May 2017 Grocery Challenge

Ginmonster

I bought some more porridge oats for 65p on Friday for my work breakfasts and then yesterday we used up the last of the wholemeal bread flour so that gave me the excuse I needed for an approved food order. I've got loads of flour and yeast in the order as well as dried fruit and tinned fruit, cereal, crackers, pumpkin seeds, crackers, tofu and a few other odds and sods. It's not going to help with reducing the store cupboard stocks but i am baking all the bread we easy now so we're getting through a lot of stuff and it's not going to be wasted. Including delivery it came to £48.47.

So I'm now at £52.58/£100. I'm really glad I've been just using what I already had in the house up to now this month as it's allowed me to do this bulk order and still stay within budget.

Not telling hubby about the AF order was also a good plan as he would have wanted to add loads of crisps and chocolate.

pamsdish

Small shops today, £13 bulk buy coffee, £6.50 grocery,

allmannerofthings

I thought I was doing pretty well but we've had a few McDonalds, couple of fish and chips, my Maltesers addiction is getting out of hand and all of a sudden I'm at £167.57/£240. I really had no idea how much we were spending before, at least £400 I would say, so hopefully I'll come in under that at the end of the month anyway! Just about to do a shop today as we need a few bits that we've run out, but I'm going to REALLY work hard to use what we have, and do a menu plan and actually stick to it, which will be a first. Often do the plan, never stuck to it. I'll be back later with the plan....

debbym

Just went to the "A girl called Jack" blog to look at the no meat balls recipe to use up some aubergine to find that that and all the other supercheap recipes have been removed from the blog. What do you reckon guys am I a miserable cynic for thinking "ah yes but now she has two books out for sale..."
I wish her well I really do (no one should have had the money worries she had especially with a kid) but it does seem a little rich after styling herself as a poverty campaigner for the people back in 2014, or am I being unfair?

mcculloch29

debbym wrote: »

Just went to the "A girl called Jack" blog to look at the no meat balls recipe to use up some aubergine to find that that and all the other supercheap recipes have been removed from the blog. What do you reckon guys am I a miserable cynic for thinking "ah yes but now she has two books out for sale..."
I wish her well I really do (no one should have had the money worries she had especially with a kid) but it does seem a little rich after styling herself as a poverty campaigner for the people back in 2014, or am I being unfair?

You're being unfair! You've also been misled, but not by Jack Monroe.
A search for 'A Girl Called Jack blog' now links to some Thai woman with no connection with Jack Monroe, who has clearly hijacked Jack's name.
This is the recipe you are looking for, which is on Jack Monroe's new blog 'Cooking on a Bootstrap.'
Hopefully you'll now be able to find your recipes for free...!

mcculloch29

Here are all Jack's available-for-free recipes.
Link is to blog. There are also some recipes on the Guardian website and in a few other places.

debbym

mcculloch29 wrote: »

Here are all Jack's available-for-free recipes.
Link is to blog. There are also some recipes on the Guardian website and in a few other places.

thankyou -started off at the guardian and the link went to the bogus blog! Now had my faith restored, not bad for a Sunday afternoon:D

Florence_J

OH can be trusted with the grocery wallet!

He spent £6.07 this weekend, on potatoes, celery, cucumber, carrots, Orange juice and Chicken dippers.

He bought cookies but said he paid for them out of his money.

He's a good boy

£75.13 remains

mcculloch29

A mix of buffet snacky bits and storecupboard stocks bought yesterday, all from Aldi. £19.39, and it included a six pack of lager shandy that came with me on an evening out at non-licensed premises.

The shopping bill should have been a little bit more, but Aldi didn't have strong white flour for bread, and with not picking up that, I didn't pick up any dried yeast either. I still have some yeast and will mix plain flour in with my strong flour to stretch it.

With just six days of my original month left, April 20 - May 20, I've spent £59.61 on groceries and cleaning/laundry materials, and have £80.39 of my £140. It would make sense to go to the end of the month with that, it should be do-able, and start on June 1st with a new sum of cash.
It's also fairly clear to me that having spent c. £15 of that almost £60 spent so far on what is essentially party food, I can cut down a little bit more next month.

Most of the cash has been spent in Heron and Aldi. I couldn't have done this if I didn't have discounters to shop in.

armchairexpert

mhagster wrote: »

Trying to get my head round accounting for what I spemd! Still within my budget for this month's so far ($600AUD)
Have a lovely weekend from very autumnal Melbourne (brrrr)

Wow, it's an Aussie bonanza around here all of a sudden! I'm in Adelaide, sandwiched between the two of you.

Had a seriously spendy food weekend: DD1 had a friend over for a sleepover Friday night so I bought them pizza and garlic bread, Mr Expert and I had a cheese-and-crackers-and-fancy-bits dinner as a treat, and Sunday was Mothers' Day so we did a picnic. But on the other hand, I kept the weekly shop down to $130 which - barring major top-ups - will be my cheapest effort yet. At the 15th of the month I'm at $450/900 which is about as On Track as you can get.

Weekly meal plan:

Saturday - Oxtail curry
Sunday - Lamb shanks and vegetables in the slow cooker
Monday - So much of the above left over that I'm going to shred the remaining meat, dice the potatoes, add some pearl barley and serve it again as a stew
Tuesday - Gado gado w/ tofu
Wednesday - Fettucine puttanesca
Thursday - Tacos
Friday - Home made baked beans (slow cooked cannelini beans with a ham hock) with patties made from left over mashed potato currently in the freezer