March 2018 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

£51 spent between the market & W8rose today, which is a little more than I'd hoped. But as I really shouldn't need anything much except fresh stuff for the rest of the month, I'm crossing my fingers that I'll still come in under target.

Mrs_Cheshire

purpleybat wrote: »

just a quicky....
i normally shop in lidl and once a month or so get a delivery from morries for stuff I can't get at lidl.
a friend of mine has offered me a lift to aldi that's a few towns away when she goes next week and I was wondering what any of you would recommend. I've looked on the website and they seem to do some nice sounding chutneys I think I might get and some toffees.
thankyou in advance

I love the caramelised red onion chutney.

I mainly shop at Ald! as it's local to me, there's not much from there I wouldn't recommend.
Cereals are great and really good value, all the crisps, the rosemary crackers are gorgeous. The dairy products and cooked meats are fab.
All the fruit and veg, especially the super 6! Think it changes on thursday next week!


Annoyingly Hubby decided that as he needed change to pay for the middle son's club he would buy a cartoon of apple juice from the corner shop £1.40, they are only 55p in Ald!.
I'm going to take the rest of the money to the bank on Monday and ask them to change it for me, so we have the right money in different money bags.

Merlin's_Beard

Up to £66.49/£100 for this month.

Big oops! I have to admit, while £4 is stamps - so if I'm running tight they might get moved to another budget - £8 of that was a sneaky McDonalds trip because I'd had a really bad day, and £10 of that is Easter eggs. For children? no - for me.

And the cat will need litter before the end of the month, so £10 of what's remaining is spoken for!

After an excellent February, consider me well off the wagon...!

(But looking at my Easter eggs, considering the week I've had... I regret nothing! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)

[Deleted User]

Did a couple of shops, coming to £8.85. Bought tomatoes, 4kg onions, 4kg potatoes, dairy free cheese, meat free burgers, crisps 6pk & 2 bottles of Aspalls Cider, which comes out of drinks budget. I tried my plum vodka that I made (only to test if it needed anything added, ahemm), OMG, it's actually one of the nicest drinks I have ever tried, seriously, but it really is for easter, so hopefully no more [STRIKE]dipping[/STRIKE] 'testing' needed!! I must have about 14 batch cooked meals in the freezer, so really will only need salad topping up. Have updated sig.

purpleybat wrote: »

A friend of mine has offered me a lift to aldi that's a few towns away when she goes next week and I was wondering what any of you would recommend

I tend to only go there when they have a good super 6 (whatever its called), as its not that near. Haven't been since xmas - I pick up wraps, breakfast muffins/rolls, some of their super food powders (green smoothie), cacao powder, nuts, seeds, chocolates, hummus (caramelized onion), onion bhaji, pakora, spicy bean burgers. Used to buy their pizzas when I ate dairy cheese, sirachi mayo, giant cous cous, tri colour quinoa, dairy free ice cream.

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Really impressed with myself. I went ysing yesterday, in THREE shops. There were no good ys things, so I bought NOTHING. In any of them! I really feel this year that I'm changing my mindset.

Well done. I think that is the hardest thing, saying I don't actually want/need any of this, but your mindset does change after a while, I think.

starting_again_in_the_sun

Feeling a little guilty having spent 28 euros yesterday with not much to show for it!

Quite a big proportion was on cola cao which was on offer and will last a good few months. The rest went on weekend treats ( wine and chocolate), fruit and veg, ham, cheese and 6 pack of milk.

Hoping for no shopping until Tuesday!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

MadamMim2013

Not the best of days yesterday..after an emotionally charged school meeting I took a trip to Mr A's mainly to pick up a few items for my mum..
£51.82 later I can see I'd emotionally shopped instead of using my head (& list) and have noted this morning the joint of beef I had picked up was wongly priced :mad:
Well, it's a learning curve.. Lesson learned!
Off to add to my total

Coxy11

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the delay - RL is horrendously busy right now!
Budgets list updated to here
Good luck everyone,
Coxy

pamsdish

Total of £23.37 between Morries and Lidl, I was totally out of eggs, butter and only had some odd bread in freezer, went in Morries for a joint of beef, couldn`t see any !!, so all my shopping was y.s. bits, 8 pasties, 2 packs sausage, a quiche and a large reduced pork shoulder joint.

private_helen

I've not had a great start to February. I delayed my batch cooking day as we had visitors, and then couldn't get myself in the mood to do it during the week. Hence the stressful days where I would normally pull out a decent meal from the freezer became more stressful trying to use the stuff in the fridge before it went out of date. We also ordered a take away pizza in the week when I really couldn't face cooking dinner

I'm already at £270 (from 26th Feb) out of my £400 budget- so it's likely I will go over again this month- and I've just noticed a 5p bag charge on the receipt hubby gave me when I asked him to get the cat food (the car boot is full of shopping bags!)- I know he'll say it's just 5p, but it all mounts up!!

I'm feeling more positive this week and have managed to get a few meals in the freezer, and more importantly, despite the difficult start, I've not wasted any food. I bought my mixed nuts for my savoury nut loaf from Homy Bargains this week, which saved quite a bit. Mr T had 50p off the Chinese curry sauce concentrate that I like to use, so I've just made eight individual chicken/ mushroom/ onion/ green pepper curries for the freezer. They are very much like the curries from our local chinese takeaway and save a fortune for those nights when I crave an easy takeaway meal. I managed to get two smoked haddock fillets on yellow sticker to go with some cheap white fish already in my freezer and have made a fish pie with eggs that looks like it will feed 10 of us tonight!

So hopefully I'll have an easier, cheaper week. To all the mothers on the board- have a very happy and relaxing mother's day.

Oh- almost forgot. I'm looking for some ideas- I'm having a small get together for my mother-in-law's 80th birthday later this month (12 adults, 3 children aged 2, 6, 11). I'm aiming to do mainly cold buffet food (on a budget). I do have a few ideas but would love to hear from anyone that has some ideas of what has worked well for them.

Mrs_Cheshire

private_helen wrote: »

Oh- almost forgot. I'm looking for some ideas- I'm having a small get together for my mother-in-law's 80th birthday later this month (12 adults, 3 children aged 2, 6, 11). I'm aiming to do mainly cold buffet food (on a budget). I do have a few ideas but would love to hear from anyone that has some ideas of what has worked well for them.

Is it a daytime thing? Could you do an afternoon tea? Sandwiches, few crisps, scone with jam and cream and a slice of cake!


I popped to Asd* to get some snacks for this afternoon and tomorrow, also picked up a loaf of bread and some chocolate waffles for later in the month for pudding. Spent £8.48. Just did the price comparison thing for Asd* and got 21p back.

Then popped to Ald! on the way home for some prawn crackers and spring rolls to go with our chicken and noddles for tea. Spent £1.78

Will need Milk and wraps on Monday