January 2020 Grocery Challenge

Islandmaid

Gutted, had to bite the bullet and go and buy some easy, bung in the oven food, we are having major renovations done and the kitchen is open to the elements at present, and it’s flipping freezing, I cooked dinner in my coat last night - spent £59.57 in Aldi

Jerk chicken, jacket potatoes and salad tonight

GreenFairy

€62.25 spent over the weekend, between Leeeedil and Marky Sparkies. The first was dairy, bread, fruit and veg, a giant pack of chicken fillets (that I'm not happy with. A couple were whoppers but the rest were teeny! Creative packaging ), pull ups, and lunch things for work for myself and hubs.
Second round was dips and a 3 for 12 deal - posh dogs, and two pulled pork joints that'll do us for about 5 dinners in total.

Still working through the fridge. Lots of ends of jars to use up!

pamsdish

£3.09 on an irrational whim while getting the dogs chicken.

boultdj

Delivery came to £47.20, of which £22 was cat food, fussy furry will normally only eat 2 brands, so grabbed whilst on offer.

candygirl

Got a Morrison's shop coming tomoz, so that will take my total up to £97/120:jI might just do it this month

thriftwizard

Anyone else got any thoughts about the cost/food value trade-off?

Hmm - a subject dear to my heart! Back when the kids were small & we were a household of 7 trying to keep our heads above water on one wage whilst paying what seemed at the time like a horrendous mortgage (peanuts now, of course! And long paid off) we decided that quality of food was one thing we were not prepared to sacrifice, for the sake of everyone's health. Which led us into grow-your-own & cooking-from-scratch, and in the general direction of "frugal" websites & forums - including this one.

Over the years a lot more resources have appeared, and one of the best is Jack Monroe's website & books. Her recipes are very inexpensive and healthy as well as enjoyable. The thing is though, making it yourself... I know it's hard at the end of a long day, but that's the best way to keep control of costs & still provide & enjoy a healthy diet.

Our two daughters, still living at home, have opted to become pescatarians, i.e. they don't eat meat at all, just occasionally fish. But they also (mostly) don't eat branded "vegetarian" food from supermarkets either; they make their own burgers, curries etc. from chickpeas, lentils, beans and the like. So when people say, "But vegetarian food is so expensive!" we just say, "It doesn't have to be..." and to be honest their food is delicious. OH & I don't eat a huge amount of meat; we generally have two main meat meals a week & leftover bits get used up in dishes like omelettes, stir-fries, pasta sauces and with baked potatoes. And I buy meat that I'm sure as I can be has been decently raised & slaughtered, i.e. from a good butcher, who can tell me where it's from. It's not as cheap as supermarket meat but I feel better for it, in more ways than one.

A number of recipes that the girls use come from 1970s cookbooks by Rose Elliot, though they do "tweak" them; they often add halloumi or paneer, for example. And some of the recipes I use have their roots in medieval times! We do a certain amount of fermenting - kimchi, kombucha, kefir, ginger beer (we live in Dorset, it's a tradition...) & sourdough; also preserving. If you do it yourself, rather than buying it ready-made, it's not expensive.

But it does all take time. The results are hopefully healthier, like growing our own organic veg on the allotment. But TBH we'd struggle to do it all if we were both working FT and had small children. The saving grace for us was that we couldn't afford childcare for 5, so I worked very PT back then and am now self-employed, so can carve out the time for gardening, cooking & fermenting/preserving.

Enough! Sorry for the full-length novel. But time is the key element...

Herbyme

Pixie_Fairydust wrote: »

Do you mean this?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2256959/weezls-phase-1-recipe-testing-and-frugalisation-come-one-come-all

Pix :hello:
Xx

Thank you PF,yes that’s it. I see it has 7 of your 5 a day in the plan. That’s impressive within the budget I think

Thanks also tessiebear thriftwizard and mrs Cheshire for your helpful posts. All food for thought !

franby64

Good morning.

Updating as of yesterday. I ended up having another Tesco shop so am well stocked up for basics. Also an Abel and Cole box last Friday which has kept us going for veg for few days.

My aim now is to spend as little as possible. I have some orzo and some pot barley to use up as well as split green peas and green lentils. Is there anything I can do with popcorn apart from pop it? Will have a good look through the recipe pages this morning and find something I haven't done before.

Hope everybody's month is going well.

Suffolk_lass

carolinerunner I think I would just add to thriftwizard's post about cost versus value that I try to keep our meals simple so for example, if I am cooking a scraggy old bit of meat I cook it in a way that slow-cooks it to extract all the flavour - the same with dried things (lentils, chick peas) - I generally cook them for hours and hours.

So for instance if I am doing a veg dish like cauliflower au gratin that will be in the oven for 20 minutes after the initial prep, I use the filling time to good effect. I will add a couple of leeks (from the garden) to the gratin and chop some extra to put in a casserole with carrots and either pulses or meat - typically a piece of reduced shin of beef, or a couple of chicken thighs, and some red lentils, adding seasoning (S&P, chilli flakes), a pinch of herbs, a veg stock pot and water, or stock if I have some handy - then we have tomorrow's dinner ready when we want it (I take my little slow cooker away in the van if we have electric hook up) - I use the simmer or warming oven in my range in winter at home (as this is on all the time and my heating isn't working).

I have also reduced the amount of meat we eat within meals - so 250g of minced beef will make chilli for 4-6 with chopped in carrots, the middle of celery heads (chopped and frozen, or they lurk) and red lentils to pad out what might appear to be meat.

boultdj

A trip into the big town so took advantage and called at the land of ice and got mince beef and chicken breast. So £8 to add.