January 2018 Grocery Challenge

peony40

Morning all,

Sorry to have gone missing but like so many others I have been unwell for weeks. Sunday was the first day of feeling normal but I am having to remind myself to pace myself ... so hard when you feel better.

Money spent thus far on groceries has been £82.52, so doing well which is a nice surprise. I will need another shop between now and the end of the month but it is not for too much. Off to tidy up the food cupboards to see what needs using up.

trifle-wist

Argh my GC is in danger of sabotage by my OH! Reminder to self: never, ever let him come grocery shopping!

Did 3 trips to Waitrose over the weekend, one of which I can't even remember what was bought as receipt has disappeared. I've got the rest of this week's meals planned and one NSD so far this week but will need to be very inventive to come in within budget at the end of the month.

Total spends so far: £83.78 / £120, leaving me with £36.22 for the next 14 days :eek:

Meal plan is as follows:
Wednesday dinner - egg fried rice with stir fry veg
Thurs breakfast - oats with water & dark choc
Thurs lunch - leftover pasta bake
Thurs dinner - red lentil & coconut dahl with boiled eggs
Fri breakfast - as Thurs
Fri lunch - tuna on rye bread, veg
Fri dinner - leftover dahl
Sat breakfast - smoothie & porridge
Sat lunch - out for afternoon tea with MIL, free as it was won by OH :j
Sat dinner - light bits: rye bread, tuna, etc.
Sun breakfast - porridge
Sun lunch - seeing friends. I will need to bring / bake something but this comes out of my personal budget
Sun dinner - lasagne. This is the only meat dish I eat. I just cannot give it up! It takes hours to prepare as I do everything from scratch - white sauce, meat ragu, and sometimes even the pasta, but is always worth it.

Groceries still to get for this week:
-red lentils
-whole milk
-organic beef
-frozen fruit
-organic yoghurt

lynnejk

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Hi all,

I am off work again, this time with laryngitis! That's the second time this year I've been ill, and we're only halfway through the first month!!...........
PG x

Hope you're soon feeling better and sending some gws vibes and a couple of hugs.

Was going out for a birthday meal today but decided to postpone due to the atrocious weather :eek: So going to have freezer food instead. Hm spicy bean soup for lunch and sm salmon pasta followed by black forest gateaux for dinner - very yum

Hope you all staying warm and safe
Lx

Ginmonster

I'm very shortly not going to be working in the city centre any more (not working at all for a while as I've been made redundant) so I popped to the Chinese supermarket at lunchtime as it's nice and close to the office. I didn't go too mad - just some chilli tofu and some veggie stir-fry sauce (a bit like a veggie version of oyster sauce) and spent £3.45.

My mum's been staying with me for a few days and she's been very impressed with my non-wasteful ways and keeps exclaiming how good I am for using up all my leftovers for lunches and making soups and stews and dhal with sad-looking veg. It reminded me that our way of thinking here isn't the norm. I think I realised it when she mentioned as a handy tip that she always puts an old slice of bread in the bottom of the food waste caddy to help stop drips and I had to point out I don't throw out bread as I freeze any extra in slices or breadcrumbs. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means perfect and I'm not criticising my mum but I think as a society we've forgotten to worry about wasting food. It's just normal now.

£68.18/£100

Islandmaid

Grocery delivery today £67.43 - have rounded upto £70and added to signature

MrsPear

Big shop in Sainsbury’s this week - £80.73! And that was after coupons - £13.32 worth.
Meal plan for the week includes 5 veg pasta, sausages, straganoff, spaghetti bolognese, roast chicken, chicken and bacon pie, fish.

XSpender

£13.00 to add for hair dye, DH hair product, tissues and some GF cheese oatcakes reduced to 85p

Total now £189.85/£240

YorksLass

YorksLass wrote: »

Next week's soup is going to be celery and bacon (using bacon bits from freezer). Not done this one before so I might just do a smaller batch than I'd normally do to make sure we like it.

Soup done and it's much nicer than I expected it to be. I used just half the head of celery and have chopped/frozen the rest, including the leaves, and will add it to stews, casseroles etc over the coming weeks.

A 1kg tray of chicken thighs and drumsticks bought for £2.50 yielded quite a lot of meat yesterday and I used some for last night's dinner in a korma with rice. I think I'll split the rest between a chicken & mushroom pie for Sunday dinner and put the rest in the freezer.

A small spend today of £3.10 for milk and potatoes. It's really cold here with a raw wind making it feel even colder and yesterday's snow is still lingering, with yet more forecast tonight. Weather dependent, DH may or may not go to market on Friday but, even if he doesn't, we're well stocked up. Almost to the point of siege proportions - again! :o

Just over half the month's budget left with 11 days to go. A fair bit of that will pay for an online delivery from Mr S next week. I'm running short of quite a lot of non-food household stuff like loo rolls, tissues, soap powder etc so will stock up on those and at the same time use a £10 MOC to bring down the cost.

MadamMim2013

Been looking through this weeks receipts and found £3.35 that I'd not accounted for on the budget.. Will add on in a bit!
My boys have noticed that I am planning ahead more and pushing to make more out of every meal..
Have realised that I need to make tea at a slightly later time than 5pm, otherwise by 9pm they are both once again "staaaaarvin" :eek: have made sure I have crackers in, so cheese n biscuits or toast is now a regular supper..;)

PennyGrabber

MadamMim2013, my two are rarely hungry after dinner, but my friend's two are always starving, so they have cereal before bed. Might be cheaper than cheese?

Nsd today as oh bought the pizzas for the children while bringing them home for me. Bit of a cheat, but I'll take it!!

Nsds planned for the foreseeable as have no energy to leave the house.

PG x