July 2019 Grocery Challenge

CRANKY40

Good afternoon all,

I've been shopping this morning. My ds (AKA The House Troll, aged 14) and I are going to try to be healthy and lose some weight for the next few weeks. He's only about half a stone overweight but wants to stop it before it becomes a problem. He's going to come running with me in the school holidays which sounds like fun.

Anyhow, my total spend today (which included £1 on jelly for my aunty) was £46.02. I'm happy with that as there wasn't much of anything left in the fridge.

Today's meals :-

Breakfast : Cereal for him, tinned grapefruit for me

Lunch : Ciabatta pizzas (cheese and bacon medallion) made by me with a handful of pringles each, a satsuma for me and 2 mini sausage rolls for him.

Dinner : Chicken fried rice with beansprouts for me (made by me) and skinny meatballs (made by M&S but he only has 3 per meal so one pack lasts ages - still a good few portions on the freezer) with pasta sauce for him.

Supper : a ham salad mini wrap each for both of us.

I've been keeping oranges and satsumas in the fridge while it's been warm. It feels like a treat to have lovely cold fruit and it also seems to have kept them fresh for longer. I've been looking through the Pinch of Nom cookbook for some ideas for new meals. We seem to have got stuck in the "same old, same old" meal routine.

taka I hope you're feeling better today.

thriftwizard

Oooer... £60 spent at the market today, which has formed the basis of our food for the week, although there'll doubtless be a bit more spent on Sunday - 3 mangoes for £1 this morning, they'll be even cheaper then if there are any left, and they dehydrate so well, as well as being lovely in desserts - but also £50 on dried cat food. After I'd hit the "Buy Now" button I realised that we don't have to have just about the most expensive brand any longer, as the cat who was horribly sensitive to grain has passed away now. Yes, it's what the others are used to, but it's not needed in the same way any more. So next time, there's potential to save a bit there, as long as the quality remains high - saves on the vet bills!

So I'll need to rein in a bit for the rest of the month, which is entirely do-able. There's plenty to eat up in the freezer, my bread-making abilities & organisation are improving fairly rapidly and stuff is ripening at the allotment and in the hedgerows.

ETA: and another £15 at the supermarket... last weekend's festivities had run us clean out of sugar, plus I got some jam sugar, and £5.15-worth of stuff I wouldn't otherwise have bought... real discipline called for for the next couple of weeks!

Doom_and_Gloom

We have spent £13.18 since our last post.

2.5kg potatoes (reduced), 985g carrots, 1260g white onions, 855g red onions, 970g courgettes, 1 aubergine, 1 orange pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 470g bananas, 2 mangoes (reduced), 400g strawberries (reduced), 500g medjool dates (reduced), spicy tomato red lentil and red pepper soup (reduced) and Singapore noodles (reduced).

So not too bad. The reduced items were in plastic; I've said before how I believe the waste of food makes it worse in my mind so I'd rather buy and use these items then them be wasted completely. The rest were loose items.

I'm having spicy tomato red lentil and red pepper soup with quinoa for dinner tonight.
OH will be having beef stir fry with Singapore noodles

£102.57/£200.
£97.43 left.

thrifty-hayley

Forgot to list a spend on Monday of £7.09. Was surprised how much I got in iceland for that amount and its seen me through to today. Heading to aldi to do my weekly shop for the coming week so I'll be back on here later no doubt!

CRANKY40

I've been to work today so no food shopping....

Today's meals were :-

Breakfast - cereal for the HT and toast with peanut butter for me
Lunch - ham ciabatta for him with a couple of mini sausage rolls and a packet of crisps, beef ciabatta roll for me with a packet of crisps
Dinner - pulled pork wrap for him (I cook the pulled pork and freeze it in HT sized portions) with fries and chicken fried rice for me (I still had 2/3 of a bag of beansprouts to use up from last night so just had the same again)
Supper - ham wrap for him with a cookie, beef wrap for me with a home made hobnob.

I'm posting what we're eating as this thread used to be full of recipes and cooking advice because people used to post what they were making to stretch the grocery money further rather than just updating their grocery spends once or twice a week. I'm not the best cook or the thriftiest so it would be good to see what other people are eating sometimes (she said hopefully).

thriftwizard

Oooookay... I may bust the budget this month. I nipped down to the market to buy something for the garden (price there, £1, price at garden centre, £3.95) and couldn't resist 4 mangoes for £1, and 2 punnets of strawberries plus 1 of raspberries for £2! The mangoes are in the dehydrator, and the strawberries & raspberries have made 5 pots of jam, with the jam sugar bought the other day.

I'm very lucky that my budgetary limits are self-imposed now & it's not the end of the world if I over-spend a little on excellent bargains like these. Time was, it would have made things difficult for the rest of the month, but luckily I discovered MSE in time!

thrifty-hayley

Another £6.42 spent today taking me up to £32.72 for the month so far. The new "plan" if you can call it that is rather than aiming for £90 to get as far under that as humanly possible. Struggling to make ends meet this month so every little helps.

