December 2020 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

£1.50 fruit and veg box?!?!?! What is this you speak of?! I have a local Lidl but I've never seen that - what do you get in it?

thriftwizard

Wish we had a local L!dls; our nearest is 4 miles away, down in the city, and I never see those boxes as I'm only down there in the middle of the day.

Anyway, £4.74 added today for milk, carrots, bananas & supermarket bread, for OH, who finds the crusts on baker's bread too tough for his teeth. I will need to go up to town again on Wednesday or Thursday, as the health food shop didn't have what I was looking for but expect it in sometime tomorrow & will keep it in for me (a probiotic to keep things regular over the festive period!) - hopefully we won't run out of anything else in the meantime!

MazzieD

elsiepac said:

£1.50 fruit and veg box?!?!?! What is this you speak of?! I have a local Lidl but I've never seen that - what do you get in it?

This is a 5kg box of slightly past it's best fruit and veg so contents vary from day to day.  It's the Lid! version of "Too good to waste", rather than chuck out fruit  and veg that is slightly battered or bruised  but still edible they sell it between 8am and 12 noon.  Any unsold boxes then get distributed to worthy causes.  It's on the main MSE site in the Supermarket coupons section if you want to have a look at a typical box and read the article.  Sorry I'm not technical enough to post a link.

joedenise

@elsiepac Lidl have £1.50 boxes of fruit and veg - no guarantees what will be in them but you can see what there is when you look.  You will find them beyond the tills so you need to go and have a look on the shelf to see if there are any and then go through and decide whether or not you want one - what you get really depends on what they have which is getting beyond its best, although having said that when I've managed to get one the fruit and veg has been fine.  Think I've only ever thrown away one orange which had gone mouldy; another time I ended up giving away a couple of packs of eating apples and a bag of clementines as there were just too many for DH and I to eat - there were 5 packs of 6 apples and 4 bags of clementines.

@thriftwizard - count yourself lucky - my nearest supermarket is 8 miles away and Lidl's is 15 miles away in the opposite direction!  So as I have to drive anyway I generally alternate between the 2!

quintwins

Spent £18.57 today in Asda on bits we needed for lunches and toilet roll. spent £21 on a takeaway over the weekend and £3 in the filling station. my total is now £203.22!!! I'm not gonna Liw it's not looking good!

Mrs_Cheshire

Smoosh said:

This week's meal plans:
Saturday: camembert spaghetti with bacon, cranberry sauce and brussel sprouts
Sunday: vegetarian toad in the hole with broccoli cheese and peas
Monday: sausage casserole with mash and peas
Tuesday:  sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice
Wednesday: soy noodles with chicken, broccoli and beansprouts
Thursday: peanut butter curry with rice, pepper, baby corn, broccoli and beansprouts
Friday: fish, bsby potatoes and peas
Saturday: veggie chilli on nachos with Refried beans, sour cream and cheese

Breakfasts: porridge, and brioche and bananas for me. Granola bars and brioche and pears for OH. 

Lunches: soup and cheese salad wraps for me. Soup, ham and mash, and coronation chicken wraps for OH.

For snacks we have cereal bars, crisps, popcorn bars and cheese.

£113.45/300

Like the sound of the dinner on Saturday. Never tried camembert with spaghetti

Suffolk_lass

Suffolk_lass said:

We cancelled our planned shopping trip to the market as we were in the midst of a blizzard (!) so our only spend so far is £5.70 on milk that is delivered. I will need to go Monday (quiet day) so I need to review stores and build a list. I just hope there is cat litter!

Yay, got cat litter (wanders off, little things please little minds, tum-te-tum)

Seriously, very low stock on a number of things I wanted to get this time rather than on the click and collect I have booked for 22nd. I spent nearly a hundred pound on fresh stuff that will last most of the month, with a F&V top up and the turkey from the butcher.

Oh yes, our local Morries has the chocolate chip panetone from their fresh bakery counter. Just had a bit with a cup of coffee on my return - I can highly recommend

Smoosh

Mrs_Cheshire said:

Smoosh said:

This week's meal plans:
Saturday: camembert spaghetti with bacon, cranberry sauce and brussel sprouts
Sunday: vegetarian toad in the hole with broccoli cheese and peas
Monday: sausage casserole with mash and peas
Tuesday:  sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice
Wednesday: soy noodles with chicken, broccoli and beansprouts
Thursday: peanut butter curry with rice, pepper, baby corn, broccoli and beansprouts
Friday: fish, bsby potatoes and peas
Saturday: veggie chilli on nachos with Refried beans, sour cream and cheese

Breakfasts: porridge, and brioche and bananas for me. Granola bars and brioche and pears for OH. 

Lunches: soup and cheese salad wraps for me. Soup, ham and mash, and coronation chicken wraps for OH.

For snacks we have cereal bars, crisps, popcorn bars and cheese.

£113.45/300

Like the sound of the dinner on Saturday. Never tried camembert with spaghetti

It's a bit naughty but sooo delicious. 

goldfinches

Spent £5.30 today on y/s cottage cheese, y/s rocket, y/s mushrooms, y/s coriander and a packet of the veggie Richmond sausages as I've never yet tried them and this was the first time I'd seen them on a shelf too. Although at £2.50 for a pack of 8 I'm rather hoping that I don't like them!
Anyway that means that I've spent £65.16/£152 this month. Just have to buy more milk, yoghurt, cranberry juice and radishes tomorrow and then I'm set for the next 7 days so I'm trying to be very firm with myself about not doing any shopping between tomorrow and 15th.

Doom_and_Gloom

Happydenial - it is a shame the boxes can not be sent back to reuse, especially as they have their logo on it but as we have a chinchilla he will enjoy using the box as a hideaway during out time until we either recycle it or compost it. 

Goldfinches you may be interested in the following. 
I got the large fruit and vegetable box and in the next three pictures (sorry I couldn't find a space to fit it all in one photo) are what I received (and I'm going to put why they where in the box as it makes me scratch my head at points to be honest) :

8 clementines - cosmetic defects??
6 apples - shape, size, cosmetic defects, surplus. 
2 pomegranates - size, cosmetic defects?
1 pineapple - surplus. 
2 cucumbers - surplus. 
Rocket - surplus. 
5 avocados - surplus. 
3 parsnips - surplus. 
3 rainbow carrots - size, cosmetic defects??
7 potatoes - surplus. 
6 beetroot - size? 
Celeriac - surplus. 
Cauliflower - surplus. 

This pertucular box is usually £19.99 and I think this is good value. Not only that but I cannot believe that this food would be wasted otherwise, avocados and pineapples for example are usually flown from their country of origin which adds to the waste aspect if they are not consumed. While I do prefer to buy organic where possible (for environmental aswell as health reasons) I believe that saving perfectly edible food is important and certainly for the environment is the best thing to do.
Sure there are some, very small, cosmetic blemishes on some of the produce and yes some isn't the size you'd expect to see in the supermarket but I honestly don't see anything wrong with this produce. 

Spent since last post £47.20. That was between A&C, Oddbox and a small Mr S shop.

£163.71/£350.
£186.29 left.