January 2008 Grocery Challenge

Frugaldom

Just popping back to thank everyone for the info about freezing potatoes. Still not sure how to get to the making homemade oven chips yet, but the mashed potato scoops and the baked potatoes sound great ideas! Now I might just risk buying the sack of potatoes. I 've moved to a different area since the days of sharing trays of farm eggs and sacks of potatoes, so freezing is the next best option Potato scones, they freeze too. Still thinking

Mollymop5

When I worked as a live in nanny my boss used to chip her potatoes,stick them in boining water for 5 mins( is this called blanching?) then drain ans toss in veg oil before bagging and freezing them.She'd then oven bake them.I can't remember if we defrosted first or cooked from frozen though.maybe I need to email her, but as we haven't been in touch for a few months it's a bit of a strange question to start with lol

belfastgirl23

For the people who are struggling

Y'know I think the first GC (and in my case the first three or four ) are all about learning and spotting the weak links in your shopping. It's also really easy to be a bit overambitious, high on the new year resolutions. It is worth thinking back to what you spent last month, or even if you have bank statements for last january having a look at what you spent then just to remind yourself that while you might not have made your goal, you're a heck of a lot closer to it than you would have been. It doesn't help you to brand yourself a failure in any case. I know for me that is a trigger for frenzied spending at any rate.

If you are finding things tight I suggest you reset your budget. Do like you would do in a business. Add 10% or 20% or however much you realistically will spend as a contingency budget. And keep trying.

It is only in failure that we learn how to succeed! Chins up!

BTW please dont think I'm being smug - those around from last year will know that my ambitions are always bigger than my actual achievements and I have gone over on the challenge virtually every month, despite having a relatively large budget of around £180 for two of us!! So I know what I'm talking about on the failure front But I still spent a lot less last year than I had in previous years ....

meanmarie

Spent €16 in the local shop today...ham, cabbage and bacon for breakfast...I would have been quite happy to have cereal, but OH has this thing about a cooked breakfast on Sunday...he could have made pancakes and spent nothing instead of the almost €6 on rashers!

That means that I have spent €252.02 this month, leaving me with €67.98 or € 6.18 per day until the end of the month...had visions of having more than this as surplus but will need at least some milk and fruit between now and then.

Marie

mrs-moneypenny

morning all
i overspent by £16 already this week so no more shopping till friday.
my fault totally, rushing round saturday morning and was running late as we only have 1 hour to do the market and town, hubby needed razor blades at £7 the pack:eek: i forgot he 'did' the fruit stall so sunday thought i had spare money and did an extra shop at aldi and brought some extras to stock the cupboards, then last night he asked me for the £16 back. the books balanced till then, but cupboards are well stocked so wont need another shop i dont think and i have extra for next week so might pull some back.

Sassamac

Ive got quite a lot of this thread to catch up on. I forget to come on here if I havent got a spend to report and Ive had a NSWE which is very impressive for me.
Mum did buy me a few things from Tesco on Sat when she came to visit (at her insistence not my request), and as I havent got the receipt, nor do I know how much she bought, I cant include it in my budget. I feel a bit cheeky writing it off as a freebie but Im not quite sure how to account for it - any suggestions?

Theres one or two things we have run out of but nothing urgent so today will be a NSD too unless I happen to be passing through Somerfield and get drawn towards the yellow stickers. The freezer is now rammed so I cant fit any more in anyway.

