September 2012 Grocery Challenge

[Deleted User] · 4 September 2012 at 6:15PM

Drats, just did a whole lot of replies to people and then lost it, so have got to get dinner on, and am presently sat with conditioner on hair and an asda bag on top - nice so i will quickly try again
Jumblejack thanks very much for the jam recipe, i will be attempting to make blackberry jam - im a bit confused about how you seal the jar, am i being dumb !! or do you use special jars.
Lulabelle you could try pulled pork in barbeque sauce - i tried it for the first time a week or so ago, not being a brilliant cook it turned out gorgeous.
tracey12 i looked at the delivery reduction, but found ordering once a week, on the cheapest, delivery would only cost £12 per month, doubled if i ordered twice a week, so unless you are ordering a few times a week on the more expensive delivery, personally i dont think its cheaper, hope it is for you though.

Barbeduk · 4 September 2012 at 6:15PM

Have now done the first 2 shops of the month. £26.36 at !id! Which included a chicken, some gammon, sausages, eggs, all the necessaries for the week. then £9.14 at Mr M on all the bits I can't get at L, which included 2 x punnets of cherries @ 39p a punnet and a melon @ 39p. This was at 9am, I've never seen fruit reduced in the morning before but the checkout operator said she thought they'd totally over ordered on the cherries so good news for us!

I'm also going for the cash approach this month, taking out £70 a week and anything that doesn't get spent goes in the piggybank towards our trip to London at half term. I've budgeted for £75 a week so that means I have £20 left in play for emergencies!

So, roast chicken for dinner with butternut squash and veg, then the leftover chicken will make a couple of curries and a risotto. The kids were so hungry when they came home from school they've already eaten macaroni cheese (and loads of cherries:)).

I know that I am very very cynical (perhaps add another 'very' as well), and I am lucky enough to live in town, but the Teaco 'deal' on paying 3 or 6 months in advance for delivery is simply a way of ensuring you don't shop elsewhere. It benefits them far more than the customer. Bloody good marketing idea though.

Bluegreen143 · 4 September 2012 at 6:43PM

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Jumblejack thanks very much for the jam recipe, i will be attempting to make blackberry jam - im a bit confused about how you seal the jar, am i being dumb !! or do you use special jars.

SaveDosh In my experience, you don't need to do anything to seal the jars - the seal tends to pop down as they cool and tbh it doesn't matter in the slightest if they don't. I just use normal jars saved from other things or occasionally buy the normal ones from Lakeland etc and just fill them while the jam is still hot then tighten the lids by hand. HTH.

To whoever said about the Mr M free range chicken deal - thank you!! Got a 1.5kg chicken for just under £5, which I know is the same price as normal chicken but I only eat free range so a nice saving there. Was going to get a chicken to cut up for the freezer at the weekend anyway :j

Also got some savers food bags and cling film as ran out at the weekend and need them to freeze the chicken lol. As I picked up the cling film, I checked the price of the non-saver ones (£3) against the savers ones (60p). OK so you did get a bit more in the expensive roll but not loads more! Just thought that a few months ago I would have bought that without thinking and spent £3 on cling film :eek: and as I was thinking that a woman came up and quickly grabbed it on her way past, I wanted to say to her "look, the other one is miles cheaper!" but didn't as that would look awfully rude :rotfl:

Also got YS sheep's cheese, vine tomatoes and lettuce. Not great deals, my Mr M only seems to get to about half price for YS, but the lettuce and tomatoes will be useful for dinner tonight and tomorrow and I was just curious about the sheep's cheese :rotfl: Got home and OH had bought two bottles of coke which were the one thing I'd forgotten so that was lucky!

mossy · 4 September 2012 at 6:51PM

Second day of home visits for new children and I am seriously pooped although looking forward to them coming in to class later in the week.

So glad we had batch cooked chilli planned for tea tonight, which DH had taken out of the freezer earlier in the day when he and DD checked to see what was for tea.....could it be that I am getting them trained???

Spent £2.12 in L!dls, 40p in Sainsbugs and £3 in !celand, including some treats for the train up to watch the Paralympics and to eat whilst we are there. I figured it made more sense to buy a few treats here as it will no doubt cost more there!!

Also did some shopping for my second purse. :T Hopefully now I won't be dreaming about it all night like last night!! :eek:

Well done on the running Coxy. :T

[Deleted User] · 4 September 2012 at 7:14PM

Bluegreen - thanks very much for that
Mossy there are lots of very cheap eating places in London or if in doubt, head for a Wetherspoons. Hope you have a fab time at the games

MoonJelly · 4 September 2012 at 8:11PM

Bluegreen143 wrote: »

MoonJelly It's entirely up to you what you include, just best to keep it consistent. I do include delivery charges as it comes out of the same account that I only use for grocery shopping. I guess it's easier for me to keep the lines distinct as I do have a separate joint bank account for it, so I just class any spends from that account that aren't bill DDs as GC spends.

I don't include eating out, takeaways, alcohol or lunches bought at Greggs etc as me and OH buy these out of our own spending money in our personal accounts, but many people do include them. And I don't include food bought on holiday as I save up for holidays separately, however I am reducing my grocery budget this month to account for the fact that I'll be away for a week. HTH!

Made super easy tomato and veg pasta for dinner, took a photo but too lazy to put it up lol. It was two peppers (one red, one yellow) and two small onions roasted, then pulsed in food processor with basil (from windowsill) and a 250ml carton of passata. I then added sliced up olives, couple of big handfuls of spinach wilted down, a glug of soy sauce and toasted pine nuts, and served with value pasta, parmesan and a side salad.

Must have been 3-4 portions of veg in there so happy about that! I eat 1-2 bits of fruit a day (had an apple today) and always have veg with lunch (either soup/leftovers or if I have e.g. a sandwich I have carrot sticks) so only need 2 portions with dinner but I like having lots of veg and OH is atrocious as he's allergic to uncooked fruit and usually has ham/tuna sandwiches with crisps for lunch, so only gets veg at dinner. Even though he isn't fussy and does likes every type of veg under the sun! So I'm trying to be doubly good at providing more veg-filled dinners and I'm going to buy orange juice for him next week as he can drink that as long as it's not the freshly squeezed stuff. Only problem is I really need to get the individual cartons so he'll drink it, which isn't as cheap...

Thank you.:)

savesummore · 4 September 2012 at 8:36PM

Possession wrote: »

NSD today and yesterday, although I am tempted by the Morrisons pork shoulder. Does anyone know when the offer ends?

Hi I believe the offer ends Sunday- I hope so anyway as im planning to go Saturday and get 2 :rotfl:Have got a £5 voucher from the petrol that i intend to put towards it :T

£1 spend on a bag of salad today and a NSD yesterday so not too bad

henna123 · 4 September 2012 at 9:02PM

just had two no spend days in a row, spent £11ish on sunday at asda, got some ys bread and tomatoes in with meat for hubby's sandwiches and a few other bits. Will update the total in sig when i dig out the reciept. today I cooked off a chicken, split it into two bags for the freeer for currys and cooked the chicken carcass with some veg to turn into a soup. tonights tea will go a bit further now too as i had jusdged 3 sausages each for us but after cooking extra veg only plated up 2 each so I will have those for dinner tomorrow now with left over yorkie and gravy

I have some cheapie gravy granules as i dont normally like them, prefer to make my own, but its better than bisto! only problem is I cant remember where i bought it!
P x

Bluegreen143 · 4 September 2012 at 9:17PM

Lovely dinner today - made mackerel fishcakes with cooked leftover mackerel, mashed up potatoes to similar weight (left skins on as I like them), spoonful of wholegrain mustard, chopped up capers and zest of a lemon, lots of pepper, then coated in breadcrumbs from freezer. So yummy and made two extra so can have for lunch tomorrow!

OH doesn't like fish so he had a HM burger from freezer with HM bun and HM wedges. I was good and gave him all the wedges and just had an enormous salad with my fishcakes with the YS lettuce and tomatoes I got today :A

Now need to get up the motivation to chop up the chicken I got today on offer and squeeze into my already VERY packed freezer

rosieben · 4 September 2012 at 9:28PM

Bluegreen, I've added your Mackerel fishcakes to the recipe index :beer:

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September 2012 Grocery Challenge

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