Barbeque on a budget - #TheCharcoalChallenge

It was my turn this month to host this months get together for the local Bloggers. I don't know how it ended up being my turn as the first time I met them was at last month's get together, but I rose to the challenge. 

When I saw the Money Supermarket Charcoal Challenge I thought that it would work. The Teachers decided to have a strike day and it was sorted. We could have a weekend day in the week, and although the parents might have to go to work next day, it wasn't a school night for most of the children!

Of course the biggest challenge I was about to face is that there would be 7 of us and 12 guests - so 19 people in total. Fortunately 9 of them are under 8! Here I am  with Sim from Sim's Life, Pippa from RedRoseMummy, Heather from Note From Lapland and Karen from GrumpyishMum. We asked girl no.1 to take a photo. She took 18. Out of 18 photo's there wasn't a single one where Karen was looking at the camera. Tsk...

 

I spent my budget in pretty much the way I always shop - I looked for bargains! The crisps were all 'buy one get one free' and the cobs/rolls were 12 for £1. All of the frozen barbeque foods were 3 for £5, and the veggie sausages were on offer at £1 a bag!

We already have a barbeque which we use quite a lot when we go camping and works really well as we can have one side for meat and one for veggie, so it seemed foolish to buy another. I didn't include alcohol in my budget on the grounds it was a 'school night' for most of the adults and I didn't want to be blamed for any hangovers at work! I also thought it might be pushing it to fit alcohol into the 50 quid budget for 19 people! Some adults did manage a refreshing beverage or two though....

With all of the burgers, sausages, wings, kebabs and other barbeque foods eaten, my secret weapon was dessert. Something simple and inexpensive, but delicious. 

 

 Where better to eat an ice cream than when you are pretending you are in an ice cream van?

 And with the children all in the van, the adults could relax with their hot chocolate fudge cake in the garden!

The children all had a fantastic time, we really were incredibly lucky with the weather!

It's okay, I don't need help, I'll just top up my own ice cream!

 

Some of the adults really did get involved with the kids games too - here we have Jedi v's Mike The Knight v's Ninja....

And a vanload of Zombies....

Zombies

After a 4pm start I think we did pretty well to be still out there at 10pm. I guess there were a couple of sore heads this morning and there'll be a few early bedtimes today, but it was a definite good thing.

10pm and just the hardy few remain...

(Obviously I've also a whole heap of blurry photo's that seemed great at the time, but I won't subject you to them!)

Did I come in on budget? Not quite, but I was darn close! Here's how I spent my budget - 

Charcoal £5.50
16 Quorn Sausages £2
12 Meat-free burgers £2.25
24 burger cobs £2
12 hot dog cobs £1
Mushrooms 69p
Onions £1
Beef and Pork Kebabs £5
Jamaican Jerk Chicken £5
Pork Ribs £5
Bagged Salad £1.25
Pringles x 2 £2.48
Doritos x 2 + Salsa £2.97
Tear and share Garlic Bread x 2 £2
Garlic Ciabatta x 2 £1.30
Rosemary Breadsticks £1.25
Robinsons juice £1
Coke x 2 bottles £1.98
Vanilla Ice Cream £1.40
Ice Cream Cornets £1.10
Chocolate Cake £3
Double cream 85p
Total = £50.02

This is my entry into the MoneySupermarket Charcoal Challenge. I was given £50 to try to host a successful barbeque on a budget.