she said to try and get as much flavour into the soya before cooking with it to get better results! So instead of just chucking plain water on it to get it to rehydrate, make sure to add lots of flavours to the water. So in my boiled water (can't remember how much but at least 500ml) I added three of teaspoons of marmite, some lea perrins sauce, some ketchup, some tomato puree and a veg stock cube (but I suppose you could use a beef one) and mixed it all together. I then got a big bowl to put the soya mince in and then added the boiled water and left it to soak in for an hour. I then added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of mixed herbs to it.

In a pan I fried a chopped onion added a chopped carrot and then added the soya. No need to cook the soya for very long as it is already brown, so I added a spoon of flour (to make the gravy) and then another 250ml of veg stock. The thing that I wasn't used to was everything cooking so quickly. The other thing that helped was I left the soya mince to go cold in the pan so that it would be easier to spoon the mash on top. I then boiled some potatoes, mashed them, added butter and a little milk, spooned them onto the soya and cooked it in the oven for about 25mins till it went nice and crispy on top. It all sounds long winded but it really didn't involve much prep and since I now know you can freeze soya mince I will make sure that next time I make at least 2 pies!

BTW I made a spag bol for hubby and daughter yesterday and bulked it out with some soya and again it worked really well - they did not know it contained soya!

HTH

Cristin

Thanks Cristin
Sorry for taking a while to reply. I have not been on the chat for a few days.
I will try out your recipe on the soya mince.

Your idea of bulking mince with soya mince is also a good idea. I usually use lentils.

Soya mince is so cheap and has lots of protein in it. It will definately cut down on my shopping bill. I am going to have it about once a week. I will also try to have lentils once a week also as this is also a low cost way of feeding the family.

What is also good is my fussy eating son of 20months old loves lentils. I have also tried him on soya and he seemed to like this also...

With the money that I save from my food shopping ..it will go towards a car that I will be buying for cash in about 5 years time. I bought my car about 4years ago almost new and when it everntually dies on me, I will have enough money saved from my food challenges to buy another one.

spendaholic

Today I went shopping and spent £1.41 over my budget. However, I had £18.85 in Tesco vouchers, so the actual spend came in at £32.56. Purchases included a new kitchen scale for £4.92 (how on earth do they come to these figures?) because it was cheaper to get a bog standard one than to replace the fancy battery in my fancy digital scale. Why they couldn't use ordinary AA batteries I have no idea.

So, while I was a bit disappointed at going over budget, my actual spend is quite a lot less than budget.

I was going to get a couple of pork chops for dinner later in the week, but they had salmon fillets reduced from £4-odd to £2.49 for a 2-pack, and also BOGOF. That means an additional meal for another night. AND the pre-prepared carrot and swede was actually CHEAPER than a swede on its own.

Magentasue

I've avoided this thread because I know I failed my May one even though I haven't added it up yet:o. I've completely lost the plot, no meal plans, not even a shopping list today although I did go to Lidls not Asda .

I need to get back on track because my work situation has started looking dodgy again. I have been good about cooking though and have cancelled my veg box for a couple of weeks 'cos I have stuff in the garden ready.

So where have I gone wrong? Well, I haven't been shopping alone for a couple of weeks ... Fatal.

VickyA_2

Magentasue wrote:

So where have I gone wrong? Well, I haven't been shopping alone for a couple of weeks ... Fatal.

It is lethal, isn't it? Other people spot stuff that they "need" or they remember that X is coming round for a beer so we need some more. Hmmm, how about the other couple of crate ends that we have?

On the other hand, going on my own is legal as I hang around the wine aisle for too long, trying to find the latest deal.

PS Just re-read the last sentence. I'm not a complete alcoholic, I just like a nice bottle of wine once a week!