August 2019 Grocery Challenge

zafiro1984

No spends since the 9th as I was over budget for the time of the month. Now back in credit but only by £2. However I have a small shopping list which I shall do later today.
Fruit is definitely on the list, plus potatoes. as I'm still ploughing my way through eggs I need butter, oil, flour to make more cakes and pancake/yorkshire batter - all to be frozen.

On the frozen front I've now got 3 x orange and sultana, 4 x lemon drizzle, 4 x gingerbread - traybakes and all uncooked. I make the cake batter and then freeze it in a plastic bag. It's so easy to get one out of the freezer, let it defrost, pour it out into a tray and put it in the oven. It seems to make no difference to the cake by freezing the batter.

Pancake/Yorkshire mix I do the same but use half the amount of milk stated in the recipe (I add the rest when it is defrosted) this saves on space in the freezer. I use savory pancakes quite a lot and make individual large Yorkshire puddings so that the entire meal goes in the middle of it. They go down a treat and are so simple to do. I've currently got 8 batter mixes in the freezer.

Doom_and_Gloom

We have spent £8.91 since last post.

For me: Silken tofu, 215g white onions, 175g red onions, 1160g red cabbage, garlic bulb, 20g fresh ginger, 285g carrots, 565g brambly apples, 320g bananas, 100g fresh corriander, 2 pak choi, 2 bunches spring onions and a bag of bistro salad.
OH : Large organic eggs, fresh custard and vanilla carte d'Or icecream.

My meals for today go as follow
B : Muesli (with blueberries, cherries, banana, chia seeds and soya yogurt)
L : Tempeh salad.
D : Soba noodle salad.
Snacks : Popped potato chips(bbq flavour), celery with peanut butter.
Drinks : Water, coffee, green tea, lemonade and a couple of screwdrivers :beer:.

OH for dinner will be having cheesy pasta again.

It will be NSD's for Saturday and Sunday. Hoping Monday will be too, we'll see.

£184.45/£200
£15.55 left.

thriftwizard

£61.90 spent between our local market, and the bakery & butcher's down West where my mother lives. That should mostly do us for another week; the plan so far is as follows:

Tonight: pasta bolognese/veggie ragu, with beans
Tomorrow: kedgeree (rice with egg but no fish for the full vegetarian daughter)
Sunday: roast chicken/nut roast & all the trimmings
Monday: butcher's sausages with Oklahoma potatoes
Tuesday: l/o chicken curry with h/m naans etc
Wednesday: likely to be omelette, there are about 30 bantam eggs to use up, and some l/o ham from yesterday
Thursday: baked potatoes & stuffed marrow with anything else leftover!

Breakfasts will be toast/pancakes/h/m buns, and lunches h/m soup (chicken- or vegetable-based!) or salads. Veggies will be whatever's flourishing at the allotment - runner beans, beetroot & chard just now!

I will probably need to buy more bananas, mushrooms & milk mid-week, and possibly order some more flour too. But I'm beginning to believe I can stick inside the budget this month...

zafiro1984

Despite my intentions I didn't go shopping today - I made do :j

FoxFace

Not counting last week... absolute disaster, but we were on holiday so I'm not too bothered

Back on it, budget in hand. Shopping day today and the start of a new week. Have a great day everyone

thrifty-hayley

I've managed to go over budget this month already. I'm on £60/£50 but I had to buy some cleaning stuff and I bulk bought a couple of things I was running out of. Realizing that £50 a month is possible every so often but not sustainable every month. Will readjust for next month

pamsdish

Not been posting my spends, think I am a little embarassed, will total up my bank statement and make a guess.

ditty1234

I am well int the shameful read for this month. After a shop with a list today spending £29 on meat, vege and a lot of dairy we should be good until Wednesday when a small shop might be needed as Thursday is results day and we will probably want to do a small in-house celebration.
So my total is currently £323 for two people. But again the freezer and the fridge is full. It's 12 days till pay day so hopefully the top up and a medium size shop should do the trick.
*Just want to state the fact that last week came in on budget (under £60) One of the reasons is that I did a bif stock up in the beginning of the month dropping £150 in one go.

thriftwizard

Hmm - an unanticipated £10 spend today, on some scrumptious French sausages - one of the traders hopped over on the early boat with his cheese & sausages, and they are a really good buy in terms of deliciousness & the fact that they keep very well & you only need a little bit to flavour an entire dish. So - an investment really.

Plus the £7 spent thus as the greengrocers packed up: £2 on potatoes & sweet potatoes, £1 courgettes (our plants went in late, & were very slow to "take off" - looks like I'll pick the first home-grown golden courgette in a day or two) £1 for a huge bag of mixed salad goodies (a big locally-grown oak leaf lettuce, a vine of 6 big, ripe tomatoes, and several stripey peppers, £1 on a bag of 5 nice fat corn cobs and a whole tray of nectarines for another £1 - I thought that was 24 fruits, but I sliced & packed 24 into the dehydrator and there were still 6 left!

Oooh, and our pudding at lunchtime - as well as cherry ice cream, to use up some cherries left over from last week - was blackberry & apple crumble, made entirely with fruit from our own garden! The blackberries have grown up through the hedge despite my efforts to eradicate the thorny beasties, & are fruiting fit to bust, and there were lots of small-but-edible apples wind-fallen under the Russet in the front garden. So - essentially free!

zafiro1984

Spent 32.17 today, but it's the first shop for a week so I'm quite pleased.
Made myself a list and then forgot to take it. So I'll have to go out in the next couple of days just for custard powder and loo rolls - quite annoyed with myself but I'm still in budget which is surprising.