September 2018 Grocery Challenge

ChangeofFocus

Hi all, hope it's ok for me to join in 👋🏻

We're due our 2nd baby this month so seriously needing to get a grip on outgoings and after lurking and totting up spends for the last few months I'd like to aim for £300 for all food/drinks/household items - our month will run from 1st - 30th September.

So far I've spent: £58.71 in Mr A and have a £49.17 delivery due from Mr T tomorrow but that is the store cupboards and freezer full for the month again now hopefully.

Hoping to reduce the total amount as we go and your good habits hopefully rub off

£107.88/£300

flubberyzing

An £8.40 spend on bread and ham from Tesco. That'll make all the lunch time sandwiches for the half-term ahead! I make them all up, bag them, and then freeze them with a diddy square of kitchen roll in each bag (stops them getting soggy when de-frosting).
It saves a lot of time in the long-term - not having to get out bread, ham, a baggy, put it all away again each time - and cuts down on any wastage.
It's really easy to do, as long as you have the freezer space. You just need to calculate how many days you're going to want a lunch, and what that'll mean in terms of bread and filler.
I'm going to go and do it now, while the bread is still nice and fresh!

JingsMyBucket

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Well worth reading the 8-week low blood sugar diet book for that issue with health - really reset my metabolism - by Michael Moseley - not the recipe book

Good idea @Suffolk lass. I was also thinking of buying this cookbook called "Ketotarian" for him (and for me). It focuses on keto and low carb for vegetarians/vegans using a full range of vegetables instead of constantly relying on processed food. I'll go digging into my existing cookbooks as well for low carb recipes. Now that he's in a similar spot as me, maybe he'll be a bit more supportive.

Two days in and I've spent €81.25, of which a good €30 of that was cheddar cheese for my birthday party and to toss in the freezer.

I'm going to spend later this evening writing out every single ingredient I need and filling in the remainder of my online order. There will be some items I get from other stores simply because of quality but I'll try to funnel most of the items through the Delhaize online order just for ease even if it's more expensive. For example, I really don't want to lug 4 cases of water home either by walking or via the bus.

TOTALS SO FAR:
€81.25/€500.00
0/12 NSD

It's so great to see all these new faces and user names here on the thread! I hope we get to read more from everyone this month. Last month it seemed like absolutely everyone was on vacation. :rotfl:

katiegirl

First spend of the month today £27.95 in Aldi and £21.23 in Asda. Reasonable start I think, that's all of our meals sorted until Monday and some things that will last longer into the month (tinned tomatoes, Philadelphia, crisps, washing up liquid, deodorant, pasta, eggs and onions will all roll over into next week and further). Although I have just realised I'll need to go and get loo roll in a couple of days.

I've been getting some inspiration from the love food hate waste thread as well. Now have a bag full of fresh lemon juice and rind ice-cubes in the freezer. I only have a small freezer though so will have to use the space wisely!

fairy3

Good afternoon - small spends to report over weekend - managed to get some YS bargains from m and s who were selling off 'dine in' items - £7.75 worth for £1.55 and all has been incorporated into meal plan for this week. On to Morri's for more YS and necessaries, spent £10.57 in total £2 on groceries.
Made soup with glut of tomatoes for lunches and cubed half a loaf of tiger bread sprinkled with garlic salt and a splash of chilli oil for croutons. Will pop in oven later with potato wedges for dinner.

luckofthe_irish - Have you thought of a tray bake? Loads of recipes online and can be made frugally. I am no baker but can manage one. Good luck

F x

RedFraggle

First shops done.
£63.76 to Mr T and £9.42 in Aldi
£67.04 on a bulk cat food order to zooplus.
£220.86 left.
Need to go super tight this month.

Doom_and_Gloom

Since last post we have spent £14.90.

£61.90/£195.
£133.10 left.

