March 2008 Grocery Challenge

BigMummaF

Hey Gang....got away with a NSD yesterday cuz one of the offspring paid for dinner & their dad brought in the b'day cake for the celebratory pud:p How remiss of me to forget to offer to reimberse the costs;)

We gave up on parties a long time ago--I couldn't afford it once their dad had left the home & having 3 kiddies was a party in itself--so the Birthday Bod gets to choose what we have for dinner & invite one guest. Have to say it's worked really well, with the eldest choosing roast lamb more often than not; the middle a HM chicken curry & yesterday the youngest [now 23:eek: ] those cardboard MW kebabs:o On 'specials' I've had a cake made at a superb local bakery & they all had a blow-out buffet disco thingy for their 21sts that I catered for myself.

Anyhoo.....for all you spicy folk out there, could you give a poor mum struggling to introduce a bit of excitement into the menu, a few pointers for which herbs/spices I could use to achieve a decent 'southern-fried' coating? My lot are very traditional in their food preferences, but I'm getting bored:p The theory is if I can tell them exactly what's in it, they'll at least give it house room, so any & all variations most eagerly accepted:D

Rowan9

Hello......have lost count this month for some reason (most probably because I forgot to add the amounts) but I know I will be under.
So..... sorry about that but is it possible to put me down for £200 for April and I will make a better job of keeping receipts?
Well done all of you - I'm going to get a cup of tea and read back through the thread for inspiration. I had been doing so well recording spending for the past couple of months so I'm not sure what happened this month - don't want it to happen again tho!
w

BigMummaF

Forgot to say that Sainsbury do Dried Soya Mince in 200g bags for about 40p I think. It's near the other dried pulses, but I don't think every branch will have it.

I get it for our iggy:D & Pup has some too. If I think of it some gets thrown in with the human food too, but I try to keep it in for Igg mostly. HTH.

poohbear59

betterlatethannever wrote: »

My idea of a veggie means doubling up on veg and eating loads of quorn, which isn't that cheap, but if mince does go up by 40p then the quorn mince will be cheaper.

I add some non GM TVP mince to all of our meals made with mince as it is really cheap. I buy it dried from our local wholefood shop. We are not veggie but I make a lot of veggie meals. Sometimes my lads can't tell the difference!


I have managed to come in at just over £220 this month and have had DS1 home twice so I feel as though I have done quite well. That amount is for 5 adults. The problem is that I now have an empty freezer so will have to start stocking up. I am getting a whole local lamb tomorrow so that comes out of Aprils money.

Kaz2904

I have a packet of soya mince in the cupboard. DH decided last year that he didn't want to eat so much meat so bought Quorn and things like that. We also bought 2 bags of this mince. We used 1 but it is truly dreadful stuff!
I will be adding it to our mince for my mega mince meals!
I've masses of parsnips too so need to factor them into recipes.
I've got the mince out of the freezer so I need to get the wizardry done before DH comes home from work so that he can't see what I'm doing and how many meals I'm trying to squeeze from a packet of mince!

I remember once we were really skint and I'd made up a huge spagbol to freeze some. DH ate all of it and I went balistic. SiL was taking the pi55 out of me when I told her about it and said that that was a normal amount of mince for her to use for a meal (2lbs). She thought it was really funny until I pointed out that because he was such a pig the rest of us were going to have to go without tea one night as we didn't actually have any money to buy any more food. DH was getting fatter and fatter at everyone elses expense.
It wasn't long after this that he decided he wanted to go veggie as his stomach was hurting from too much meat (I'm not B£&*$y surprised dear!).

I've learnt not to talk about food with other people as they just mock what I cook or how little I try to spend.

pinkcloudnine

Hi all,
Have finally decided its time to join the GC, the only way I can reduce my spending is to anounce it to the world!!!!
So here goes,,,, for April £300 to feed Me, DH, DD1, DD2, DS [part time at GF/UNI] & very hungry dog.
Has to include extra breakfasts for DD's 3x week for before/after training, also snacks for before eve training, 3x week.
Packed lunchs for all, except me. I work very late eve's.
Does this sound resonable?????
Can anyone point me in the direction of the post no for HM tortilla & naan? can't find them anywhere!!
Am going to pressgang DS to come shopping with me EVERY week as he has priviledge card at Mr T[ partime student job] Only 10% discount, but as Mr T says, every little helps!!!!
Also fan of MOC, never go shopping without them.

So, here we go, wish me luck!!!!!!