[Deleted User]

Hi everyone I hope you are all well. Some of you may know that I was in a bad way a few months back, not able to walk etc. I thought i would update and then put closure to it. Following spinal surgery, I was told there was an 80% chance I would not walk properly again, due to permanent nerve damage. After an enormous hissy fit and 'whyyy meeeee', I decided to stay positive. Thankfully, my nerves have fired back into action, so to speak. My surgeon can't believe my recovery - he keeps saying "do you know how lucky you are, this was not meant to happen". I always knew I would recover, I just thought it would take a lot longer. I'm mostly fully recovered. No longer in pain - thankfully - #TheUniverseIsWithinUs #Innit - anywho enough of that

With regards grocery, can I please be put down for £80, from 1st July to 31st. I will update sig on spends so far. Good luck with the flat Elsie.

Cranky - best of luck with your diet - I can highly recommend 'Miracle Noodles' to fill you up and not add calories. I have lost 10lbs - will try n post some meals more often.

Have a lovely rest of w/e everyone xx

Suffolk_lass

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Hi everyone I hope you are all well. Some of you may know that I was in a bad way a few months back, not able to walk etc. I thought i would update and then put closure to it. Following spinal surgery, I was told there was an 80% chance I would not walk properly again, due to permanent nerve damage. After an enormous hissy fit and 'whyyy meeeee', I decided to stay positive. Thankfully, my nerves have fired back into action, so to speak. My surgeon can't believe my recovery - he keeps saying "do you know how lucky you are, this was not meant to happen". I always knew I would recover, I just thought it would take a lot longer. I'm mostly fully recovered. No longer in pain - thankfully - #TheUniverseIsWithinUs #Innit - anywhow enough of that

Cranky - best of luck with your diet - I can highly recommend 'Miracle Noodles' to fill you up and not add calories. I have lost 10lbs - will try n post some meals more often.

How absolutely fantastic for you Save Dosh - I can only imagine the agonies (physical and psychological) you have been through with that.

I agree with CRANKY40 - the strength of this thread is through sharing our approaches. I bought YS meat yesterday (4 grill-steaks) and we had two of them with pumpkin seed rolls from the freezer and homegrown peas with a dob of butter for supper (with homemade wonky courgette soup for lunch). Then went and spoiled the diet by having two of those mock-magnums ice lollies from Morries (£1 for 3) - one each, not 2 for me! :rotfl:. My other offer purchase was 2 sirloin steaks for a fiver in Morries - a real treat as DH retires this week

By the way, if anyone is getting prepped for hols there were some good suncream offers on (my supermarket tells you who is cheapest) - I bought half-priced piz buin factor 50 and 30. It bumped my receipt but a different budget applies.

I also keep buying those cheese straws with parmesan on offer - they make a fantastic accompaniment to soup - not sprinkled, just alongside, in crouton-sized bits.

PipneyJane

Morning All

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Think yourself lucky the "aisle of temptation" did not intervene. I read a FB post this week that went "popped to L*dl for bread and milk. Came back with a two-man tent, a chain-saw and a trumpet!" - always useful, especially the trumpet (for getting people out of your way, perhaps?) :rotfl:

That’s me at Costco. I pop in for a bag of coffee (£7 or £8) and £60 later...

CRANKY40 wrote: »

I've been to work today so no food shopping....

Today's meals were :-

Breakfast - cereal for the HT and toast with peanut butter for me
Lunch - ham ciabatta for him with a couple of mini sausage rolls and a packet of crisps, beef ciabatta roll for me with a packet of crisps
Dinner - pulled pork wrap for him (I cook the pulled pork and freeze it in HT sized portions) with fries and chicken fried rice for me (I still had 2/3 of a bag of beansprouts to use up from last night so just had the same again)
Supper - ham wrap for him with a cookie, beef wrap for me with a home made hobnob.

I'm posting what we're eating as this thread used to be full of recipes and cooking advice because people used to post what they were making to stretch the grocery money further rather than just updating their grocery spends once or twice a week. I'm not the best cook or the thriftiest so it would be good to see what other people are eating sometimes (she said hopefully).

No, I completely understand. I’m pretty poor at posting regularly, so sometimes just do a hit-and-run to record the shopping, but I’ll try to help.

My most recent meal success was on Thursday. After multiple failed attempts, I finally managed to bake a Camembert so that it was molten in the middle. I’ll post the recipe separately.

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Hi everyone I hope you are all well. Some of you may know that I was in a bad way a few months back, not able to walk etc. I thought i would update and then put closure to it. Following spinal surgery, I was told there was an 80% chance I would not walk properly again, due to permanent nerve damage. After an enormous hissy fit and 'whyyy meeeee', I decided to stay positive. Thankfully, my nerves have fired back into action, so to speak. My surgeon can't believe my recovery - he keeps saying "do you know how lucky you are, this was not meant to happen". I always knew I would recover, I just thought it would take a lot longer. I'm mostly fully recovered. No longer in pain - thankfully - #TheUniverseIsWithinUs #Innit - anywho enough of that

Welcome back SaveDosh. Glad to hear your surgery was completely successful.

- Pip