October 2017 Grocery Challenge

MissRikkiC

Loving reading all your posts!!

Almost had a non spend dag today but then realised I'd promised to buy biscuits for team at work! *face palm*

My total was £180 but £150 could be was in achieved! Let's see hey!!

I'd also love some rhubarb tonight if anyone is at all interested in that fact! I thought I'd share that. We havent got any in our garden so have asked around at work before I purchase some haha!!

chocoholic_chick

Evening all!

Popped into an Aldi near where we now live to see what it was like on the way home and to pick up a few things. Can't say I was impressed, the shop was just a mess! Think I'll stick to Lidl. Anyways spent £15.24 in there topping up my baking supplies (how expensive is butter now?! £1.33 but still cheaper than Tesco who wanted £1.45!), potatoes, onions, eggs, some garlic baguettes to go with dinner on Friday night when we have friends round, some smoked salmon as a treat for breakfasts and a few other things. I love baking and think it always tastes better than shop bought, but everything is becoming so expensive now. Still my cupboards nicely topped up so I should be able to bake a few more batches of treats for the month without having to spend and its always nice to be able to offer a slice of homemade cake when visitors pop in .

Got in from work and made a batch of brownies which are cooling and have a huge pan of broth on which I'll portion up for lunches.

Also need to add £6.95 to my total for hubbys coffee subscription, his latest lot got delivered yesterday - a luxury yes but he never asks for any other treats bless him. I shouldn't need to spend anything else before the weekend now as I've meal planned through to Sunday now when I plan on doing a big-ish shop and some batch cooking.

Total spends now £113.13 so doing OK

debtfreeforlife

Announcing £109.75 of £200 from me Not doing great but I can still turn it around! Would be doing better if I hadn't just bought a celebratory bottle of wine for the annual leave starting tomorrow...

elsiepac

thriftwizard wrote: »

savoury flapjacks
aubergine schnitzels
the beans themselves - oh wow! I made a huge crockpot of bean tagine & we all loved it, veggie or carnivore.

Please, please share the details of the magical sounding savoury flapjacks!!! Also the schnitzels!
And fantastic use of runner bean beans! I'll bear this in mind for when I inevitably get my next bad batch :rotfl:

Quick update from me to get me up to speed on here - must stay accountable! Yesterday I had small spends totalling £3.05 which included some crumpets for Friday/the weekend and lady things. Today a further £2.54 on a malted loaf from the bakery (sliced and frozen in portions), a malted roll baton thing which I had with my soup at lunch, and a cauliflower to replace the one I had to throw away yesterday as it had gone bad and I needed it for dinner tonight! Both of these things have come out of Week 4 budget. Week 4 starts on Thursday for me, but I have a lot of things carrying over, and have meal planned, so this works for me. Budget updated below.

I am now on £5.59 out of £20.56 for Week 4, leaving me with £14.97 for my "proper shop" which will be Friday due to work night out tomorrow.
I think the only big ticket item is oats, which I think are about £2.25.
I've done a meal plan for the next week to use up the rest of my fresh stuff, and will only be buying fresh stuff like salad really to supplement that.

Tonight was "girls night" - mum comes over and I cook dinner and we watch a film. This evening I made my favourite Jamaican veggie curry - it's perfect every time and doesn't use any "weird" ingredients, and I love it! I have two portions left over.

So, meals to cover the next week or so include:
- Mustardy Lentil and Sweet Salad (x2 or 3 - never made this recipe before)
- Leftover Curry x2
- Black Bean and Quinoa Salad with Cumin Dressing
- Brown Rice and Lentil stir fry with peanutty sauce x2
- Roast Med Veg and brown spaghetti with pesto (will have this Friday and may add vegan "meat" from freezer) x1
- Roasted Root Vegetable Soup x3 (one of these is lunch tomorrow)

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week, I imagine I will be back Friday after the (likely very boozy booze cruise) work night out!


................................£220 Budget
Date.......Shop......Amount.....Remaining
26 Sep.....Ocad0.......£43.08....£176.92 (STOCK)
26 Sep.....Ocad0.......£20.62....£156.30 (WEEK 1)
26 Sep.....Ald1........£16.44....£139.86 (WEEK 1)
26 Sep.....T3sc0.......£22.38....£117.48 (WEEK 1)
28 Sep.....Ald1........£12.58....£104.90 (WEEK 2)
28 Sep.....T3sc0.......£36.31.....£68.59 (WEEK 2)
28 Sep.....T3sc0.......£06.92.....£61.67 (STOCK)
5 Oct......T3sc0.......£20.55.....£41.12 (WEEK 3)
10 Oct.....T3sc0.......£03.05.....£38.07 (WEEK 4)
11 Oct.....Local.......£02.54.....£35.53 (WEEK 4)

lynnejk

Evening all

Re cauli and cabbages.