PipneyJane

Evening all

We did two spends this weekend. Dropped into MrT’s on the way home from the football on Saturday and picked up YS chicken-&-chorizo-skewers for £1, some YS bean sprouts and YS baby sweet corn. Total spend: £1.51. (I can’t find the receipt but know the total.).

When it comes to YS meat dishes, this is probably the most tasty we’ve purchased to date. There were 4 skewers in the pack - served as designed, they’d probably be a starter for 2 people. Instead, I removed the meat from the skewers, sliced it up a bit more and fried it together with some leftover roasted mixed veg (onions, mushrooms, courgette and peppers), then tossed it into some cooked pasta with the remaining half a jar of pesto. Dinner for 2 plus 2 lunch boxes.


Our second spend was yesterday, again in MrT’s. £13.65 spent mainly on lunch stuff. We play RPG games at a club every couple of weeks, so this was picnic lunch for a club day. Normally, we’d buy salad, tortilla wraps, humus and YS sliced meat. This time, DH went a bit mad and insisted we buy two ham hocks at £4/each, thinking they wouldn’t go far. I duly hacked at one and made wraps for us both, with plenty left over. The leftovers will go into a Cuban Black Bean Stew later this week.

My change from MrT’s included three £2 coins. We have a ritual where £2 don’t get spent; instead they go into the Running Away Fund for holidays, so I’m deducting them from the GC budget.

Total spend so far £21.16/£133.50, leaving £112.34 for the rest of the month.

luckofthe_irish wrote: »

Weekend spends were £17.30 in Aldi, and £9.02 in Tesco for the bits I couldn't pick up Aldi leaving me with a total of £29.49 for the week.

This is down from between £40 and £50 a week for the past few months so I am delighted - although I didn't buy any meat this week as I am eating from the freezer. However I forgot to get the cakes needed for my colleagues and now will have to eat into next week's budget for that... does anyone have recommendations for the best place to get cakes/treats? I need to bring enough for about 15 people!

Cakes for 15? I had to wrestle with this problem last month, when taking cakes into work for my birthday. In the “old days”, I would hit MrT’s or Sainsbugs, buy a 2 or 3 of their multipack mini-muffins/flapjack bites/brownie bites and that’d would do. However, they don’t seem to be doing them any more, at least not around here. M&S still had them last time I looked, but we don’t have a big M&S Food nearby.

In the end, I bought a large tray of iced cup-cakes from MrT’s for £5. They’re displayed on one of the lower shelves in the bakery section and have that thick, swirl-shaped icing on them. The cakes themselves are plain vanilla. I think there are 15 in a tray.

HTH.

- Pip

K9sandFelines

£6.56 spent on Saturday at Morrisons on milk, pop and mayo.
Today i spent £0.38P on YS peppers at work.

Total £6.94

*edit* Have a Tesco shop coming which comes to £27.79 once i have deducted cat food off ( which i don't include here).

So will add that now too, and adjust as necessary as i need to go to bed once i have sorted it out (due 6-10pm). I'll try and read through the thread in bed, but posting now as i will probs have no energy to be working stuff out by the time it is all done and dusted.

Total is now £34.73

Merlin's_Beard

luckofthe_irish wrote: »

Weekend spends were £17.30 in Aldi, and £9.02 in Tesco for the bits I couldn't pick up Aldi leaving me with a total of £29.49 for the week.

This is down from between £40 and £50 a week for the past few months so I am delighted - although I didn't buy any meat this week as I am eating from the freezer. However I forgot to get the cakes needed for my colleagues and now will have to eat into next week's budget for that... does anyone have recommendations for the best place to get cakes/treats? I need to bring enough for about 15 people!

I can't cook at all, and I managed to make a traybake last weekend - this recipe was enough to make 16 decent sized squares: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/07/21/white-chocolate-peach-traybake-recipe/

And I've been eating it for three days and I'm not yet dead so it must be pretty foolproof :rotfl:

ChangeofFocus - good luck with the baby!