August 2020 Grocery Challenge

mumtoomany

Hello all, went to do the month's big shop yesterday. Spent £121.52/£200. This includes non-food, e.g. nappies, toilet roll 3rd and beer for OH. Hopefully not much else needed for rest of month. However many visitors due to come here this month to stay. Mumtoomany.

JingsMyBucket

Hey @PipneyJane! New Yorkers are for the most part coping and it really was a pall of death around the city when we were in the thick of it. Sirens every minute from ambulances carrying patients, literally. My neighbourhood is a hotspot too and I’m trying to be careful in terms of walking around for exercise or going to markets. There are several open fruit and veg markets here where people crowd around so I’m trying to avoid them as much as possible. Hence, why my food bills are a bit higher. I’m going to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s where the spacing is better. 

As for NYC on the whole, the situation is much better but we’re all scared about people bringing it back from the dumb states that didn’t quarantine properly like Florida, Georgia, and Texas. There’s a lot of passage between New York and those states due to vacations or retirees (snow birds). Good thing is local government is enforcing quarantines in quarantine hotels if you fly into airports like JFK or LaGuardia but people crossing state borders by land (driving in, trains or busses) are harder to monitor. Between them and the annoying 20-somethings that keep throwing mass parties, we’re bracing for a second wave to hit us here in NYC. 😕

Doom_and_Gloom

Chloris said:

Love your meal plan. Beautifully constructed with intentional leftovers creating the next meal.

Thank you, it took me a bit of time to sort out. Thankfully I don't mind eating the same, or similar meals for days. Not only will it help with budget but as I'm disabled the OH ends up cooking from time to time if I'm unable and having a meal plan means he knows if it's a meal to make or a reheat. Todays chili was done in the pressure cooker though and I was able to do it. 

£10.02 spent today. 

OH is having cheesy pasta today for dinner. For lunch earlier while I was at work he had a bacon sandwich. 

£24.96/£155.
£130.04 left. 

Bang on budget right now. 

Chloris

@Doom_and_Gloom the best meals are tweaked leftovers; lasagna, shepherd's pie, pie, bubble and squeak, burritos.... I'm always either batch cooking or using intentional leftovers. Which brings me to a question 🙂

I've started making pies for my family again. A simple puff pastry with sauce and fillings, chicken for our meat eaters and frozen Quorn pieces with frozen peas/sweetcorn for our vegans. As it's the summer, I have been making them when they are on the plan but when I go back to work, I'd like a batch to be pulled out of the freezer for quick meals. So my question is, can I make a pie with frozen Quorn so it will inevitably defrost a bit, not cook but refreeze really quickly? I know with meat this would be a big no but I wonder if I can get away with it with vegan Quorn (no egg.)

On the money front, I've shopped at salnsbuys, lldl, hb and our local Japanese shop (sushi ingredients!) It's been my stock ahead for the month shop so lots of cleaning products, ketchup, pasta etc. Total so far of £134.53/550. I still need to pick up shampoo from superdrug, I'm going to try their vegan range, and pay the milkman this week so it will go up. X

Suffolk_lass

I can't help @Chloris re freezing Quorn - I can't eat it as it's a microprotein from fungus.

I have just been shopping, first time for August and spent £45.17 mostly on fruit, veg and dairy stuff but just over £20 on stores (included a special shampoo for £8.50 [eek]. Most stuff will come from the garden this month but I am a sucker for nectarines and cherries

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass said:

I can't help @Chloris re freezing Quorn - I can't eat it as it's a microprotein from fungus.

I have just been shopping, first time for August and spent £45.17 mostly on fruit, veg and dairy stuff but just over £20 on stores (included a special shampoo for £8.50 [eek]. Most stuff will come from the garden this month but I am a sucker for nectarines and cherries

@Suffolk_lass.  Where did you find Eek?  How do you make him work?  Do you go to HTML view and post in a script?

- Pip

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

@Doom_and_Gloom great meal plan - I really need to sort out my eating, I've gained so much weight due a combination of factors but just can't seem to get my head round a sensible meal plan!
@Chloris honestly I would be fine with using frozen vegan Quorn, cooking in a sauce and then freezing that.  I'm sure I've done similar loads of times!
Pretty sure I've gone mad on food shopping this month - I don't think I set a budget yet so I'm going to catch up on my finances and see where I am, then set a budget for the rest of the month.
I'm feeling really out of control in many ways at the moment and everything just feels quite overwhelming.

boultdj

First delivery order of the month, came to £40.44, leaves me £236.17 for the rest of the month.

Suffolk_lass

PipneyJane said:

Suffolk_lass said:

I can't help @Chloris re freezing Quorn - I can't eat it as it's a microprotein from fungus.

I have just been shopping, first time for August and spent £45.17 mostly on fruit, veg and dairy stuff but just over £20 on stores (included a special shampoo for £8.50 [eek]. Most stuff will come from the garden this month but I am a sucker for nectarines and cherries

@Suffolk_lass.  Where did you find Eek?  How do you make him work?  Do you go to HTML view and post in a script?

- Pip

I copied him from someone else's post - @Pyxis knows the answer. I have just copied the unicode into my signature if you want it (you should be able to copy and paste it)

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

I need help.  We are a family of 3 adults and a dog and despite cooking from scratch, me being mostly vegetarian and growing some of our own food, my spend is creeping up, over £100 a week recently.  I used to be a pro at mealplanning and only buying what I needed but since lockdown this seems to have gone out of the window.  I am trying for £350 this month for the 1st to 31st.  I am going off to do an inventory of my dried food cupboard.  Thanks for the recipes at the beginning of the thread, fab idea.