Family of 5 'shop from home'food storage challenge...

D&DD

lil_me I love lists too..not that I ever seem to be able to stick to them whatever they are for! That was an excellent deal on the mince.We get through a lot here too our other 'special' is sausages,they'll start looking like them soon they love them!!
I found some huuuuge pyrex dishes in RobertDyas a while back for making up cottage pies,toads etc in and its been great as now the boys are bigger my normal size ones were no good :eek:
I didn't realise til I started all this just how much milk we were using you know..I had to get more today (and soya) probably because I'm drinking too much coffee at the mo!!
Thats a great idea re the spuds,I seem to have craving for those at the moment,with brown sauce mashed in and sprinkled with cheese

DS3 has textural probs with mash too hence the need to disguise it with lashings of sauce :rotfl:

UPDATE DAY 25...

We tried Scouts today...mmm jury is still out..resounding success when taken he made me leave him !!!! Came back to find him under chair,fingers stuck in ears, with the roaring 'ump saying it's boring to anyone and everyone who would listen...:o
The Arkalas are brilliant and most of the kids are special but I think he missed having some structure..we'll soon see if he enjoyed it if he'll go next week!
Breakfast today was cereals (we still have quite a few boxes to wade our way through!!)

Lunches were tuna sandwiches,crisps and apples

Dinner in the end was burgers or dippers...and chips as I was trying to scrape DS3 from the ceiling while cooking it as he was excited about scouts...
Total spend today was £5.38p for 2 x 4 pintas milk,1 x soya milk,1 x punnet strawberries... and 2 x mince knocked down to 44p a tray*sorry I just could NOT bypass them* ...bargain!

Total Spend therefore to date is £29.29p

D&DD

Hellooooo:D
Had a couple of *more* hectic than usual days due to DS3's birthday tea! One of the pals he invited has a nut allergy :rolleyes: ..we don't do things by half in this house :rotfl: so had to cook EVERYTHING from scratch.I made pizza,burgers and baps(told you that mince would come in handy!),sausage rolls,french bread and veggie cocktail sausages! I also made 48 jam tarts,35 mini doughnuts (iced and choccie),24 fairy cakes and his birthday cake

My feet hurt, my back aches (and my ears are still ringing 'cos he got soooo excited :rotfl: ) but it was so worth it just to see him enjoy himself
_party_ :dance: _party_

Off to my mums tomorrow to do it all over again with the family but at least I won't be cooking!!

Have no pizza supplies left now so will have to get those next week and a few other things but have almost made it to a whole month so I am well pleased.I've managed what I set out to do and still have a surprising amount in my stores It's the fresh stuff I need to get stocked up on now.Thanks to all of you who have supported me in my little journey :T :T :T

rosieben

Thank you D&DD, for a really interesting and entertaining thread! :T

You've done brilliantly well with your shop-at-home challenge. And you're really something else, the way you cope with all that life throws at you; thanks for sharing your family with us, its been great! Look forward to reading more on the OS threads

D&DD

Aw shucks thanks Rosieben its been a lot of fun actually and has got me thinking of ways to be better prepared in the future just in case...I feel quite pleased that we are able to survive comfortably with what I normally have in stock.

A few little 'tweaks' are needed on my storage plans (definately need to look at alternative milk supplies for starters),want to try making soya milk too..

yoghurt production needs to be kept ongoing but works well once started

veggies aren't a problem,can harvest/store enough

fruit is not too bad but would prefer to have more bottled and dried next year.

Strawberries over winter would definately be an issue :rolleyes: ...

You can NEVER have enough marmite...

Meat would become an issue after a couple of months...

Sandwich fillers(eg ham,cheese) need to be frozen if possible to eliminate that outlay too...

All in all I'm happy with my 'enforced research':rotfl: glad its been of interest to some of you on here
Thanks again to everyone for all your kind words of encouragement:T

chardonnay_2

d&dd i've really enjoyed your thread- are you going to continue or was it only a trial emegency measure? i enjoyed seeing you make wonderful things out of your supplies and i think you could continue to wow us even if you weren't trying to do it without spending anything.

cheerfulness4

I too hope the thread continues. I've loved it and would miss it so much. I think it's not just the food, which is fantastic, but your whole approach to life D&DD. You ooze positivity and that is infectious. I always feel uplifted when I've read this thread and want to rush off and do something homely in the house.

D&DD

chardonnay wrote: »

d&dd i've really enjoyed your thread- are you going to continue or was it only a trial emegency measure? i enjoyed seeing you make wonderful things out of your supplies and i think you could continue to wow us even if you weren't trying to do it without spending anything.

Morning chardonnay I don't mind continuing at all in fact its probably a good idea at the moment as we are on 'the final push' towards becoming debtfree I just don't want to bore anybody with my mutterings :rotfl:

D&DD

cheerfulness4 wrote: »

I too hope the thread continues. I've loved it and would miss it so much. I think it's not just the food, which is fantastic, but your whole approach to life D&DD. You ooze positivity and that is infectious. I always feel uplifted when I've read this thread and want to rush off and do something homely in the house.

Hi cheerfulness
I think I will continue to ramble on for now if nobody minds as I managed to spend very little in Tescos compared to what I thought I'd need..I am in a state of shock :rotfl:
I had an anchor voucher for butter so that was free so I just bought 2 x chickens for £5.50 and 2 x packs of the chicken drums etc BOGOF so that was 3 pounds,didn't need any tomato sauce as I found 2 x organic ones buried in the depths of the cupboard..2 x cut loaves for £1.60,apples,bananas and satsumas and 2 x ham total spend was £16.20
Came home from my parents with 2 x tubs of strawberries for his nibs so he's ok for a day or two!!
I have been rummaging through the site all week for meal plans and recipes and have found some wonderful ideas as well as leafing through my library of cookbooks..I really have so much in it seems daft to do a big shop at the moment!
I'll be back on later (have some baking to do...) OH's ebay stuff finishes today so I might have a bit more time to come on here after that...
DS3 is a happy bunny today as its his real birthday today and he's happily playing his shiny new rollercoaster game with his brothers..no fighting just yet!!!
Off to make him a cup of tea and recce my recipes XX

Ches

I for one will love it if you continue 'rambling'. I have really enjoyed this thread as much as I did Thriftladys war time one. Keep up the good work.

D&DD

Ches wrote: »

I for one will love it if you continue 'rambling'. I have really enjoyed this thread as much as I did Thriftladys war time one. Keep up the good work.

Thanks Ches I could ramble on for England!!
Today has been a lovely day,all the boys were worn out after DS3's Friday,Saturday,Sunday birthday lol...It's rather fitting that his birthday is today as he only wears camouflage (even his boxers and socks...)apart from when in his school uniform and adores anything to do with the military.He watches all the memorial parades on tv too.

Breakfast today was fried egg sandwiches for grown ups (mum brought some home from a farm she went to)
Wheatabix for DS1,DS 2 has sausage sandwiches and DS3 had birthday cake and strawberries....oh and tea!!!
Lunch was a few sausage rolls and bits from Friday to finish them up
Dinner was Roast chicken with all the trimmings
Pudding was Banofee Pie brought home from Mums yesterday

Joined the Flylady thread today for the first time looking forward to being able to walk in a straight line for a change without tripping over,stepping in or falling over something..or someone :rotfl: