May 2011 Grocery Challenge

moneytree1 · 10 May 2011 at 11:40AM

Hi all just to give an updated total 103.11 left for the month cupboards well stocked so hoping for a good month.

welshkaz · 10 May 2011 at 11:42AM

£7.00 spend for me today so that takes it to £67/£280 so doing ok meal planning is getting easier as i have to do it with slimming world but god we are flying through fruit salad and veggies here !!! have a fab day all x

TryingToBeOldStyle · 10 May 2011 at 12:03PM

Well Im doing absolutely terrible so far this month :mad: I really need to sit down for a few hours and go through the recipe threads and find some cheap healthy meals that are easy too because Im a beginner when it comes to cooking properly. then after that Ill have to tighten down a bit more and hopefully not be too over budget by the end of the month.
Ive spent £51.70 so far

but...I made a shepherds pie and rice pudding last night (first time Ive made rice puddin and it tasted lovely so i was really pleased with myself :j

Souk08 · 10 May 2011 at 12:34PM

EEk, got just over £16 left to last the month...think a veggie chilli is in order! Need to get a meal plan on the go for lunches too. Come on girl, you can do this!!

charlie792 · 10 May 2011 at 12:47PM

Well shopping last night came to £44 which was a bit more than I was expecting and that didn't even include loo roll, drain cleaner (desperatly need as our shower floods otherwise) and some chicken for dinner tomorow so buy the end of the week its going to be £50+ spend.

Made a carbonara last night and I wont lie, it was horrible, tasted like eating rubber - no idea why but won't be cooking it again

123budget · 10 May 2011 at 12:51PM

slightly off topic - having not had a holiday for 4 years we sat down last night and decided we were going to go all out to save for a holiday abroad next year - preferably Florida! This will mean paying for 5 adult air fares along with accommodation etc - a daunting task. So...... I need to save at least £600 a month - at moment managing 2-300. Since being on this forum I have managed to drop my grocery bill from £700 a month to 450-550 a month but wondered if I could drop it further - 4 adults and 1 child (eats well though!) and 2 dogs - does anyone else manage this amount of people for £350-400?? and if so how.
PS. WIll also be doing car boots and hubby will do as much overtime as possible.

quintwins · 10 May 2011 at 2:17PM

123budget wrote: »

slightly off topic - having not had a holiday for 4 years we sat down last night and decided we were going to go all out to save for a holiday abroad next year - preferably Florida! This will mean paying for 5 adult air fares along with accommodation etc - a daunting task. So...... I need to save at least £600 a month - at moment managing 2-300. Since being on this forum I have managed to drop my grocery bill from £700 a month to 450-550 a month but wondered if I could drop it further - 4 adults and 1 child (eats well though!) and 2 dogs - does anyone else manage this amount of people for £350-400?? and if so how.
PS. WIll also be doing car boots and hubby will do as much overtime as possible.

i think this depends on personal circumstances i'd say you could shave another £100 off this easy enough, we are 2 adults, and 3 very hungry kids(altho under 5 i'd say they eat 2 adult portions between them) and 2 dogs, we eat meat pretty much every night and an awful lot of fruit, but in general we manage for around £200-£250 but i'm a sahm and have time to cook from scratch, also we buy our dog food in bulk, and only feed them a dry (i say dry but the one we buy has veg oil in it so is really wet) food and leftovers, but it works out at £28 every 3months

nikki1986 · 10 May 2011 at 2:33PM

Hello everyone

I've been lurking on this thread for just over a month now, getting my head round how it works and tracking how much we've been spending on groceries.

Me and OH are averaging at £70 a week (for all food, toiletries, dog food/treats, household/cleaning stuff), which seems really high compared to people on here! :eek: I've been trying hard to get it down by taking lunches to work, buying basics and doing my best to minimise waste, but we still seem to be way above average. For now I'd be happy to get it down to £60 a week.

I was wondering if I posted up some of our fave meals whether anyone might be able to recommend how to cut costs?:
-slow-cooked beef (basics stewing steak, beef stock cube, carrots, onions, red wine, basics tinned toms, served with rice.. does 2 dinners for us)
-lemon pasta (penne, oil, juice of a lemon, parmesan, basics olives)
-parma chicken with mash (chicken breasts, parma ham, stuffed with basics mozzarella, served with mash potatoes and some sort of green veg)
-thai green curry (Mr S chicken, tinned

sauce- no idea if it would be cheaper to do my own- served with rice)

We love all these dinners, but they always seem to work out so expensive. Just to complicate things we both tend to get home from work at around 8pm, so need recipes that can be prepped at the weekend or are fairly quick.

We do all our shopping at Mr S as we have a big one close to us and do our shopping on a Thurs night (OH also works weekends and I don't drive). We have a slow-cooker, rice-cooker, health grill, deep-fat fryer, and a big empty(!) freezer…

Hope you don't mind my enormous first post. And thank you in advance!

quintwins · 10 May 2011 at 2:45PM

nikki1986 wrote: »

Hello everyone I've been lurking on this thread for just over a month now, getting my head round how it works and tracking how much we've been spending on groceries.

Me and OH are averaging at £70 a week (for all food, toiletries, dog food/treats, household/cleaning stuff), which seems really high compared to people on here! :eek: I've been trying hard to get it down by taking lunches to work, buying basics and doing my best to minimise waste, but we still seem to be way above average. For now I'd be happy to get it down to £60 a week.

I was wondering if I posted up some of our fave meals whether anyone might be able to recommend how to cut costs?:
-slow-cooked beef (basics stewing steak, beef stock cube, carrots, onions, red wine, basics tinned toms, served with rice.. does 2 dinners for us)
-lemon pasta (penne, oil, juice of a lemon, parmesan, basics olives)
-parma chicken with mash (chicken breasts, parma ham, stuffed with basics mozzarella, served with mash potatoes and some sort of green veg)
-thai green curry (Mr S chicken, tinned sauce- no idea if it would be cheaper to do my own- served with rice)

We love all these dinners, but they always seem to work out so expensive. Just to complicate things we both tend to get home from work at around 8pm, so need recipes that can be prepped at the weekend or are fairly quick.

We do all our shopping at Mr S as we have a big one close to us and do our shopping on a Thurs night (OH also works weekends and I don't drive). We have a slow-cooker, rice-cooker, health grill, deep-fat fryer, and a big empty(!) freezer…

Hope you don't mind my enormous first post. And thank you in advance!

have you tried using chicken thights instead of breasts? if you throw them in your slow cooker for a few hrs then strip the meat off the bone it's lovely and moist and not really any extra work or i look our for chicken breasts on offer (i never ever pay full price) tesco have frozen ones half price now (value frozen ones are cheaper but do have a few things added)

you can make your own thia curry but once you account for coconut milk and ur time i'd just stick to a jar.

you could try beef shin for your slow cooker beef (i make that aswell) because your doing it in your slow cooker it's really tender it averages about £1 a pack and looks like very little but once chopped up i can stretch it to feed and 5 of us

i also use beef shin in stew and casaroles

Nimeth · 10 May 2011 at 3:00PM

Just to update, I had 3 more NSDs this past weekend, and I'm looking to have 7 more for the rest of the week (including today) as I'm pretty set for things for a while.:D

Also if anyone was looking for another good cheap batch recipe, jambalaya is perfect. I just made a batch on Sunday with some bratwurst and chicken from Aldi, it's certainly enough to make four meals for two people!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/chicken-and-smoked-sausage-jambalaya-758484.html

I doubled everything, which is why it's so huge.:cool:

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May 2011 Grocery Challenge

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