November 2020 Grocery Challenge

K9sandFelines

joedenise said:

Change of plan and decided to pop to Aldi today instead.  Small spend of just over £6 in there plus £2.40 in Mr Ts for tahini as planning on making some hummus.  Chickpeas have been soaking since last night so will get those cooked shortly and then make the hummus.  Will only make half quantity as there's just the 2 of us now; the other half I'll make some falafel with but the recipe I use doesn't require them to be cooked before making, just baked once everything has been whizzed together.  Both make nice snacks for the evening.

Would you be kind enough to share your falafel recipe please? I'm the opposite and only seem to find ones with dried chickpeas. I haven't had success making them so far, and yet they should be so easy 🙄

joedenise

@K9sandFelines - I make the hummus using a recipe with dried chickpeas - I've adapted a recipe from this website:
https://toriavey.com/?s=falafel.  I follow Slimming World so rather than frying as they should be I make small balls and flatten slightly and then bake until lightly golden, about 20 minutes at 200 degrees.  They need to be quite soft once baked as they firm up quite quickly.

K9sandFelines

That's great, hopefully they will be successful this time.

mumtoomany

Top up again, needed fruit and milk. Also glace cherries and nuts for Christmas cake. Total spend £16.21. Now at £141.37/£200.

Frugalistamama

So it's the end of my month and have done very badly.... In my defence lockdown was coming and I kind of felt I needed to add to the stores but I didn't go bananas! So my target was £200 for 2 adults 2 kids. It's fairly low but I was intending to run down stores. I spent  £313.94.... very bad frugalling. So this month I'm giving myself some leeway and will set a budget of £300. Xxx

thriftwizard

Just added £92.05 to my total, £70 spent at the market yesterday, £9.50 at the bakers & £12.55 at the supermarket mid-week, bringing us up to £275.05. £124.95 left for the rest of the month... £60 weekly mental target figure for me to aim for! We do have plenty in, I'm still running two freezers & there's quite a lot up at the allotment still, but will the other members of the household squawk if I cut back on the fresh stuff? Do I care if they do?!

peb

Shopped Thursday as usual. However instead of heading to Lidl for eight now I'm working I went to Morrisons at 5.30 ish. Was sort of thinking that there may be some yellow stickers, only on bread and potatoes but hey, I'll take it!  Definitely more expensive than a Lidl shop and as they had sold out of some things (strawberries for dad and black treacle for a friend), I had to call in at the little ASDA in the village.  Tidal spent £21.02 which includes bread got last Sunday however not Chocolate eclair sweets which should really be on here 🙄

Running total for the month £34.04 and £21.03 is £55.07.  two more shops so should be under target.  

quintwins

gemmm said:

Well...this is a lot harder than I thought!

Haven’t been very good at keeping my receipts from small shops so I’m afraid I’ve definitely missed some spends. 

I use an app on my phone and always mark down my totals as soon as I come out of a shop. We budget everything together.

I went Christmas present shopping on Friday and I picked up snacks bits and household bits while I was at it. Plus we got another good to go bag. So my total sits at £194.87/£450

Suffolk_lass

My total for the week is £5.70 for milkman. I will need to go shopping this week for bowl fruit, yogurt, butter, and fresh veg. I might try the other Morries as our local one is in a decidedly hot spot. It will probably be Wednesday as we can manage until then. £58.36 spent so far

PipneyJane

quintwins said:

gemmm said:

Well...this is a lot harder than I thought!

Haven’t been very good at keeping my receipts from small shops so I’m afraid I’ve definitely missed some spends. 

I use an app on my phone and always mark down my totals as soon as I come out of a shop. We budget everything together.

Hi @gemmm.  I use the free spreadsheet app that came with my phone and iPad.  (It’s called “Numbers”.  It’s not as good as Excel, but it does the job.). Like @quintwins, I’ll add in the details of a shop as soon as possible after I’ve walked out of that store.  Every month, I copy over the previous month’s tab, delete the details and start again.   There’s a total at the top and a simple formula that tells me how much I have left.

Did anyone else get a L!dl magazine through their letterbox earlier this month?  There’s a Spend-£40-Get-£5-Off voucher inside, valid until 9th December.   It’s going to take me some planning to utilise that in full.  

- Pip