April 2008 Grocery Challenge

teedy23

it,s official, I,m a pauper, I have £2.92 left of my GC money. I think the thing now is to see how little I can overspend . I have two little sandwich jobs to M.S. and should have plenty to see me through, but you know how it is. The less you,ve got the more you spend. Off to update the sig of shame.

Frugaldom

I've only glanced at this page so gar and am dismayed to see tinned tomato prices being discussed in same sentence as £1 per tin'. :eek: Am I right in thinking the tins have a very long shelf-life and that it may be better to keep a good stock of them whilst still available at 19p? I have about 20 tomato plants on the go but don't know how well they'll do, as this is my first time growing them. I haven't even planted any lettuce seeds yet, but hope to get these going in the next week or so. I've been checking cupboards and freezer and still don't have the space to go and do a big shop but, if it means buying tind and dried produce only, I think I may head out to Mr T's sooner rather than later.

No spend again today but used the last (wrinkled) apple baked under a sponge to have with custard, have only one onion left, no peppers and only a handful of carrots. Mr T visit looking better by the minute.

Did someone say on here it was possible to make meringues in a microwave? I have several egg whites to use (leftovers from hm custard). Must go and read what the threads actually say, now

JennyBee_2

Phew! Just worked out all our meals until 24th April (Pay day!) Have managed to only use stuff that we already have in the house (plus a few veg that we'll get delivered). So! The only thing that we might need to buy this month is milk, bread (unless I make some!) and stuff for sandwiches! Hooray!

beingjdc

Tinned tomatoes still seem to be four for £1 chopped or three for £1 plum in the little shop next to my flat in SE16 if anyone wants to pop over. They look at me a bit funny when I go in to buy just tomatoes as they're a generalist store catering to the African-Caribbean market, and I'm very definitely not their target customer, but heyho!

Edit: I am an idiot - clearly three for a pound chopped, and four for a pound plum, not the other way round!

Frugaldom

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

Just checked my receipt and they have charged me for both:mad: Would never have bought them at full price! Suppose itll teach me to check my receipts in future:rolleyes:

**Rant over, normal service resuming:D

Take your receipt back for a refund, I do it every time they make a mistake and they just ask you to sign a confirmation slip then refund any overcharge or give you whatever it was that's to be replaced. I even returned bananas that looked OK on the outside but were bad inside - they replaced the bananas AND refunded the price.

cupid_s

Oops. Yesterday went to asda and my plan to not buy any meat/fish products this month is already out the window. I did buy quite a bit of stuff for dinner for us and friends last night (cheaper than takeaway). Also bought lots of fish reduced so next month 'should' be cheaper too. Total spend there £32.35 but I used £4 of tetleys coupons.
I also went to the farmers market this morning and spent £29 on breakfast/olive oil/chilli jelly, as well as £5.40 on the bus for DH and I. But we might get some of that back from my dad (though I might swap some things for wine:)) so I haven't counted that yet.
I'm still hopeful i'll manage the £80 though

mark55man

toniwoty2009 wrote: »

blimey this thread moves fast! i've got a good few pages to read now! lol.
just been to mr t and stuck to my shopping list....apart from two packs of cadbury caramel snaps which fell into my basket.....
anyway i came on to ask if anyone has any ideas what i can do with a load of frozen fruit? i've got two farmfoods mixed berry, one tesco berry smoothie mix and one tesco tropical smoothie mix. HELP! i'm sick of them taking up the freezer now.
thanks in advance!!

I had some frozen blueberries from Mr T with a good recipe, which went something like

boil up frozen fruit with 50g of sugar (or more or less depneding on sweetness of tooth and/or fruits)

reduce until sauce is thick (sticky!!), and then leave to cool until lukewarm (you may want to sieve bits out, but I didn't and it was fine with blueberries)

then mix in 150ml cream (single or double) whipped until firm peak

then serve into a couple of wine glasses and put in fridge for 60 minutes

Yummy!!

NannyOgg

Oops, just re-calculated my grocery spend and got an unpleasant surprise - I've used up three-quarters of my budget and we're not even half-way through the month :eek: :eek:

On the plus side, the freezer is still over-flowing and I've got loads of tinned and dry goods AND I've managed to have two consecutive NSD - today and yesterday - a first for me :T

Confessions time... We were bad on Friday - met OH at the pub after work and we were both too tipsy to cook by the time we got home so we ended up dialling for pizza It's the first takeaway in ages though, and at least it wasn't Chinese - that would have really blown the budget :rotfl:

Back on the wagon now though; tomorrow's lunches are defrosting as we speak and I'll take tomorrow's dinner out of the freezer before I go to work in the morning... Don't know what it will be yet, but there's plenty to choose from

Hope everyone else is doing better than me!

Keep the recipes coming please - they give me something to do besides shopping :T

getting-sorted-sarah

Hi
Just popping in to say hello - this thread grows so fast that it takes me all my time to get through it (and I'm in danger of getting the sack at work....:rolleyes:).
Weezl - don't know if you've discussed this before - but how big is your freezer?!!
Basically, I need a bigger one. I'm wondering about the feasibility of turning DD's bedroom into a freezer, she can sleep on the sofa - it just seems so much better use of space......

weezl74 wrote: »

Hi All,

Todays batch cooking included,

4 loaves of bread, 2 already turned into sarnies,

HM Lemon ice cream (20 servings worth for £1.90, Billy bargain or what?:j)

4 portions of tomato dahl

houmous for sarnies

my challenge looks scary from my sig, but I think I can do it:D

gonna make some lentil and bacon casserole tomorrow, a huge batch.

Keep up the hard work folks, it's inspiring being a part of it all with you

Weezl x

Ess-six

Hi Everyone

My posts are few and far between, but at least I'm managing to keep up to date with the posts on this thread at the moment! Have decided to keep a running word document with the hints/tips/recipes that I might need as I read them as I've spend loads of time back-tracking trying to find things on the last two threads.

I've updated my signature and have spent £89.23 out of my £270 budget so far (month ends on 2nd May). I've a list of meals planned through until 25th April for which just some fresh veg is needed, plus bread, milk and fruit - so at this moment in time I'm 'quietly confident' that I'll come in at under my target.

Thank-you to everyone for the recipes, and for the gardening tips - I'm very tempted to have a go myself, although I don't have a garden, just a paved area with pots and window boxes.