June 2019 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

MadamMim2013 wrote: »

Spends up to £170 so far this month.. Had both DS’s home this evening so made a rather tasty chicken curry with some YS chicken (got today) & a sauce from the cupboard..
Yum!
Will be taking stock of my hidey hole upstairs, forgotten exactly what was put in there.. :rotfl:

What are we like? - I am sure I boost the SM profits with all their stuff I store here - and I pay them instead of them needing warehousing to store it!

A case in point - The toothpaste I like was on offer when I popped in for bowl fruit yesterday - so three popped in to my basket (although I have not paid full price for these for about 8 years) probably 7 at home is a little more than normal...

elsiepac

Suffolk Lass - your soup is in the recipe index under the Soups section and named "Squash and Vegetable Soup"

July GC is now live HERE

Merlin's_Beard

Up to £68.56/£100 for the month now, had a bit of an oops moment that involved going to the supermarket hungry. And Ben and Jerry's being reduced to £3 a tub in T3sco's.:o:D

thriftwizard

We're up to £316.45 following an £8.77 top-up shop - bananas, bread flour, noodles, some extra veg, and a tub of spice for yet another baking experiment. It actually came to more than that, but I returned a couple of new potatoes that turned out to be green when I'd scrubbed them, and they refunded me for the whole lot. Considering they were quite a bit more than twice the price for the same spuds down at the market (where I'd have bought them in the first place, if I'd known we were going to need them) I felt quite justified in returning them when they weren't up to scratch.

This baking lark is costing a bit upfront, but the savings will kick in later. I need to buy a small amount of equipment (which will come from another part of my budget - "household infrastructure") but can mostly bodge it with what I've already got. Once I feel I've really got the hang of it, we shouldn't ever need to buy bread again. What I'm turning out at the moment is reliably good, but not superb, which is what I'm aiming for; I'm hoping to be able to produce a delicious, nutritious, fluffy & crunchy sourdough loaf for the same price as a mid-range supermarket loaf, even counting in energy used. Getting there!

ETA: just worked that out, using the current prices for a) the flour (using Stoates Organic Strong White; wholemeal's a bit cheaper but I tend to use a mix) 90p, salt probably no more than 5p, water 0p as we're not metered, and the 'leccy around 20p, so £1.15. Somewhat cheaper than the bakery's £3.90...

Suffolk_lass

thriftwizard, I recommend buying some wheatgerm to add to your bread - it makes all the difference to the flavour and goodness. I buy mine from Shipton Mill - my old Basic White Bread recipe (with a dough hook) has been in the recipe index at the front for years. I add sourdough from our starter for flavour, and top it with some dried yeast these days, and as you suggest, a mix of flours (and seeds sometimes)

thriftwizard

Thank you, Suffolk lass, I shall certainly try that! However I have to report - I'm going to need more Zaatar. The rolls are so delicious I've eaten two whilst waiting for my soup to heat up! Good job I did a 2.5 mile walk with DD1 first thing this morning...

PipneyJane

Morning All

I have a few spends to report from this week. £8.90 at the farm shop on Saturday, followed by £4.78 in MrT's on Sunday, then an extra $6.08 in Lidl last night. (It's Scottish Week - I went looking for their Haggis pizzas...) That brings our total spend for June to £141.79/£130, so £11.79 over budget so far.

Having broken our budget so early in the month, I think we'll be considerably over come 30th June. DH and I each contributed an extra £10 to the GC kitty last weekend - not counted in the £130 budget above - but that is almost all spent.

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

thriftwizard wrote: »

Thank you, Suffolk lass, I shall certainly try that! However I have to report - I'm going to need more Zaatar. The rolls are so delicious I've eaten two whilst waiting for my soup to heat up! Good job I did a 2.5 mile walk with DD1 first thing this morning...

Have you tried making Zaatar? the recipe looks simple and I have everything in my cupboard except Sumac and most SMs sell that - I was looking at this recipe here

Smoosh

£30.96 on cat food that will last until towards the end of next month.

£91.13 left. Doing the weekly shop tomorrow.

chirpychick

Hey everyone, we were away last week so were working from a different budget. 4 days until payday so far within budget, have £30 left and barely any food in the house.