October 2017 Grocery Challenge

Mrs_Cheshire

all of our money either comes weekly or 4 weekly so need to do the budgets the same. Thinking of starting my budget on Thursday as that's Tax credit day and hubby gets paid on friday. Shall I post here or is there a new thread for November?

Mrs_Cheshire

thrift wizard, sorry to hear about your mum. Hope they find out what's causing the issue and she gets better soon

MissRikkiC

I've been having almond milk for the last 12 months and refuse to pay the prices of brands like alpro!

I get mine (unsweetened, but they sell sweetened too) for £1 for a litre from Ald1. Ita called acti leaf or something similar! And I use 3 litres a week usually, very nice! (Although I don't ever drink it plain 🤢)

Hth
X

lynnejk

Mrs_Cheshire wrote: »

all of our money either comes weekly or 4 weekly so need to do the budgets the same. Thinking of starting my budget on Thursday as that's Tax credit day and hubby gets paid on friday. Shall I post here or is there a new thread for November?

You can do both/either.

There will be a new thread for November - usually up around 20th or so.
Lx

El_Debster

I decided to check through my receipts and found that one from 27th September had slipped in! Also I had forgotten one of the receipts has a pair bathroom scales on it - that's not food!
My total has been revised and is now currently running at £84.69, that gives me 15.00 to finish the month off with. :j
However I am learning a few lessons here. For me I really need to plan my meals before I go to the supermarket, this will cut down waste. I am finding that i am not able to eat all I am buying and its not freezable - avocados for instance. I do put some stuff into the freezer but it is not large so I don't have much space left. However I think I am getting the balance almost right.
Here's the plan for the next 5 days:
Wednesday:
Packed lunch, Avocado salad, cheese sandwich, orange.
Dinner: Smoked mackerel, New potatoes, rocket, tomatoes, celery.
Thursday:
Lunch: Lentil coconut spinach curry and Brown rice. (rest in freezer)
Dinner: Roasted veg and Squash and Brown rice.
Friday:
Lunch: Roasted veg soup and brown bread. Yoghurt
Dinner: Mackerel, potatoes, veg from freezer.
Saturday
Lunch: Roasted veg soup etc.
Dinner: Chicken Leg, roast potatoes, peas carrots.
Sunday:
Packed lunch, fruit. (I am out during the day)
Dinner: Bolognese from freezer, with pasta.

Have a good week everyone.

Mrs_Cheshire

Just done an Ocad0 shop to be delivered on Friday lunchtime. Got an offer for 50% off fresh food so thought I'd give it a go. I was careful to only choose things that I know are around that price in other supermarkets to get the full benefit of the extra reductions.
Have spent £42.04 but will adjust if some products are out of stock
Will plan my weeks menu around what I've ordered and also enjoy writing it onto my free magnetic menu planner that Ocad0 are supposed to be sending as a free gift.

I want to do a layered vegetable and potato bake tomorrrow for tea to go with our lamb leg steaks. Does anyone have any instructions on how to make one. I've got a couple of potatoes, parsnips, carrots and butternut squash!

PipneyJane

thriftwizard wrote: »

Slight disaster has struck; my Mum's been rushed back to hospital after a very scary episode early yesterday morning. Luckily I was there to call an ambulance, but because there'd been a bad RTA on the main road, the ambulance had to come from a town 15 miles away, over some pretty massive hills and round the back roads. 50 minutes can seem like a lifetime... or the end of one. Luckily, it wasn't.

So I spent the day in hospital, refusing to leave her bedside until we got to see an actual doctor, in case they decided that since she could get up to use the commode (with assistance) she'd be able to cope at home (on her own, with carers twice daily) and sent her out again. But fortunately the cardiac consultant came to see her mid-afternoon and decided to admit her for tests, so after trotting off to fetch her bag, I was free to come home. By which time starvation had apparently set in at this end; they're not usually helpless, but after a hard day's work, no-one felt up to cooking a full meal. So we had a Chinese - £30 off the grocery budget...

.

I hope your mum is OK, Thriftwizard.

Faete wrote: »

I've not been on this site since January 2016 and my shopping bill has developed into a monster! I'm just going to tot up what I spend this month to get a handle on what I need to aim for next month. This could get scary!

Fae xx

Welcome back, Fae. I hope things aren't as bad as you fear.

Mrs_Cheshire wrote: »

I want to do a layered vegetable and potato bake tomorrow for tea to go with our lamb leg steaks. Does anyone have any instructions on how to make one. I've got a couple of potatoes, parsnips, carrots and butternut squash!

How about abusing a Potato Dauphinoise or Lyonnaise recipe? (I don't have one; I'd just try the BBC's website.)


We spent £7.56 at the weekend on a small top-up shop from Mr T's: yoghurts, the Sunday paper; a couple of lumps of cheese from the Condemned Counter and I forget what else. That brings our total spend so far to £54.19/£143.30, leaving £89.11 for the rest of the month. (That total is a lot better than it usually would be at this point in the month; we harvested several onions and our self-seeded potato patch on Sunday, plus all the - very green - peppers. Only have some chillies and a sweet potato plant to go in the veg patch.)

Doom_and_Gloom

Since last post we have spent £9.45.
£3.93 was OH on pizza, bacon, burgers and red onions.
£5.52 for me; 2 cucumbers, 4 gem lettuce, mushrooms, 2 packs of apples, 2 packs runner beans, 3 bags of fridge 500g melon, 4.2kg of easy peelers, 2 kg of carrots, 2 avocados, head of broccoli, red pepper hummus and a punnet of red grapes.
I forgot to buy bananas :rotfl:.

Bulk - £67.57.
OH - £30.79/£56.43. £25.64 left
Me - £25.96/£31. £5.04 left.

Over all budget.
£124.32/£155.
£30.68 left.

pamsdish

Seem to have lost track but know not overspent, found 3 receipts total £21, getting sorted for my holiday, so there may be a few bits got past me, but I have barely done any shopping so all good.

YorksLass

A small spend on Tuesday at the Co-op: 4 pts milk, 80 teabags, box of dried peas - all needed; 6-pack of crumpets - on offer; a tin of evaporated milk - not needed especially but it's a good store cupboard item and I had a 25p MOC to use up. Total spend: £4.41. Also bought x9 toilet rolls (separate budget) as the ones I normally get from Sainsbobs have changed and are now totally rubbish. :mad:

No more shopping until Friday so finished Week 3 at a total of £19.59. Remaining budget balance stands at £123.08/£200 with 13/35 NSDs. :)

I'll be doing next week's mealplan tomorrow before I shop on Friday. In the fridge I have: 1/2 hard cabbage, x3 carrots, 1/2 pack mangetout, x1 red onion, x1 apple, x4 tomatoes, chorizo (long dated), cheese (blue, Cheshire, Cheddar, spread), 250g butter, x9 eggs, large tub of vanilla yogurt, small tub of soured cream and milk. I'll be trying to incorporate these into the mealplan, along with freezer stock, so it could be a small shop. I've also got one over-ripe banana left, destined for a banana loaf tomorrow.

Last night's mince & cabbage stew was OK but I'll be tweaking it more to our liking next time.