January 2018 Grocery Challenge

Wysiwyg49

Pleased to report the bread buns turned out ok although slightly bizarrely shaped! I left the dough to rise for absolutely hours and cooked them first thing this morning...

Revised meal plan to do chicken curry tonight and burgers tomorrow, it is so grey and dismal we could do with some curry! I've got korma sauce in the fridge but may need to add some HM sauce to top it up. Plus the leftover chickpea stew as a side dish - it had paprika in so has a bit of a kick.

YorksLass

pipkin71 wrote: »

The soup sounds lovely, YorksLass

It was very tasty indeed and tbh I only did it because I have loads of carrots in and not much other veg to make a soup! Strange, I'm not keen on them as a separate veg but do like them in casseroles, stews, stir frys etc so I'm happy to have found another way of bringing down the mountain. More to be used tomorrow in a carrot cake. :)

Small spend of £2.68 today at local C!op for milk and potatoes, no YS items of interest. I'll be going to Sainsbobs on Friday for mainly fruit & veg but will make up next week's meal plan first so I can see what purchases will fit in with the plan. Will check out YS of course but [STRIKE]may[/STRIKE] will have to be quite disciplined 'cos there's not much storage room for too many extras.

I have other things on the shopping list but there's no hurry for them and I'm deliberately saving them for an online delivery at the end of the month that will mean:
I can use a £10 MOC
It will give me a good start to February
Keeps me out of the shops

Josh1994

First proper shop of the year.
£2.86 in T£sco (including some great YS bargains , 3 packs of finest mince, chicken kiev, finest chipolatas and a massive pizza will have for dinner tonight).
Then £12.39 in Ald! to stock up on all the fruit & veg.

That brings me to £24.60/£80 for the month.

7/10 No Spend Days

XSpender

70p in sains on value sandwich bags and £2.65 in the c0-op for potatoes, bananas and ys organic lemons.

My total for this week is £74.31 when I was aiming for £65

Total for the month is £98.96/£240

cw18

I soooooo need to get back on board with this......

My food mountain hasn't shrunk in the last I daredn't admit how many years, and now my car's about to die but I don't have any money to replace it (or even repair it if that's a viable option). I don't mind being without one for most things, but if my Dad (or Mum or daughter or any of my grand-daughters) is taken ill it'd be nigh on impossible for me to get there overnight or on a Sunday or Bank Holiday- and would take several hours during the day. Getting to younger son would be even worse

I've also been advised that my boiler is past the age where spares are readily available, and that if it breaks down it's more likely to mean a replacement than a repair - another thing I can't afford :eek:

So.......

Given a number of factors (how many calories I need to eat a day due to a physical job and additional exercise, lactose intolerance meaning I should try to avoid dairy, and wanting to eat more chicken / fish and less red meat to reduce cholesterol without meds) I very much doubt I could cope on less than £4/day to eat a healthy balanced diet. I also feed my OH 5 days every 3 weeks, have a couple of long weekends away planned with him (one in London when I run the Marathon!), a week away with him, and a week away with him, his niece and 2 of my GDs. That got me to looking at setting an annual budget of £1740 (or monthly of £145).

I then had a think about how to force myself to start tackling my food mountain, and the obvious thing is to reduce my budget for spends on new items. I wanted to drop to £80/month (with a view to increasing as my mountain drops to manageable proportions), but I did a stock up of some items last month (whilst I had the chance of getting them super cheap, and they're still well in date) with the intention of charging them to January as I wouldn't start any of them until this month/year. Only problem is that shop alone comes in at £43.72

So I guess my January budget is £130, and I'll reduce to £80 in Feb & March. Thinking I might have to put it up a touch in April to cover the London trip :think:

Mrs_Cheshire

No spend day for me today, need to do my meal plan as I do my main shop on a thursday.
Got loads of chicken in, breasts and drumsticks, some meatballs and a pack of mince as well as bacon. Feel like I need to break it up a little, has anyone got any good recipes for pork? I do usually make pulled pork or do loin steaks with apple sauce but could do with some other ideas.

Mrs_Cheshire

cw18 wrote: »

I soooooo need to get back on board with this......

My food mountain hasn't shrunk in the last I daredn't admit how many years, and now my car's about to die but I don't have any money to replace it (or even repair it if that's a viable option). I don't mind being without one for most things, but if my Dad (or Mum or daughter or any of my grand-daughters) is taken ill it'd be nigh on impossible for me to get there overnight or on a Sunday or Bank Holiday- and would take several hours during the day. Getting to younger son would be even worse

I've also been advised that my boiler is past the age where spares are readily available, and that if it breaks down it's more likely to mean a replacement than a repair - another thing I can't afford :eek:

So.......

Given a number of factors (how many calories I need to eat a day due to a physical job and additional exercise, lactose intolerance meaning I should try to avoid dairy, and wanting to eat more chicken / fish and less red meat to reduce cholesterol without meds) I very much doubt I could cope on less than £4/day to eat a healthy balanced diet. I also feed my OH 5 days every 3 weeks, have a couple of long weekends away planned with him (one in London when I run the Marathon!), a week away with him, and a week away with him, his niece and 3 of my GDs. That got me to looking at setting an annual budget of £1740 (or monthly of £145).

I then had a think about how to force myself to start tackling my food mountain, and the obvious thing is to reduce my budget for spends on new items. I wanted to drop to £80/month (with a view to increasing as my mountain drops to manageable proportions), but I did a stock up of some items last month (whilst I had the chance of getting them super cheap, and they're still well in date) with the intention of charging them to January as I wouldn't start any of them until this month/year. Only problem is that shop alone comes in at £43.72

So I guess my January budget is £130, and I'll reduce to £80 in Feb & March. Thinking I might have to put it up a touch in April to cover the London trip :think:

Hi Cheryl, good to see you on the forums again

Maisie_M

HI all

Not posted for a while as I have had the flu so havent been up and about. As a result I have done very little shopping (quick shop for fresh items done on Sunday by OH for kids going back to school) and a small shop yesterday as it was the first day I felt like eating a dinner and I fancied curry but had no energy to make one from scratch so nipped out to get a jar of curry sauce, naan bread and donuts (ok not essential but made us all feel better ).

Budget currently stands at £104.31 spent and £145.69 left for the rest of the month. Normally my month would run to the 27th which would give me two more shopping weeks but as my budget is doing so well I may stretch it to three and take me to the start of Feb.

I still have loads in the freezers and cupboards as neither OH or I have been eating much with being ill so it's just been the boys stuff which I had loads in stock off incase we got snowed in last month.

pipkin71

Spent £64.90 on a Tesco shop today, so along with the £9.95 for the tea subscription that's a total of £142.70 leaving £157.30/£300 for the rest of the month

2018saver

£18.30 spent in T/co today stocking up on a few things we needed that were on offer
136.62/300