March 2008 Grocery Challenge

Girl_least_likely_to

Hi All,

I've been out for a bit of veg. I needed 2 courgettes, 2 red peppers and 450g mushrooms for a veg risotto. I came back with a marrow (the courgettes looked manky), 6 peppers (6 huge ones for £1) and 3 kilo's :eek: of mushrooms (£1.99).

Ok, so I can use 1/6th of the mushrooms in the risotto but what do I do with the rest? My hubby likes them but I'm not a huge fan and I find I can only really eat them if their in with other stuff, so mushroom soup is out :rolleyes: .

I'm gonna have a look through the indexed recipes on here but if anyone has any inspiration in the meantime...........

Hugs to those that need them today

mouche

Hullo! Went to Asda with OH on Saturday and he was really very good considering. He only made me buy him a £1.99 Indian snack extra and since I got Oreo cookies (well they were on 2 for 1 offer and I do love 'em!), I guess we're even! Other than that, stocked up on baking stuff (which I have finished thanks to a large batch of Turkish cookies and a chocolate cake) and replenished some frozen veg. It's incredible how much cauliflower we get through!

We also bought onions, sugar and garlic paste from the local shop & some handwash and shampoo from the pound shop. Totted up the totals and found we'd overspent on the 'cleaning products' fund by £3 But the grocery total is still ok - £77.84 - and I really think we should come in under £85. Though there are still 15 days to go.

OH and I had a cookfest this weekend and now have enough food cooked for our lunches and dinners for the week. This is really helping us save money because we're eating out much less thanks to knowing there's food ready cooked at home.

candygirl

Just been to get bread n brown rolls and spent £2.28:D . also found £8 in my car ashtray so woo hoo lol :j :j
Weezl you were very restrained with your OH, if he was mine he'd be wearing it:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Zend

Well, I budgeted for £150 this month and am already £17 over it:mad: . It seems like a usual weekly shop is costing up to £10 more than it did a few months ago:eek: . However, fish was on special offer so I bought enough to do 10 meals, that cost about £7, and some yoghurt to cook vegetarian meals so I suppose it's not too bad really.

weezl74

Hi,

Just wanted to give you guys a hot tip. I do a lot of baking and normally go for asda smartprice sultanas, @ 41p for 500g.

As Martin says, this is usually the cheapest brand level in the store. At the moment tho, asda's own brand sultanas are 22p for 500g, half the price of the 'value' equivalent! :money:

Also, weirdly, the 1 kg bags of own brand sultanas are 84p, usually by buying a bigger bag you save money, but by getting 2 500g bags of own brand sultanas, you get them about half the price of a kilo of SP ones or own brand bigger bag ones.:T

Sorry to be a pricing geek, but thought it might help someone out there!:o

Weezl x

Angelraesunshine

went to savers on saturday got some toilet wipes for the kids some toothpaste and some deodorant for DH spent £5.46

chicken_pie_2

Hi to everybody, I have now gone over my budget of £160 by £7.70 and still got 2 weeks to go. However, I have got all our meals planned until the end of the month, and did some batch cooking at the weekend- Vegetable soup (8 portions), lentil and bean chilli (6 portions) which will do for lunches, and a batch of twinks hob nobs which were delicious!! So the freezer is looking nice and full now. I think I will end up going over budget by about £15 this month but will wait until the 30th to see for definate. Not too bad I suppose, this is my second month following this challenge and hopefully next month I will succeed!!

patentgirl

thanks for the tip weezl any idea how long offer is on for as probably wont be anywhere near an Asda till next week

Skint_Catt

Spent £53 in Asda on Sunday due to taking OH with me :mad: it should only have been £19 or so. He bought two ties, six bottles of wine, cod liver oil & some expensive vitamin fizzy things :mad: God I hate shopping with him - I wish he'd just give me the money! That £53 would have lasted to the end of the month if I'd gone on my own!

izoomzoom

Eventhough I come onto MSE at least 5 times a day I haven't been able to read this thread :mad: , and it is costing me in my pocket :mad: :mad: .

Anyhow, I was thinking my budget was truely screwed but have managed quite a few NSDs so I find myself at the 17th of the month and I still have some 'budget' left. We managed to do DS1's birthday party in real OS fashion.

We had a sleepover - costs nothing, except mega tablets for the headache and I got the children to make their own pizza's - that went down very well, and then they made their own sundae's for dessert, so not too expensive their either. For brekkie the next day they had waffles, which were also HM :money: .

Haven't got much cash left (well any, if I somehow manage to pay a bill I've just had a reminder for ), so that is really going to be helpful and I am going to rope the children into baking next week, to keep them occupied, and hopefully we'll be able to come in budget.

DH bought some milk from M&S yesterday, so I am trying to log onto his bank to see how much, and will add accordingly.

Next month I am going to only do a 3 week month because I get paid on the 22nd, whilst DH get's paid on the 28th, (which happens to be when the GC ends) and I find that as soon as we have money again (ie in 5 days time) I blow the budget completely out of the water:mad: .

Well done to everyone who is doing well, and those, like me who are not happy with their efforts, its a learning curve, whatever way you look at it.