November 2016 Grocery Challenge

Wysiwyg49

Sa1nsbobs at 3:30 on a Sunday is quite a nice place! Very quiet apart from the crowd round the YS display

£72.10 to add to signature. I have a meal plan (posted on the meal plans WC 13/11 thread) and also most of my lunches, next step is to get organised enough to make them the night before!

Caterina

t14cy_t wrote: »

hope your hands better today caterina, sending hugs. xx nsd yesterday, yipee!! xx

Thank you, my hand is still swollen, not much better but at least not worse, at least the swelling is not going up my arm which was my worry. If it stays like this I will sit it out, but from tomorrow I have the option to pop into my GP if I need to.

£16.95 spent at the Farmers market, lots of greens, squash, leeks and some pears, all organic, so the veg shopping is done for the week.

Not counting it in the GC but a horrendous £40 (inc tip) spent at a local restaurant that was booked by our church social committee, we paid lunch for 2 of us, in a Turkish restaurant. If you were a meat eater it was really good value but the mezze we ordered, hot and cold, set plates, were very basic, repetitive and some not very nice, stuff obviously out of a tub. The pudding was revolting and not fresh. I love Turkish and middle eastern cuisine and that was just not up to scratch.

You could see the kitchen from where we sat and I wondered, why have a glass panel to show a kitchen that looks like s**t? Every possible H&S rule was being broken, a bearded chef with no beard net, a guy standing by the cooker eating something with his hands, detergent bottles on top of counters mixed with sauce bottles, cluttered floor, honestly I wished I was still mystery shopping because I would have flamed them in my report!

But we were there with all our church friends so could not make a fuss. The meat eaters had a real value platter and it looked really nice and fresh so they were pleased. I pointed the kitchen to a couple of people and they shrugged. Ah well...Italian proverb: what does not choke you fattens you. :rotfl:

I had looked forward to this meal as our monthly outing treat but oh boy I cannot stop thinking that it cost me one week's shopping for not much and not good either.

At least the company was good, but even that, the way we were seated at separate tables for 4, meant we could only interact with a couple of people at a time. Never mind, it's done.

End of rant, sorry, I had to vent! :mad:

thriftwizard

What a shame, Caterina! I wonder if a letter to the management might help them pull their socks up a bit?

£18.50 spent at the market this morning; I couldn't resist the butcher's last-minute offer of 4 packs from the chiller for £10 (it's usually 3) and picked up 2 packs of venison sausages, which he does very nicely, and 2 of smoked chicken, which is wonderful in stir-fries or on top of pizzas. There are 3 large breasts in each pack, so that will do 6 meals; I've frozen them individually for that reason. Otherwise, it was just bits & bobs of nuts & reduced vegetables, some of which are in the roasted tomato & red pepper soup I'm eating now... the toms & peppers were roasted alongside an apple, quince & blackberry crumble (all garden or foraged fruit) at lunchtime, then chucked into the slow-cooker with some onions, windowsill basil, celery & veg. stock for the rest of the day. As one of our young German guests memorably said about one of my soups - Werry Yummy!

t14cy_t

nsd yesterday, yippee!! xx

Caterina

Good morning

Thriftwizard it's not worth wasting my energy in complaining, it is not a place I would frequent normally and my church friends go there and find it ok, so I don't want to make waves. I pointed out to a couple of them what was going on in the kitchen and they just shrugged. Why bother, then?

Today not a NSD because we will have to pay the roofer but definitely no grocery shopping, I have all I need.

Meal plan:
Breakfast already scoffed, mushroom omelette, courtesy of DH
Lunch chick pea and veg soup, fruit
Dinner cod in tomato sauce with onion, saut!ed greens, cooked grain, probably quinoa as I haven't had it for a while. Vegan ice cream for pudding.

Have a good day.

Littlefrugalcottage

Oh dear!!! So I went shopping with the other half and we might of spent a wee bit of money yesterday!

