February 2017 Grocery Challenge

purpleybat

oh things always get stupidly busy for me mid month and I either forget to post or by the time I've read half the way throo the postings I've fallen asleep (keyboard face isn't attractive)
have had a look in my book and know I've missed a shop off my total but as it was for a girlie dinner and that comes out of 'fun' budget I didn't think it would affect my totals that much.


while a bit pickled in January I made the mistake of opening my big gob and telling my friends i'd happily cook us all curries. well.... good thing I like cooking, it took a few hours to make all I wanted. they liked the food and I bought everything for £10, so that was fab. cos there was leftovers I've decided to add £3 to my budget, most of leftovers is lentil and chick pea based and I had them already.


I need a tot up but I think I'm at about £110 so far for the month with a week to go. what I'm finding helpful is instead of thinking 'I shop on a monday' am trying to think 'I shop every 9 days' I don't seem to be buying any more but stretching expensive items more.


what has irked me tho was buying 6 pork chops and planning on using them 2 days running, I opened the pack and cooked the first three and then things came up and the other three stayed in the fridge. on the 3rd day when I started cooking them they smelled really odd, and as my aged P was eating with me I didn't like to chance it and threw them away. had I remembered them I could've frozen them.


my last shop I plan to do Wednesday or Thursday and hoping itll be around £30, is mainly veg and sarnie stuff, but as aged P is shopping with me hot choc and icecream lollies may appear in the trolley!

t14cy_t

spends of £50 yesterday in sainsburys as had a coupon and decided to bulk buy dishwasher tabs and washing stuff, so a bit of a budget cruncher!! still a little left in the pot though. x

elsiepac

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

I believe Nutritional yeast is the same as Elsenham, which is on offer at Holland and Barretts at the moment

SL

Do you mean Engevita? That's what I buy - Amazon is £17.41 for 6 tubs. Just looked at the offer which is Buy One Get One Half Price at £3.29 a tub - mking 6 tubs £14.81 so definitely works out cheaper per tub. Thanks for the heads up! :T

K9sandFelines

Sorry have lost track of this thread a bit due to work and time restraints;, but just wanted to say the freezer and cupboard challenge is helping me immensely, and so far only spent £137.64. I don't count pet food, but still thats a tremendous savin on previous years. I'm finally able to put into practice only buying what I need instead of mountains of food, although I the realisation I had to stop doing this come much sooner.

Off to work now. Have a nice day everyone.

Worrierwalker

I have to add more food spends,Pets at Home£14.97, Farm Shop £12.81, local shop£10.20, Tesco £57 , which totals £94.98

So added to the 180.51 already spent, comes to 275.49.

NSD Yesterday!

elsiepac

Entering the home stretch now, boy does February feel like it was long! March is exactly 4 weeks for me, which is great as I am SKINT in every way!!

Considering I'm saving HUNDREDS a month on cigs which I quit nearly 4 months ago, and booze which I have drastically cut down on, it feels unfair. However I've realised that I was funding it by going into debt, which of course now I'm paying for. Sigh.

My monthly budgets won't be "normal" till after May as I have my MOT then and my little car always has something wrong with it! So until then I need to do my best to be Frugal! (Certainly better than I have been!)

February: £199.45/£160.

Not officially declaring as a few days to go, but technically I don't have any money to spend, and I don't need anything - I have plenty of veg and dry goods.

