December 2007 Grocery Challenge

tattycath

Hi everyone, just been to do post-was helplessly-or should that be hopelessly - drawn into asda!!! :mad: bought:
1 chicken - half price
2 x minced beef - half price
cooked chicken drumsticks - half price
strawberry yoghurt - half price
smart price fishcakes
2 danish pastries - full price, but in my defence I only had one and it was delicious!!!!!
3 cartons longlife milk
chicken pie - half price

Confession over... Spent £10.16
better update sig

nopot2pin

tattycath wrote: »

Hi everyone, just been to do post-was helplessly-or should that be hopelessly - drawn into asda!!! :mad: bought:
1 chicken - half price
2 x minced beef - half price
cooked chicken drumsticks - half price
strawberry yoghurt - half price
smart price fishcakes
2 danish pastries - full price, but in my defence I only had one and it was delicious!!!!!
3 cartons longlife milk
chicken pie - half price

Confession over... Spent £10.16
better update sig

I think you got a bit of a bargain with that lot tattycath... quite alot of produce for the amount of money. Well Done !!:T

And as your signature shows.... We are almost half way into the month, and you have more than half your money left.
Glad you enjoyed your danish... you appear to being doing better than you think and deserve it !!:D

TheBees

Hi All,

Been a bit slack with the updates but will get a grip shortly! Still surviving on our last big Mr T shop but supplies are getting low! Had to replenish Milk, marge, eggs etc but holding out for the Chrimbo shop for a couple more days! Hope all of you are doing well with your challenges!

Regards,

The Bees

tattycath

Hi everyone. Thanks Nopot2pin. I guess when I look at what I got with the money I spent, it wasn't so bad. I used the cooked chicken drumsticks tonight. I took all the meat off them and added them to a jar of thai curry sauce (out of cupboard) and a red pepper and some mushrooms (out of fridge). Decided my youngest might find it a bit hot (coz I added a bit of madras curry paste!!! oops) so I counteracted this by adding a small pot of smooth pinepple yoghurt. (and got away with it!!!) I served it up with rice.
I have cooked the other chicken tonight, so it's chicken for evening meal again tomorrow (good job we all like chicken.) I've just strained the stock off and when it's cool it will be poured into icecube bags and frozen. I froze the minced beef (both packs) as the sell by was today and the use by not til saturday, It looks nice and pink so it's gone in the freezer. The chicken pie made it into the freezer too.
So not too bad a day really.
All I need to buy towards christmas food is fresh veg, prawns, lettuce probably some more milk by then and some soft drinks. We have loads of booze in and rarely drink at home. I will need a bottle of something to drink with christmas lunch. When I was little my mum and dad used to get the sherry out on christmas day and we all had a very tiny glass of it with our lunch. We will not be having sherry-lol -it will probably be cava or similar-unless anyone has any suggestions on what to have with a turkey roast??
We will need a dessert of some kind as I am the only one who likes christmas pudding!!! (and christmas cake).
Sorry everyone, I've fair rambled on tonight haven't I. better go now.
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

mikeD

tattycath wrote: »

Hi everyone. Thanks Nopot2pin. I guess when I look at what I got with the money I spent, it wasn't so bad. I used the cooked chicken drumsticks tonight. I took all the meat off them and added them to a jar of thai curry sauce (out of cupboard) and a red pepper and some mushrooms (out of fridge). Decided my youngest might find it a bit hot (coz I added a bit of madras curry paste!!! oops) so I counteracted this by adding a small pot of smooth pinepple yoghurt. (and got away with it!!!) I served it up with rice.
I have cooked the other chicken tonight, so it's chicken for evening meal again tomorrow (good job we all like chicken.) I've just strained the stock off and when it's cool it will be poured into icecube bags and frozen. I froze the minced beef (both packs) as the sell by was today and the use by not til saturday, It looks nice and pink so it's gone in the freezer. The chicken pie made it into the freezer too.
So not too bad a day really.
All I need to buy towards christmas food is fresh veg, prawns, lettuce probably some more milk by then and some soft drinks. We have loads of booze in and rarely drink at home. I will need a bottle of something to drink with christmas lunch. When I was little my mum and dad used to get the sherry out on christmas day and we all had a very tiny glass of it with our lunch. We will not be having sherry-lol -it will probably be cava or similar-unless anyone has any suggestions on what to have with a turkey roast??
We will need a dessert of some kind as I am the only one who likes christmas pudding!!! (and christmas cake).
Sorry everyone, I've fair rambled on tonight haven't I. better go now.
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

