June 2008 Grocery Challenge

Frugaldom

Hi guys, and welcome newbies. We are a household of 3 and my overall annual budget is £1000, but I have done a bulk shop and now just top up with fresh produce each week, hence the reason my monthly tagert is only £40. In saying this, IT IS WORKING! I have no fears of not getting enough fresh fruit & veg as we've turned the garden over to frugal food production, so don't contemplate having to buy any veggies at all after this month.

HOWEVER, because I haven't had time to bake bread this week and couldn't lay my hands on any discounted loaves, I have just had to pay 65p for a wholemeal loaf and £1.56 for a 4 pint carton of milk! We normally use the powdered milk for coffee/tea/puddings/sauces but prefer 'real' milk for breakfast cereals. The trouble is that when I buy a carton it gets used for the coffee & tea!

I have a 'rubber' chicken roasting in the oven for tonight's dinner and then I need to freeze what's left so I can make a meal for 5 on Friday night. There'll be 5 for meals from Friday until Sunday, so the menu could prove to be interesting, as there are 3 fussy eaters!

Anyway, £2.25 spend for me today and I have updated my signature.

I will have some fun later this week going on a mega-shop for all the food needed to cater for the party this weekend but I'll be hard-pushed to break away from my frugal shopping ways! It'll be interesting to see the outcome and I can't wait! I got most of my buffet ideas of MSE forums, so thanks to anyone who has contributed

THANKS MRSMC - I think I'll go pick some lettuce from the garden and just make tortilla/chicken wraps & salad for tea and stick the bulk of the roast chicken in the freezer. I know for a fact everyone likes roast chicken dinner, so that's Friday's 5 sorted! :T

curly_cabbage

Evening all
Well HM chilli is bubbling on the hob, HM potatoe wedges in steamer ready to have oil and seasoning added and crisped up in the oven and it only 5.15pm (OMG) AND it's my 3rd NSD today. Only down side i've a bungged up nose and sore throat so i'm just hoping that it goes fairly soon as it looks like we'll be moving by the end of July and i havn't started to dejunk let alone pack (Just in case it jinxes me - sad i Know) So once tea is sorted, cleared away and washed up i shall be off to have a nice bubbley bath and an early night.

CC

JayJay14

Felinefantastic - re the bread in the fan oven I find that the top cooks quite quickly in mine so I take the loaves out of the tins and put them back in the oven upside down for a few minutes to finish off.

dink1

cookingmummy - re the sad carpet, how about a blanket on the floor, gives it a more party feel (or a bed spread at a push) and you can also throw it in the washer when finished as you just know that the little peeps will spill and throw everything!!!!!!! and you then can be super cool about it all! you can always tell the parents its so that if they topple over they wont hurt themselves as its soft. HTH Dink1

Sosh

Had to pop in Mr T today for some nanas, and ended up spending £33.49. In my defence, most of that was beer for Sunday's bbq. They have Kronenburg half price until the 29th. I'm going to include it in this month's budget as I'm still under.

I have just found out from school that they have given me a yr 7 tutor group next year. :mad: As I'm only going to be part time, the head of year has linked me with a new member of staff who "has experience of being a tutor" I think she's forgotton that dh also works at the same school. He's told me that my co tutor is an nqt. I don't mind, but I wish they'd just be honest about it.
As tomorrow is payday, I'm declaring at £283.56 /£340 :j Mrs M, can you put me down for £300 in July please. Hope everything goes well for your Sister. Big Hugs!

Sunnyday

Hi everyone,
i`m still trying and failing miserably to keep up with the thread.
It moves so quickly that i never seem to have enough time :mad:
Anyhow My July grocery challenge will start on Friday so i`ve just been totting up this months spends and would like to declare at £224.04 for June please MrsM that leaves just 96p spare. I will look at How long a month July will be in the Sunnyday household and report back with a figure for then.
Good luck peeps.
SD

Pixie983

Hi everyone - I'm new to this so wondered if anyone could give me advice? I've been on the DFW board and gone through my soa - final thing is the food shopping! Someone suggested I tried this board!

At a guess I am currently spending £250 on food shopping for 2 adults + 2 cats. Once I saw this written down it looks ridiculous! I have no idea how or where to start as I usually just go to the supermarket whenever we need anything - rather than doing 1 big shop. (I know this is silly!) Would shopping online be a start as I do find when I get into the supermarket I just buy things on display and end up throwing half of the stuff away at the end of the week! I get paid tomorrow so next month will start from then (should I wait for July's thread??)

Any help appreciated!!

lil_me

I'm up to £100.15

Pixie, first thing, what are the cats eating?

Secondly, does that total reflect properly on just that spending (some forget they bought a DVD in the shop etc) If you're throwing a lot away it might be worth keeping a waste diary, writing down whatever you throw away and how much it would have cost, that's how I scared myself into stopping wasting food.

If you're a bit of an impulsive spender it might be worth meal planning and working from a list to go with it.

Kaz2904

I forgot to say that we were able to pick and eat our first home grown mushroom yesterday. It was huge!
We've got 2 mushrooms ready to pick now and I think we should at least get our money back from it if not end up saving money from it.
The courgettes in the back garden are growing steadily and have flowers almost peeping out- I can see the buds there. Massively over estimated how many we needed and how many would grow so I did the whole packet of seeds. Gave about 6 away and still have 16 plants in the flower bed! (I say it's a flower bed but it so isn't! There are marigolds in there but only because DH was insistant as they'd scare away the beasties!).
DH has cooked tea and we've got bratwurst (He's done all 6 but they're huge so I may save some for sandwiches tomorrow), HM potato wedges and salad from MiL's lettuce and our garden lettuces. Scrap that because hers will go off if we don't use it soon so I shan't pick any of ours yet.
I'll go and start my new sig for July- I'm happy with how we're going at present and still don't need to shop yet. Do need to make another loaf of bread tonight because we're getting through a lovely home made loaf every day- better than horrid shop bought innit.

Pixie983

Thanks lil_me - the cats eat 2 pouches a day each and then some dried food at night. I am going post a new thread anyway as not sure if I should have put it on here!!