March 2019 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

You could consider a freezer-week for every other week, so you can still satisfy your desire for bargains but you meal plan based on using up the bargains.

I bought an officially humungous shoulder of lamb with a YS and I will have to combine moussaka with shepherd's pie and roast lamb or it will be a waste as we will eat more than we need.

That's a really good idea regarding alternating between freezer weeks and fresh weeks. Thank you for the tip.

PipneyJane wrote: »

I spent £7.90 in the farm shop, which included two lots of broccoli, a kilo of carrots, a dozen eggs and quite a few onions. With the exception of the eggs, it was all grown on the premises. (The eggs come from a chicken farm tucked up behind RAF Northolt.) Meanwhile, DH visited two branches of Lidl and neither had their low calorie/low sugar hot chocolate. (We will continue to stalk them for it; they're the cheapest.)
- Pip

Your mention of stalking Lidl reminds me: did you ever get your desired Lidl 4-ply toilet paper, Pip?

Making that marinara sauce with ground beef this morning made me realize that I'm lower on basics than I originally thought. I'm down to one egg, no yoghurt, a few bits of red onion left. I should do a proper shopping list later today so I can plan meals for the week.

YorksLass

Thanks for the new thread elsiepac, :hello: to regulars and welcome to newbies/returners.

I'm in again please with £152 for a 4-week month, 2 adults, £20 for the bulk fund and the rest for general groceries. Household/cleaning and toiletries have their own budgets.

I have a Sainsbugs order coming tomorrow and it's quite a large one :eek: as I need to do some serious stocking-up. The fridge is bare and (unusually) the freezer has spaces in it. The store cupboards don't look too bad but I'm topping them up anyway, partly because I always do over the winter and partly prepping for B-Day - whatever that may/may not bring.

ditty1234

Nothing to report thats 2 NSD days on the grocery front. Thanks all.

PipneyJane

JingsMyBucket wrote: »

Your mention of stalking Lidl reminds me: did you ever get your desired Lidl 4-ply toilet paper, Pip?
.

No, I haven’t. It still hasn’t gone on sale. They only stock their recycled toilet paper once a year and, for the last few years, that’s been in February. Not this year. < humph! >

- Pip

JingsMyBucket

This evening I went out to collect my Amazon order from the Amazon Locker and buy some bits.

$12.94 for onions, avocados, an eggplant, a sweet potato, milk, cayenne pepper, and chia seeds.

$3.00 at a local market for 2x blackberries which were $1 per container and $1 for a nice bag of mini snacking peppers. Definitely a good buy and I can add those to a beef braise this week.

$4.23 for a small pork roast at a meat market. I’ll roast that tomorrow or Wednesday so I can gnaw on it for the next few days.

$1.47 at an organic market for 3x Greek yoghurt+fruit cups, eggs, and a box of Mac and cheese. I had a $6.99 store credit from an item I returned in February.

TOTALS SO FAR:
$80.50 / $300.00
0 / 12 NSD

There’s enough veg in my fridge and the last thing to pick up this week would be some more fruit. The Target.com order should arrive tomorrow morning and that will have the household goods I ordered. No matter what, I’m going to try limiting myself to $10.00 for the rest of the week.

PipneyJane wrote: »

No, I haven’t. It still hasn’t gone on sale. They only stock their recycled toilet paper once a year and, for the last few years, that’s been in February. Not this year. < humph! >

- Pip

I wonder where they shifted it in their sale cycle...? I’m guessing you’ve tried calling or asking managers too.

becky170

I've done two top up shops over the weekend: £2.64 at watri8se and £10.35 at MrT (£5 of which was on swim nappies...eek!). Need to meal plan for next week and do an online order. Will be having a MrT delivery this week as I have a £9 off £60 shop and we'll easily spend that.

shabbychic12

Spendy couple of days, all those things that seem to run out at the same time. Tea, coffee and dog food plus a few bits which have added up to £67.00 and it's only day 5 off the month. Need to pull it back now. x

euronorris

becky170 wrote: »

I've done two top up shops over the weekend: £2.64 at watri8se and £10.35 at MrT (£5 of which was on swim nappies...eek!). Need to meal plan for next week and do an online order. Will be having a MrT delivery this week as I have a £9 off £60 shop and we'll easily spend that.

Have you considered a cloth swim nappy? More expensive up front, but saves loads in long run. I made the switch after a few months of swimming when I realised that DD never pooped whilst swimming (might just be lucky?), and I just pop it in the washing machine when we get home. It goes under the neoprene swim nappy as usual.


Additional spends for me:


Sandwich van at work - £2.55 - Unplanned, but opted for cheapest and healthiest option, everyone else had a cooked breakfast!
Aldi - £5.08 - planned
Lidl - £12.29 - planned for this week
Sainsburys - £7 - planned for this week
McDonalds - £14.47 - unplanned at weekend. I was weak! lol


Total now: £187.14/£300


Got a few more bits to get this week, but shouldn't be more than £15. And then I'll have LOADS of meals in the freezer. Need to replace risotto rice and onions, as used up both last night.


Had leftover roast chicken with peas risotto last night, and then made a batch of spag bol. So we're having spag bol tonight. I made a batch of beef stew in the slow cooker at the weekend, which is in the freezer for another night. Want to get some Gammon today to stick in slow cooker tomorrow.


Picked up a large pack of knorr chicken stock cubes in Lidl yesterday for 99p. It wasn't planned, but it was a good price and always good to have a good stock of them (when I checked when I got home, I only had two cubes left! lol).


All of these things combined, I'm hoping I shouldn't need to buy as much next week.

ditty1234

Hoping for an other NSD day but might have to top up milk as making pancakes later :-) Happy pancake day. Would like to give up shopping for lent! But it probably wont work 100 %

Merlin's_Beard

£61.73 spent at Mr T's for the first shop of the month. That's a humungous spend for me, but I decided to do a stock up of tins etc.

It is a LITTLE bit just in case the B word thing goes bad. I'm not really sure about how I feel about that - if everyone panic buys then there's going to be an artificial shortage of stuff whether there's really a problem or not, but otoh if that happens it's going to happen whatever I do.

So I've properly re-stocked the freezer and I'm trying to not use the YS stuff in there just yet and buy my way through the rest of month, I've got a cupboard full of tins and pasta and rice and lentils, and I guess... if it does go bad, I'll be glad I had it and if nothing happens then I'll have a really cheap April eating my way through it?

Anyone else doing anything or am I just a paranoid android about the whole thing?