September 2019 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Firstly, Elsiepac, I’m sorry but I had £1.20 to roll forward from last month, so I’m upping my Grocery Challenge budget to £121.20.

Also, I have three shops to declare tonight: a visit to the farm shop (£6.40 spent), £26.04 spent in MrT’s and £22.48 spent in Lidl. This brings our spend for the month to £54.92/£121.20, leaving £66.28 for the remainder of the month.

(The Bulk fund also coughed up £3.50 for 10kg chapatti flour in MrT’s and £7.44 for 24 cans of sweetcorn in Lidl - cheapest at 31p/can - but that’s from a different pot.)

Merlin’s Beard, the Pipi-An recipe is on my blog somewhere. I’ll dig it out tomorrow and post it on here.

Soworried wrote: »

Hi Can I be in with a budget of £240 please?

I was made redundant yesterday and my husband can't work so we will literally have zero income if I don't find work in the next 7 weeks

Going to make a freezer/cupboard list to meal plan from. I'll do the first shop today

Oh, Hun! I’m so sorry to hear your news. You must be shellshocked! If we can help with concocting meals from weird and wonderful ingredients from the back of the store cupboard, please ask.

Whatever else happens, sign on ASAP - you can do it online - and make sure you’re claiming all the benefits available to you and your husband. Your GP’s surgery may be able to help, since I’m assuming your husband can’t work due to a medical condition/disability. (Nearly 30 years ago, when I worked in Radiotherapy, we had a dedicated social worker who would work miracles finding benefits and accessing funds for our cancer patients. I have no idea what help is available now but your GP Surgery probably have the right contacts.)

- Pip

thriftwizard

£24.92 spent this weekend, £5.50 on rolls & fresh bread from the new baker up town, £10.42 at the butchers; I only went in for some bacon, but they had a beautiful piece of skirt of beef on display, and it was a great bargain, so I snapped that up for the freezer as skirt's not always easy to find.

And £9 at the market this lunchtime, £5 of that for an whole box of beautiful small strawberries - 8 x 500g punnets - of which just one strawberry had to be ditched, the rest were perfect. That's made 10 pots of jam (3 of them 2lb pots) filled 4 trays of the dehydrator, made a batch of ice-cream (some of which was enjoyed with the windfall apple & blackberry crumble this evening) and there's still half a punnet left. The rest was £2 for spuds, £1 for a melon & a pineapple, and £1 for 5 x locally-grown corn on the cob, which are ripe & sweet & very fresh just now.

So I've spent a little more than I would have liked at this point in the month, and will need to pop down to L!dls tomorrow for a few non-perishable items too, but it's definitely worth spending a little extra sometimes - provided you can without stressing the budget - to take advantage of genuine bargains.

ETA: What a scary moment for you, Soworried; fingers crossed you find something soon. Munchkinsmum, personally I don't think £600 is outrageously high for 6 people plus 2 cats; I'm going for £420 for 4 adults (variable at weekends) 3 cats, 2 cockatiels and 14 chickens, which is just about equivalent. I've been budgeting, cooking from scratch & meal-planning for many years; I know I could do it cheaper if I had to, but many years ago OH & I agreed that quality is key when it comes to food, provided the money's there. We all have different budgets, tastes & red lines, and many of my RL friends spend much more than I do to feed fewer mouths, so I don't think you're doing too badly!

Edited again to add: just discovered I'm feeding 10 next weekend. Eek... that's going to put a bit of a dent in the budget!

taka

Can I be put down for £150 for september please elsiepac? I really don't want to spend anywhere near this (I managed £128.95 in July and £118.21 in Aug) but I want to leave things loose enough so I can stock up on a bunch of things.

I hope you find something soon soworried.

debtfreeforlife

Hi everyone, first spends of the month for me! From my budget of £200 I have so far spent £62.32. That includes an online bulk buy of at least a month's worth of tinned beans etc, plus a few pricier luxuries that will last several months, and fresh veg for this week. I'm aiming for one spend tomorrow as I need tofu and dairy free yoghurt but after that I"m aiming for no food spends until Friday. I'm going to my parents' for the weekend while they're away but hoping I can eat from the freezer rather than buy much. Soaking lentils and buckwheat overnight to cook quickly tomorrow morning, and that plus some frozen beans, sweetcorn and fresh salad will cover all my lunches this week. Not decided on dinners yet but the freezer is stocked and needs running down so I can defrost it.



Hope everyone is ok, and soworried I am so sorry to hear your news - keeping everything crossed that you find something soon.

joedenise

Can I come back please? I used to regularly take part in the challenge but things are getting a bit out of hand and need to cut back. Would like to go for £200 for the month.

I did a big butchers order last month so the outside chest freezer is fairly well stocked as well as the inside fridge/freezer. Need to do some shopping tomorrow for a few bits including some potatoes & onions - can't be without either of those! Also more eggs of which we eat loads!

I do my main shop on a Thursday with a top up either Monday or Tuesday. I'm sure if I could cut out the top up shop I could stick to budget better but I always seem to run out of something before Thursday!

Denise

susan946

Soworried wrote: »

Hi Can I be in with a budget of £240 please?

I was made redundant yesterday and my husband can't work so we will literally have zero income if I don't find work in the next 7 weeks

Going to make a freezer/cupboard list to meal plan from. I'll do the first shop today

So sorry to hear this Soworried, hope you find work really soon.

I'm not feeling too good at the moment following some minor surgery on Saturday so I asked hubs to get a few bits for me including nectarines. He came home with clementines swearing blind they were nectarines. In all he spent £5.71 on custard powder (he bought Birds, I'd have bought Tesco), clementines, bananas and cream. the bananas had been put in the bottom of the bag and they were squished as he'd thrown in some tins on top of them. And he wonders why I don't trust him to get the shopping!!

For lunch I made tomato soup using stock from a chicken carcass, carrot, celery, garlic and onion with a tin of tomatoes and a tin of lentils and a couple of veg stock cubes. Delicious with a slice of melted cheese on toast. For supper hubs will have a lamb steak and I'll have a salmon steak from the freezer with beans and potatoes, followed by plum crumble and custard.::T:T

So that leaves me with £312.81 for the rest of the month.

Chloris

I've had a few spends already this month, kids lunches, zero waste shop for shampoo and conditioner, tsco for fruit and veg, sinsburys for cleaning stuff, rice noodles, f&v and the special offer alpro milk my dh drinks. Grand total so far of £54.14. This is going to be tough.

On a positive note, I foraged a large bag of Victoria plums which should make 12 portions of crumble plus topping our morning porridge. I've also made flapjack (saving buying snack bars for my dh packed lunch) and tea tonight was Jack Monroe's red lentil and mandarin curry with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I'm planning a baking session tomorrow morning as I need to make ds2 birthday cake. I don't really enjoy baking, I'm more of a savoury cooker.

Chloris

Does anyone know how flapjack freezes? I'm hoping to hide some for next weeks packed lunches

joedenise

Chloris wrote: »

Does anyone know how flapjack freezes? I'm hoping to hide some for next weeks packed lunches

Yes you can. Wrap in greaseproof paper first and then seal in a freezer bag. They keep quite well in a tin (if they get left alone!) for a couple of weeks.

Denise

Luciecat63

Could I please come in with £175 for September? I have a good stock of food in but will need washing liquid and loo rolls this month.