£73.68 at Te*co
£16.32 at Shop*ite
Total - £90

£201.25/£300 left to spend £98.75 Not bad for a week to go, anything left in this account will go into savings. This is our first month doing this and I feel so happy that I've managed to keep an eye on our spending and can probably reduce it if we need to.

[Deleted User]

I haven't spent anything for 5 days, except for £2(ish) on alcohol, but that is a different a/c. My fridge is looking a little bare, but not intending on spending until 2moz so prob 6 NSD's. Got a ton of veg in there, salad stuff, houmous, etc. so gonna roast a load and also do some soups for freezing, then maybe buy a few bits 2moz when I'm near Lidl. Have a lovely day everyone.

Meekie

Hi,

We were on holiday last week so spent a bit more than usual but that came out of the holiday budget. We were self catering so I also brought food for all breakfasts and dinners which worked pretty well. We had a few lunches out and bought some posh cheese for OH as a treat.

I came back at the weekend and did a big freezer/cupboard inventory and extended the meal plan up until mid January. I know this is ridiculous but I have a tendency to stockpile meat and bulk cooked meals in the freezer but never actually use it so I'm trying to retrain myself! I also wanted to make sure I had some nice things set aside for relatives visits etc during December.

Today then I went to Mr Aldy and spent £57.68 on items for the meal plan. This takes me to £218.12 / 260 but we should only need one more shop for fresh stuff before the end of the month (my month end is 26th). Quite pleased with this and it should be doable as long as I stay strong!

Franalamadingdong

Well! The shop from Mr S has been delivered adding £46.62 to this month's shop. Normally I'd have been thrilled as I was spending £70-80 P/w. I had a £18 off £60 voucher, so I got some Xmas biscuits and condensed soup (I use it in chocolate cake and I can't buy it in our local shops. My 1.5 freezer shelves that were run down are now filled back up. Oops! But the chicken is for the end of the week and the frozen berries and petit pois needed restocking. I've put them in the bottom shelve(s) so I can keep running down the higher shelves. I can imagine we won't need any meat for the rest of the month now and I'm really trying to make sure we have at least one vegetarian day per week.

So our total is now £96.10/£200.. I am elated. And although I'd said we'd set it as that for 4 weeks until November 27th, I'm positive we can run until the end of the month.

Our biggest changes?
1. I don't need to do a new, interesting, varied meal each night, we are happy to have the same thing 2 days running (actually my son loves it).
2. I don't need to buy half the store "just in case"!
3. I'm eating the leftovers, not just thinking "hmm I don't fancy that now" and then binning it when it's grown fur.
4. We can have just bananas and satsumas this week and have something else another week instead of buying all varieties of fruit to have to dispose of half of it. If it's out of season it's best to avoid the "unripe" *blink* "bad" cycle.
5. If we have run out of porridge the boy can have something else and wait until we have it again. Storing oats plus 5 cereals for a family of 2 is ridiculous. We now have oats plus 2 cereals because of the delightful cereal medley I made for the boy yesterday.
6. Basing meal plans around what we have in and then writing the shopping list based on what is left to get rather than thinking up meals and treating each week as a blank slate.

Nothing huge or ground breaking, but has made a big difference, and if I hadn't got that coupon allowing me to build up stock of what we do use (tuna, passata, condensed soup, extra lean mince, extra lean sausages, ham, beans, ketchup, tea etc) I imagine our shop would have been around £25 again.

thriftwizard

Brilliant work, Franalamadingdong! And make no mistake, it is work; a penny saved is a penny earned.

£78.12 blown today... I had to visit L!dl's to buy some stuff for my mother's store-wardrobe (not enough cupboard space in her little kitchen for a store cupboard!) and ended up buying stuff that isn't, strictly speaking, needed this month, because it was on special offer & we will use it, next month. Hopefully I won't need to buy washing supplies again until after Christmas! Plus I stopped at the farm shop for a sack of spuds & some mixed corn for the chickens.

So - £165.08 left, and 16 days to go. I should be able to do this...