August 2019 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

Still no spending here - we are very much in clear up mode with some strategic swapping of stuff between freezers. I want to put some ready cooked meals in the nearest freezer to the house so that DS can use these if he wants easy options while house and cat sitting. I also need to leave room for him to freeze tomatoes and other veg. He knows where the beers are :rotfl: - I think there will be lots of yogurt and egg salad today with soup to use up too. The rest will keep or wither quietly while we are away.

Cheapskate

Morning all

Yesterday was an NSD apart from ice creams for all 4 of us from the local shop, £5.55, but it's good stuff! Tea was pasta with sauce made with various bits from the fridge and cupboards, followed by buns I made earlier. As part of the GC and generally saving money (plus eating healthier!), I've stopped buying crisps, biscuits, sweets, chocolate, etc., so the buns were a welcome treat. Kids haven't even commented on no crisps yet, although DD found some lollies (not the frozen kind) left from a party bag, so she, DS, and DH had those last night!

I think tonight's tea will be fridge bottom soup followed by some sort of fruit pie (got some pastry in the fridge and various fruit in the freezer). That will get rid of some frozen veg peelings as well as the fruit, so there will be a bit more space in the freezer. In the unlikely event that there's soup left, it will either be tomorrow's lunch/tea or get frozen for HM fast food.

A xo

FoxFace

Morning all, it's been a busy couple of days here!

Clocking in with another NSD for Sunday, taking me to 3 so far... did my main shop yesterday, spending £38.83p... that's a total of £47.51p for the week (£32.49p remaining). Husband's birthday is on Friday, so will probably spend the last of the budget on something nice to eat then

Doom_and_Gloom

So we have spent another £24.73. That included a tub of ice cream for OH and a box of vegan magnums for me .

My meals for today go as follow
B: Fruit (watermelon, easy peeler, mango and banana) and some soya yogurt.
L: Umeboshi onigiri with a bowl of miso soup.
Tofu and vegetable fajitas
Drinks : coffee, green tea, water.

OH snacks a lot during the day and other than his 3 coffee minimum the only thing I know is he will be having a meat feast pizzas with fries for dinner.

£116.04/£200
£83.96.

Over the last few days I did a complete stock take of our tall freezer. I was honestly shocked at how much is in there (we also have a tall fridge freezer which I need to stock take the 2 freezer draws still and there is only 2 of us!).
Something that really hit me was that there are 15 bfree pizza bases, 4 white rabbit vegan pizzas and 8 packs of bfree wraps (there were 9 but 1 was taken out for fajitas yesterday and for today) in the freezer. All bought reduced but I obviously buy them again reduced before getting through a good amount of them, epp.
Must get through the freezer.

Cheapskate

We didn't have the soup and fruit pie last night (made a sauce to go with pasta instead), so making them tonight. Got rid of at least 6 bags of veg peelings/scraps from the freezer to make veg stock foe the soup, so I can open one freezer drawer properly now! :rotfl:

Also made buns yesterday, aiming to bake at least twice a week instead of buying biccies etc. Stopped buying crisps as well, littlies haven't even commented yet, so not missing them yet. We're eating better, DS and DD are drinking more water or soda water+juice/squash, so I'm happy with that - less carp in their diet!

Small spend today (£7.30) but needed bread, milk, and a couple of other things - still under budget at £30.10 (average budget based on monthly £300 is £9.60 a day), that's good for me! :j

A xo

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here!

Hi guys, I'm all caught up with the thread except for the recipes, I'll come back to those. I'm moved into my lovely home now, still renting but this place just feels like home, I love it so so so much!

My budget got a bit blown over the week of moving etc with a lot of convenience food bought, and whilst I have a lot of cupboard space, I have less than half the fridge space I used to which I'm finding really difficult. Next month I should be able to buy a second hand fridge for about £50 which I will replace the current one with under the counter in the kitchen, and the current one will move to a different place in the house and still be in use. I do have a freezer in the garage too, but I have found I haven't even used that yet. The current fridge is not well designed and also has an ice box, hence the lack of space, so I'm going to try and get what I think is called a larder fridge - ie no ice box!
Until then, I cannot batch prep cold salady/grainy things as there is literally no way of storing them, and I can't do a big shop. So I'm having to go to the shops every few days for fresh bits rather than my old big once a week shop. I'm starting to make it work, but not going to lie, it's stressing me out a bit not being able to batch prep as I'm not wanting hot stews etc in this weather! (although rainy this week so maybe a different story!).

Anyway, I have £71,94 left. I actually increased my budget to £230 when I realised how wrong I'd gone at the beginning. That £71.94 has to last 16 days so sounds totally doable. Don't need any household essentials, I've already bought all those, so it's just food groceries. I am still trying to reduce what I keep in stock although I've vastly reduced it when I moved, but want to keep less of a "selection". So trying to work through stuff! So mostly fresh spends but will need pasta and oats I think.

zafiro1984

elsiepac wrote: »

Budgets updated to here!
Hi guys, I'm all caught up with the thread except for the recipes, I'll come back to those. I'm moved into my lovely home now, still renting but this place just feels like home, I love it so so so much!

Glad to hear the move went well and thanks for running the thread.

No shopping today and I'm keeping a list of items that are very low or have run out. I probably will have to shop Thursday or Friday.

B: porridge
L: toasted ham sandwich using the ham left over from last night. There's a bit left so DH will have it with scrambled eggs tomorrow.
Breaded fish, home grown vegetables, apple and mincemeat crumble with custard. The apples are from last years crop and I made the mincemeat last Christmas and froze it as there is a lot of apple in it.

ditty1234

Hi I have been too scared to post as I went right out and spent most of my budget last week, stocking up for cupboard and freezer items,
Proud that I managed a NSD day today though.
This morning was smoothies from stores
Lunch was whatever's in the fridge
And dinner improved chili from freezer and stores.

Fairie

We managed to survive without going shopping yesterday, though we are completely out of fresh fruit n veg now so will have to get some today.

Slight change to our meals. Monday we had couscous and tinned mackerel as I used the jacket pots on the fish pie last week and it was too hot for casserole. We did have the casserole last night though.

Yesterdays lunch was leftover couscous with various brown freezer bits (veg burger, soya escalope, sausage).

This morning for breakfast I've opened a tin of fruit salad I found in the cupboard. There's cereals too if wanted.

I made soup yesterday with the end of the pots and leeks so that's today's tea, with some homemade garlic bread I've just pulled out of the bread maker. Smells yummy!

I too am running down my fridge/freezer as we are moving it this weekend. It's pretty empty now though, some frozen redcurrants and gooseberrys picked from the allotment in a rush about a month ago,, some ice cream, 4 reduced mini pizzas that the girls and I can have for lunch and 2 varieties of soup (1 orange, 1 green) plus sweetcorn and peas.
Plus a variety of sauce bottles and jam.


Anyone have any ideas for using the frozen redcurrants and gooseberries?

Fairie x

pamsdish

So happy the move went well elsiepac, and you feel at home there, no spends to report.