MRSMCAWBER

Morning all

Kaz2904...
At least on here you don't get critisism for trying to make food go further... its seen as a good thing :T
Im lucky.. my mum thinks its wonderfull that im trying to feed me n hubby well -but on less... When he 1st started at this new unit he is in now and was taking flasks of home made stews and soups and chunks of HM bread he got some stranged looks... not that my hubby cares .... they soon learnt that whilst hubby was tucking into that throughout the day..keeping warm and feeling great -they were freezing their bits off and having to go to the cook house of naffi for food..... not only expensive but not always the healthiest. He was the only one that skipped through winter without coming down with coughs, colds and bugs :j
Quite often now, when hubby is eating his lunch someone will come into his work area to see what the "lovely smell" is :rotfl: and quite often they want to try what he has ...

We might all be trying to spend less on here but i bet most of our families are eating a lot better.... expensive doesn't always mean healthy or better does it ... i now know pretty much how much salt, fat etc we are both eating and we feel much better for it
So keep up the good work and think "nelly" to folks who think what you are doing is odd


I popped out for a walk this morning.... went in search of some new digital kitchen scale -mine died last week and i feel like i have a limb missing... but i was resenting having to pay €50-80 for a new set :eek: ..popped into the supermarket and there were some on "whoopsie" :T down from €49.99 to €15... and they have a database of 400 products and if you tap the number in it tells you, kcal, kj, cholesterol, fat, protein, carbs, and something else i need to check with EGON -my German doesn't get that good
So whilst hubby is on duty until the morning im going to make 2 lots of tortilla dough to freeze, 2 lots of breadsticks -for hubbies munchies -he loves them and they stay crisp n fresh for over a week .... im not only doing this to play with my new scales

right i had better get off and get started..hope everyone is looking forward to Aprils challenge :T

weezl74

Kaz2904 wrote: »

I've learnt not to talk about food with other people as they just mock what I cook or how little I try to spend.

Hi,

Just wanted to post that I really agree with you, and that's why this thread and the OS board is so important to me.:A

I think that when I say what I'm doing, people compare themselves to it, as if I think it's what they should do, which it's not.

They either say, but you've both got good jobs! Or do you eat fresh fruit and veg? Or are you vegetarian? Or (this is the best one) send me vitamin pills in the post (my dear mummy!).:rolleyes:

I often land up saying, 'I don't think everyone should live this way' or 'you've got kids it's different!' (sorry to all my GC pals who are doing really good budgeting with kids).:beer:

The reality is, my real answer is different. I refuse to use food as an anaesthetic for life being hard or dull or whatever.

I think it can be fun, celebratory, or just plain comforting when I'm sad, but I don't want to spend 20 years manicled to a huge mortgage, whilst enjoying cooked chicken to go, bag of salad, and Ben and Jerry's for pudding. (which used to be a mid-week dinner for the 2 of us for £7.50, now I do a whole week on that cash!):T

Sometimes batch cooking, freezing, thinking numbers all the time etc is hard work, but the endless rat race, while filling my face with the same treats as all the other rats is pretty burdonsome too.;)

And I know what I'm choosing!

Ahem, gets off soap box, looks round sheepishly, walks away humming...:o

Love you all, and glad I've got this place to come to,

Weezl x

P.S MrsM, just read your response, you must've read my mind!

Frugaldom

Well said Weezl! :T

I just looked at a jobs site and one family is offering £22,000 plus accommodation just for someone to prepare their meals! I wonder what would happen if said chef was able to do so on basics amounting to £100

jackie_w

Kaz2904 wrote: »

I've learnt not to talk about food with other people as they just mock what I cook or how little I try to spend.

Hi Kaz,

That also happens with me, but, I dont bother with what they say. If they want to waste money let them. You will have the last laugh one day. keep your chin up.
My sis also makes fun of me because I cook everything from scratch. She one spent £3.99 on a box of cake mix stuff for her and her DD to cook When I told her she would have been cheaper to buy all the ingredients and cook from scratch, but, she said she does have time to cook from scratch (she was making them on a sunday).

Anyway, today will be a NSD for me. I was in at the co-op getting milk for the work (out of works petty cash), and I was havign a look at their meat. they seem to have really good deals on their meat at the moment. I dont usually buy supermarket meat, and I was wondering if anyone else did, and if so, does it taste okay.
It was their joints of meat, and their hams that I was looking at. I was wondering if I should get some of these things and include them in the March GC as I am uinder budget by quite a bit just now.

Tonight for dinner is pasta for kiddies, and HM soup with HM bread for DH & I.

Jackie xx