July 2020 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

lushlifesaver said:

As an aside, how do people that batch cook find it best to freeze? is it a case of lots of individual portions or does anyone have any family size boxes/solutions that they use?

I reuse take away boxes that my friend gives me. We find they do two portions for us. Then when frozen, I pop the contents in plastic bags so the plastic does not go brittle and split. I should add I often omit a description of the contents and so "freezer surprise" appears frequently on the menu. I also portion up packs of meat if we buy them so that the raw meat is in 2-person sized bags. They can fit into all the corners of the freezer better, if I am short of space. It means I know I am getting something for two people (and I get two out when there are more of us)

joedenise

Have family coming at the weekend so am doing pulled pork wraps for 6 so needed to buy a decent sized piece of pork shoulder and cost far more than I was hoping.  Have already spent £10.10 from next month's bulk fund plus £5.90 for egg from grocery fund.  Have moved money from another pot to balance the books which will go back next week we I get paid.

£5.90/244.10 left grocery fund
£89.90/£100 left of bulk fund
0/20 NSDs - have upped this from 15 NSDs in June

MazzieD

lushlifesaver said:

As an aside, how do people that batch cook find it best to freeze? is it a case of lots of individual portions or does anyone have any family size boxes/solutions that they use?

I have found that the gusseted freezer bags don't work for me either.  I just use them to bag up any raw meat or chicken as quite often the packaging they come in takes up a lot of room in the freezer.

Another alternative if you don't want to buy a large quantity of plastic or foil containers would be to try your local Pound shop or similar if you have one.  I have just done this and picked up 8 plastic containers for £1.00 large enough for one portion.  They also had larger ones 4 for £1.00 and foil containers as well. Think they also had the lock and click shut ones 2 for £1. Don't know what the quality is like or how long they last but worth a go and not much to lose financially if they are a disaster!. Will be doing some batch cooking next week so will see how it goes.

lantanna

£5.60 in the shop today, bread, cooked chicken and beer battered chips. That should hopefully be me now for the week.Budget for next week is £60 and I’ll do a big Tesco shop for weds so trying to hold off til then.

XSpender

First shop of the new month today.  We had run out of a lot of basic things like frozen veg, loo roll and milk! £73.97 spent at Lidl and £9.70 on a chippy tea   

Groceries - £83.67/£450
Bulk - £0.00/£40

mumtoomany

Can I be included for this month please. Not been on this  challenge for a while. 

£200 


This is for two adults every meal, three small children every meal and two adults around two thirds of the time, also one adult who buys her own food, then uses stuff anyway. 
 I need to be accountable so I can start to empty the freezers a bit! Back at the start of July, mumtoomany.

PipneyJane

Just as an FYI, the Kindle version of  Feed Your Family For £20 A Week is now on sale for 99p on Amazon.  

Hope this will help someone.  I don’t know how good it is as a recipe book.  I’ve just downloaded it and not even browsed it yet.  It’s got to be more MSE, though, than the so-called budget recipe book for “£1 meals” that got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago, which turned out to be a recipe book for £4 meals since the “£1” was £1 a portion.  That made me furiously angry - any fool can make a meal with £4.

- Pip

Bluegreen143

Re batch cooking, I use food bags. Love how much space they save.

I’m not starting til 1st July but can I be put down for £400 please? I’m tentatively planning on keeping it to under £40 for toiletries/household and the rest for food. I was going to make it £415 but I’ll be brave 🙂 this doesn’t include booze and there are two adults, two small children, four chickens and a cat here.

pamsdish

PipneyJane said:

Just as an FYI, the Kindle version of  Feed Your Family For £20 A Week is now on sale for 99p on Amazon
- Pip

Bought thanks Pip, looks, from preview, some easy quick recipes in.

joedenise

PipneyJane said:

Just as an FYI, the Kindle version of  Feed Your Family For £20 A Week is now on sale for 99p on Amazon.  

Hope this will help someone.  I don’t know how good it is as a recipe book.  I’ve just downloaded it and not even browsed it yet.  It’s got to be more MSE, though, than the so-called budget recipe book for “£1 meals” that got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago, which turned out to be a recipe book for £4 meals since the “£1” was £1 a portion.  That made me furiously angry - any fool can make a meal with £4.

- Pip

Me too!  I considered it a con really.  Ended up sending it to the CS as the recipe weren't that good anyway.