October 2017 Grocery Challenge

debtfreeforlife

Did some shopping yesterday, so my total now is £137.65 with half the month left - yikes! But the fridge and freezer are now fully stocked up and I've enough almond milk to see me through 'til the end of next week. Does anyone else use almond milk, and if so where do they buy it? I've just been buying it from my local S@insburys at an extortionate £2.80 a litre, but think I really need to be organised and go and buy bulk from somewhere else at a cheaper price. At least it's possible to stock up on almond milk when it's cheap since the use-by dates are way longer than for dairy milk.

Mrs_Cheshire

NewShadow wrote: »

I know it sounds a bit random but with my ex I always tried to make sure I had some hard boiled eggs, cold chicken drumsticks, either ham or sliced home cooked gammon, popcorn - and lots of sugar free cereals with yogurt.

Some people just have hollow legs - Protein for the win!

Thank you, they are 8,6 and almost 2, so could try these things but doubt they would eat that much of them. Going to try the egg and bacon/ham muffins that you make in the oven.

Mrs_Cheshire

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Mrs Cheshire- cheese straws, with/without paprika,
sausage rolls -bought puff pastry and skin a pack of sausages,
scotch eggs - boiled eggs covered with the meat from inside a sausage (I cook these in the oven instead of frying but sometimes they split open)
toasted sandwiches - ham and cheese
slices of HM flans - leek and cheese, vegetable flan, etc they freeze well.

Thank you, need to try doing some more cooking with them, especilly when the weather's not so good.
Will give some of these a go and report back.
The Cheese straws will probably go down really well. I've got a sheet of frozen puff pastry in the freezer!

zafiro1984

Mrs_Cheshire wrote: »

Thank you, need to try doing some more cooking with them, especilly when the weather's not so good.
Will give some of these a go and report back.
The Cheese straws will probably go down really well. I've got a sheet of frozen puff pastry in the freezer!

The 8 and 6 yr old would enjoy helping you to cook.
Try making biscuits with them.
Pitta bread split into two (or even just a slice of bread) make really good bases for pizzas and just the right size for them. let them choose their own toppings from whatever you have in the fridge/freezer/cupboard plus of course tomato sauce and cheese. You'd be surprised how creative they can be - my children at that age used to have strange combinations of ingredients as they wanted to make pictures or patterns but even so they still enjoyed eating them.

[Deleted User]

thanks for the recipe elsiepac!!

Faete

I've not been on this site since January 2016 and my shopping bill has developed into a monster! I'm just going to tot up what I spend this month to get a handle on what I need to aim for next month. This could get scary!

Fae xx

thriftwizard

Slight disaster has struck; my Mum's been rushed back to hospital after a very scary episode early yesterday morning. Luckily I was there to call an ambulance, but because there'd been a bad RTA on the main road, the ambulance had to come from a town 15 miles away, over some pretty massive hills and round the back roads. 50 minutes can seem like a lifetime... or the end of one. Luckily, it wasn't.

So I spent the day in hospital, refusing to leave her bedside until we got to see an actual doctor, in case they decided that since she could get up to use the commode (with assistance) she'd be able to cope at home (on her own, with carers twice daily) and sent her out again. But fortunately the cardiac consultant came to see her mid-afternoon and decided to admit her for tests, so after trotting off to fetch her bag, I was free to come home. By which time starvation had apparently set in at this end; they're not usually helpless, but after a hard day's work, no-one felt up to cooking a full meal. So we had a Chinese - £30 off the grocery budget...

Plus I had to go & buy cat-food in to last at least a couple of months; last time this happened, my time was not my own until mid-December, by which time I'd been overtaken by Christmas! That's one thing less to worry about whilst I'm trotting to & fro. And poultry feed was done last week, and I didn't add it on. So I've added £90, and should "carry forward" at least another £30 into November, as I seem to have mislaid my "bulk-buy" purse! Mind you I think it had "done" more than a year so I should probably re-start it.

elsiepac

thriftwizard wrote: »

Slight disaster has struck; my Mum's been rushed back to hospital after a very scary episode early yesterday morning. Luckily I was there to call an ambulance, but because there'd been a bad RTA on the main road, the ambulance had to come from a town 15 miles away, over some pretty massive hills and round the back roads. 50 minutes can seem like a lifetime... or the end of one. Luckily, it wasn't.

So I spent the day in hospital, refusing to leave her bedside until we got to see an actual doctor, in case they decided that since she could get up to use the commode (with assistance) she'd be able to cope at home (on her own, with carers twice daily) and sent her out again. But fortunately the cardiac consultant came to see her mid-afternoon and decided to admit her for tests, so after trotting off to fetch her bag, I was free to come home. By which time starvation had apparently set in at this end; they're not usually helpless, but after a hard day's work, no-one felt up to cooking a full meal. So we had a Chinese - £30 off the grocery budget...

Plus I had to go & buy cat-food in to last at least a couple of months; last time this happened, my time was not my own until mid-December, by which time I'd been overtaken by Christmas! That's one thing less to worry about whilst I'm trotting to & fro. And poultry feed was done last week, and I didn't add it on. So I've added £90, and should "carry forward" at least another £30 into November, as I seem to have mislaid my "bulk-buy" purse! Mind you I think it had "done" more than a year so I should probably re-start it.

My thoughts are with you, what a stressful time. Best wishes to your mum

Coxy11

Hi all,
Budgets list updated to here
Coxy

XSpender

£1 to add for milk today and £4.70 to add from yesterday as DH appears to have bought a second lunch to the one I packed for him :mad:

One of his team bought lunch for him today as he didn't make his own (I was away overnight) so he will reciprocate on Friday. I am not a happy bunny and there will be words :mad: ;)

Total for this week is now £50.92.

Total for MTD is £249.92/£350