Lunches this week are made - Indian Lentil and Cauliflower Soup - one of my favourites



Last night I made Carrot Roll which is a WW2 rationing recipe - I used a recipe from the1940sexperiment.com. Really easy, and quite tasty as long as you have plenty of seasoning! Filling of grated carrots, oats, marmite and seasoning. Mashed potato forms the roll around the filling - seasoned with salt and pepper and mixed herbs and olive oil in my case as I didn't have any spread. I had it with cabbage and broccoli, plus onion gravy. Leftovers tonight.
Wednesday and Thursday I will either do Lord Woolton's Pie with mash topping, or another stew or casserole type dish. I have plenty of veg in



Date.......Shop......Amount.....Remaining form £160 Budget
26 Jan.....T35c0.....£33.49.....£126.51 (Main Grocery Shop - some stuff wasn't there)
28 Jan.....T35c0.....£22.75.....£103.76 (Extra Shop - off plan. REGAIN CONTROL!)
28 Jan.....H&B.......£23.53.....£80.23 (Fake Meat things - frozen - not really necessary!)
30 Jan.....T35c0.....£10.20.....£70.03 (Things that weren't there on grocery shop)
1 Feb......T35c0.....£01.65.....£68.38 (Crisps and choc - sigh)
3 Feb......T35c0.....£20.48.....£47.90 (Main grocery shop)
4 Feb......T35c0.....£24.07.....£23.83 (NOT NEEDED stuff - got my cold and felt sorry for myself)
5 Feb......T35c0.....£01.69.....£22.14 (Loaf of bread and a cucumber!)
8 Feb......T35c0.....£09.02.....£13.12 (Small proper shop)
8 Feb......H&B.......£02.89.....£10.23 (T0furkey slices)
11 Feb.....T35c0.....£19.62....-£9.39 (Proper shop including soap, shower gel etc)
12 Feb....T35c0.....£02.40....-£11.79 (lemons, spring onions and red onions)
13 Feb.....H&B.......£05.48....-£17.27 (Tofurkey slices I'm so addicted! plus my expensive toothpaste)
13 Feb.....T35c0.....£12.50....-£29.77 (loo roll and lunch bits like salad etc, £4.50 was for TWO lunches for my boyfriend! :eek:)
17 Feb.....A1d1.....£08.43....-£38.20 (veg, flour and yeast - love A1d1)
18 Feb.....T35c0.....£01.25....-£39.45 (onions and garlic that I forgot)

Ginmonster

Oooh - I might check out that 1940s website out when I get home tonight as I've always got loads of spuds to use up from the veg box, ditto carrots.


I have spent another £3.12 today on some milk, SR flour, wholemeal bread flour and a pack of peppers. I took a list and only bought the things on my list - hooray!


£133.70/£150

AlwaysHungry2016

Done some more grocery shopping throughout last week, wasn’t very good at keeping my track and now I am overspent by £28.45 :eek:. Looking back I definitely could have stayed within my £150 budget but this will be a good guide for my next months groceries planning as I made a lot of notes and managed to keep very good record about what I purchased / what was tasty / how much I really need of what.

Getting paid on the 27th and I think I will need about £10 to last until then. Will write a more in detail post about this month's grocery challenge adventure closer to a pay day. :A

elsiepac

Ginmonster wrote: »

Oooh - I might check out that 1940s website out when I get home tonight as I've always got loads of spuds to use up from the veg box, ditto carrots.


I have spent another £3.12 today on some milk, SR flour, wholemeal bread flour and a pack of peppers. I took a list and only bought the things on my list - hooray!


£133.70/£150

It's definitely worth checking out! I think Carrot Roll is recipe 109. But during the war potatoes and carrots were hugely publicised as they were homegrown and of course really good for you. They seem to have made a big thing about cooking things properly to retain as many nutrients as possible, which I think is great! Another site I came across is recipespastandpresent.org.uk which has a lot of the original leaflets - I just find the whole thing fascinating! I have a book called We'll Eat Again by Marguerite Patten which is brilliant too.

I couldn't post a pic of my carrot roll as I used hot mashed potato as I didn't plan ahead! and it kind flattened out as it cooked lol

[Deleted User]

I am quite pleased at the moment only been food shopping twice so far this month with the third and last one due this Wednesday I am under budget which is good and this week only have to cook on Wednesday Thursday and Saturday as I am out for the rest and tonight's meal is left overs from dinner at DDs yesterday:):) I shall be freezer diving for this weeks meals as I still have a lot in there.