MRSMCAWBER

Morning everyone

Well the awfull weather is making sure i have my 3rd NSD in a row -I walk for the shopping every few days or so and i'm NOT going out in THAT . Still it will make sticking to my budget easier :j

I don't think it is going to let up all week... but we have enough to last us.. have been sat thinking off of the top of my head about what we have in.... so this weeks 7 main meals are -in no particular order:-

1. fish with HM parsley sauce, potatoes and veggies
2. prawn salad with potatoes
3. pasta bake -using up salami, passata etc in fridge
4. Hm pizza -have 250g blocks of mozzarella with basil in freezer (50c whoopsies);)
5. home boiled gammon with salad and steamed potatoes (stock will make more sauce)
6. liver casserole(freezer) with potatoes and veggies
7. HM quiche (using up the bits that come off the gammon when being sliced up )and salad

lunches for hubby are HM soup and HM bread -have 3 weeks worth of soup in freezer
my lunches will be cream cheese and crispbreads or "leftovers" from the night before
snacks for me will be yoghurts -in freezer , apples or SF jelly
and toast, cheese n biscuits etc for hubby
I have loads of cereals to get through for brekkie and hubby doesn't eat brekkie :rolleyes:

So -looking at that...i should have no reason to shop befor Februarys grocery challenge starts :j

I now have hubby on the band wagon ... keep hearing a voice calling "don't forget to water the milk down!!!!" when i go to make a cuppa:rotfl: im sure it was me who told HIM that :rotfl: .
He did some work for someone in his lunch break the other day-being the army, the currency is beer... so he told the bloke which supermarket to go to to save money -and he did :rotfl: so instead of getting 8 cans of UK beer -hubby got 20 x 0.5lt bottles of his fave german beer -plus he will get €4 back when he returns the bottles (the guy didn't want to take them back himself ) -which will pay for the next lot of beer :j . Its only small things -but it means it is sinking in :T .
Hope everyone else comes in on budget -or close... This thread is an absolute godsend..so thankyou to everyone who is on here

taffy1969

After reading more of the posts I think for Feb I will make my budget £350 - for food stuff only. I will include school lunches ( 2 a week due to clubs) and anything like that. I think for now I need to leave out birthdays, etc. I did get a bit disheartened but you've all made me think about how much I was spending without thinking about it. I have over the last 3 or 4 months started to buy all meat from butchers/farm shops so this is obviously more expensive than Mr T, but much tastier.
Anyway, going to be very careful til the end of Jan and then start Feb very positively.
Thanks everyone.

Keiss_21

Thanks for all you support and helpful hints folks.

This is my first GC month, and I could well be going over, though I am going to try an keep the overspend as low as possible. Still, as some of you say, I am still spending way less than I used to!

I have planned the meals for the next week from the cupboards and freezer, so only basics (milk/yogs/eggs/bread flour) and some fresh veg for this week..with luck!

Hoping to have an NSD today, though realized we are low on fresh toms and we are having fajitas tonight...now do I go and buy them, or shall we have Saturday's sweet'n'sour chicken tonight instead??...I have everything for that! Then I can wait until Wednesday and got to the market for veg...sounds like a good plan!

There you go, job done! Chicken is defrosted leftovers from a LARGE fowl I cooked in the sc the weekend before last, and there is enough in the freezer for the fajitas on Saturday.

Off to get some college work done...and get the washing in as it has started raining!!

Have a good week

M

cheerfulness4

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

He did some work for someone in his lunch break the other day-being the army, the currency is beer... so he told the bloke which supermarket to go to to save money -and he did :rotfl: so instead of getting 8 cans of UK beer -hubby got 20 x 0.5lt bottles of his fave german beer -plus he will get €4 back when he returns the bottles (the guy didn't want to take them back himself ) -which will pay for the next lot of beer :j .

Genius, I so love that! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Well I'm staying put this week as the floodgates have opened and I'm convinced I can keep going without restocking till the milk runs out at the weekend.

I'm a tad worried about the loo rolls so I'll be positioning myself outside the loo and listening out for anyone reeling it off and wrapping it round their hand a dozen times before 'doing the deed'. :rolleyes:

I'm determined to scratch round in the cupboards rather than 'buy out' so I'm reaching right to the back and found a packet of chickpeas. I must be able to do something filling with those for a meal. Rissoles, curry...?

Also found a packet of 'chicken rice' so thats going to get used.

Quite fancy the idea of starting off Feb with clear cupboards free of all those items that I once thought were a good idea.

Keep up the good work and the encouragement everyone.