If you check over the cauli for any brown bits and trim with a sharp knife, fold the leaves tightly over the cauli and put upside down in a plastic bag. Cabbages - just put in a plastic bag.

Suck/squeeze out as much air as possible and store upside down in the salad box. They should keep perfectly for at least a fortnight.
HTH
Lx

CRANKY40

£50.80 spent this week but I did include a bag of cat litter and some cat treats in that which I usually budget for separately. Plenty of food in the house and despite having hurt my leg I'm hoping to be able to stand long enough to do some baking this week which will cut costs. The house troll (aged 12) prefers the cake that I make to shop bought. I need to decide what we're having for our evening meal now and liberate something from the freezer. I also need to remember to haul something out each day as there's no easy meal stuff left in the fridge.

Total spend so far £82.60/£350 but I have a pet food delivery coming later which will push the total up by another £45 or so depending on what I ordered being in stock or not.

sweetpea26

Morning all.

Some great tips and inspiration on this thread.

This week I decided against a delivery and shopped instore at
Tees...3 seperate expeditions buying what I needed when I really needed it. Total £61.94

Need few bits of fruit and milk today .. have to pick up youngest coming home from college for a few days so will pop into either Liddddl or Teees.
Havent done a meal plan for this week so far, just winged it really by what I had and what I bought enroute.

Thursday
Roast Beef Joint (reduced yest)
cabbage carrots potatoes

Friday
Chicken fillets roasted garlic
salad and possibly chips for those who want them..I will have baked potato.

Saturday
Im Home Alone so no real cooking to be done as such.. might treat myself to a small chinese takeaway

Sunday
Family lunch as one of my children is heading to work abroad so I have 2 chickens in freezer, home made stuffing, roasties, mash carrots and sprouts.
May do a fruit salad ice cream for afters. Will purchase what is needed for this meal on Saturday.

Breakfasts still the same, porridge fruit, cereal or bagels etc.
Lunches are normally a use up whats left over from night before or baked potato, bagel salad mix, tuna chicken...whatever we have. hubby takes a packed lunch and flask of tea, bottle water.

Just hubby and I here from next Wednesday then one home next weekend. So I should see a good drop in what I am spending.

nearly half way through the month !!!!!!!!!!

pamsdish

£9.49 yesterday in Aldi, eggs and veg, picked up 4 swede as super 6 changes today, I will cube them up and cook then freeze, I like it in chunks but can mash with potatoes or carrots from that point.

CattyCatX

So, I had a massive disaster with my friend visiting money-wise. I did mention that things were tight at the moment but my friend didn't like any of the food I had in the freezer or drinks I had in the fridge or any of the sauces I had prepared so I had to buy new stuff and he insisted on eating out for almost every meal and we went halves on everything. Of course I don't mind paying my share at all but it would've been nice if he'd offered to pay for one meal out for both of us or something as a thank you for putting him up for 7 nights, I think? Maybe I'm being unreasonable... Anyway, he's got expensive tastes (and a very high-paying job in the city so he doesn't really understand 'budgets') so almost 2.5 weeks' budget was used up in 7 days, meaning that I've less than £90 for the rest of the month now...
At least I still have a week's worth of dinner in the freezer. Might be replacing lunches with porridge from now on though... Sigh. Hopefully November will be easier to budget for. I've started handmaking Christmas presents already so hopefully that will vastly reduce gift spending.

Merlin's_Beard

CattyCatX wrote: »

So, I had a massive disaster with my friend visiting money-wise. I did mention that things were tight at the moment but my friend didn't like any of the food I had in the freezer or drinks I had in the fridge or any of the sauces I had prepared so I had to buy new stuff and he insisted on eating out for almost every meal and we went halves on everything. Of course I don't mind paying my share at all but it would've been nice if he'd offered to pay for one meal out for both of us or something as a thank you for putting him up for 7 nights, I think? Maybe I'm being unreasonable... Anyway, he's got expensive tastes (and a very high-paying job in the city so he doesn't really understand 'budgets') so almost 2.5 weeks' budget was used up in 7 days, meaning that I've less than £90 for the rest of the month now...
At least I still have a week's worth of dinner in the freezer. Might be replacing lunches with porridge from now on though... Sigh. Hopefully November will be easier to budget for. I've started handmaking Christmas presents already so hopefully that will vastly reduce gift spending.

Ouch! I do think that if two people are going out for a meal, it either needs to be within both of their budgets or the more lavish one offers to pay for everything, especially when you'd clearly not planned to go out every night! But I guess if he's not used to thinking about how much he spends he probably doesn't think about how much anyone spends!

I don't think it's fair of you to blame that budget whoops on yourself, though - definitely not your fault and if I were you I'd be tempted to wipe that week from your budget and work to what you planned.