"Respect" tattycath, "Respect". That's some achievement, and all at a bargain price. I'm mightily impressed!!. Where do you find the time to do all that cooking? :A

tattycath

Thank s Mike. I don't know how I find the time to cook, I guess i don't tend to notice as it's everyday kind of stuff. I can often be found throwing stuff together to take the boredom out of mealtimes. (I was in catering briefly-many moons ago) I need to find time to do some baking really. My OH cooks some of the time too so it helps enormously.

Savvy_sewing

Mr T Delivered for me last night. But the potatoes were missing.
Cheaper than I thought. Was over £60 at checkout so used Voucher, for £9 money off, (after trying loads of codes!!!). With the bogof's and promotions that saved me £6.37. But the delivery was £4.50 because I had trouble checking out when I did my order, and lost the cheaper slot. Still feel that I have achieved something as I saved £10.87!! Now do I put that money in a pot somewhere, so I see the savings (Or will the kids dip in to it?). I havent got a set Challenge cost, once posted suggesting £360 for us all, but no advice came back.
Last weeks Tesco was about £77.00 will have to dig out the bill. Preordered for delivery next week, order currently at £70.91 but will probably have to add to it. We should be able to get milk and veg on the girls Healthy start vouchers as both girls are breast feeding.
Will post menu plans in a bit. If anyone interested.

rosieben

Mooloo wrote: »

... I havent got a set Challenge cost, once posted suggesting £360 for us all, but no advice came back. ...

sorry you didnt get feedback mooloo. Its difficult to suggest a target for someone else as we are all so different in our eating habits and likes/dislikes. Best thing you can do - as you may be doing anyway - is to keep a check on what you're spending and then look through receipts to see if you could cut back anywhere. I did this when I started and its a bit of an eye opener to see where the money goes.

I've reduced my monthly spending by way more than half since joining the GC challenge and also eat a lot healthier! I've cut down on waste too after reading advice on OS threads.

I plan for left overs when I do my meal planning i.e. if I'm cooking mashed potatoes, I do extra and make a shepherds pie the next day. Or else I will double up a recipe and freeze half for another time. loads of good money saving advice to be had here.

HTH

forgot to say that there are regular meal plan threads - some really good ideas - here's the link for this week's thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=623719&highlight=meal+plan

belfastgirl23

Hi mooloo sorry too that you didn't get feedback, you must have posted at the start of a busy thread day and it just got a bit lost TBH I figure the first month is pretty much shooting in the dark, it's about seeing where your money goes and where you might be able to cut back. So in some ways it's just about setting a target and seeing if you make it. I went back and looked and where you are is so far from my own experience I can't really help - esp on the babies/nappy front I think different people manage things in different ways (eg for me eating out comes out of a different budget from grocery whereas for a lot of people it all comes out of the same food pot, similarly I don't include wine but other people do).

All I can say is keep all your receipts and try to do a tally at the end of the month and see where your money goes and if you can cut back. My cheese habit is costing us a lot so I'm hoping to pull back on it in the new year (also for the sake of my waistline and cholesterol levels!).

Good luck and hope it's going well.

meanmarie

Morning all,

I 'found' an Eastern European shop yesterday and bought some sausage, sweet paprika and fish which cost me €7.50...huge selection of different sausages there, will go back some day when I actually need food! Since so many eastern europeans have come to work in Ireland there is a great variety of Eastern European food available which I think is great and which I enjoy trying.

Going to open a new bank account that pays a reasonable amount of interest for OH in a minute, currently he gets something like .9% so anything will be better than that!

Mooloo, keeping your receipts is good advice...I thought that I spent around €100 per week until I did that...now down to €330 per month and hoping to move further down in new year, although see to-day on paper that basic foodstuffs here have increased in price by 15% in last few months!

Good luck to all

Marie