February 2021 Grocery Challenge

Porridgecat

First proper shop was yesterday, completed as usual by Mr Porridge, £14 at the market on fruit and veg, he said they're stocking less and less each week as they just aren't getting the trade with the town centre being empty in lockdown. I know we sometimes pay a bit more for stuff than L*dl but think its important to keep supporting them as we're already in danger flossing all our independent food traders. He then spent £53 in L*dl but I'm not completely sure on what yet. This comes to a total of £67 just £3 under budget. I also spent £3.60in the week for four l*dl bargains when I stopped in to get a few bits for school, two packs of four pork loin steaks and two packs of two marinated salmon fillets all at 90p each. I've split the pork steaks into two before freezing so its two meals for 45p each.
We had some tonight with some grated parsnips fritters that I made using two of the massive parsnips the neighbour gave us at Christmas, I have loads more to use up still, so a very cheap meal with the last piece of broccoli from last week and some frozen peas.

Money_Choices

Hello everyone
So for this month I’ve spent £60.28/£120.00. This spending was £14.74 at local shop and £45.54 at Asda.
Money Choices

goldfinches

Hi all, have spent a total of £1.86 on milk and yoghurt and got a Sp*rks freebie of cocoa pod caramels which I'm going to use to decorate a cake this Friday. Result!
The milk was y/s organic too. 
I managed to resist various other y/s things too so I now have £12.28 left to last the month. 
New total £103.72/£116.

Florenceem

Too icy to go shopping here in Kent. We usually do our weekly shop on a Monday.

moneyonmymindsam

Just keeping track and not really an mse spend but £20.23 left for this week.

Been to the shop to stock up on milk in case of snow, then picked up dog treats, cans pop and chocolate bars for the treat cupboard.

Spent £4.35 plus carry over 0.42p (eggs) so bit of a splurge but it shall sit in the cupboard for an age until I fancy it.

Sam x

joedenise

With the constant snow I'm glad we went shopping at the end of last week so as to avoid going out this week!  Anything we haven't got we'll have to go without but have plenty of food in the freezers and cupboards.  Certainly don't want to go out - it's horrible outside.

Doom_and_Gloom

£4.47 spent today.
Graham's organic gold top milk (closest to what he gets from A&C), tomato and mozzarella tortellini and three bottles of vegan milk (reduced).

OH dinner - Beef stew and mashed potato.
My dinner - Vegetable curry (made with yellow split peas) and baked sweet potato.

£105.43/£150.
£44.57 left.

Suffolk_lass

PipneyJane said:

Good afternoon All

How’re is your February going?  Are you coping with the bad weather, the never-ending Lockdown and the inevitable tightening of belts?  I’ve always found February to be a tougher month, financially, than January.  In January, you run out of cash early because you were paid before Christmas and end up in debt/overdue on payments; February is when those debts have to be paid back.   (Things are much better for us now, but it’s one of my motivations for doing the Grocery Challenge.)

I have a couple of spends to declare from this past week.  The C0-0p had an offer:  spend £15 and get £1.50 off.  Another one of their offers was 50p off their fresh pastries/quiches/pies.. Our local C0-0P is too small to do a proper shop, so taking advantage of the first offer required a bit of planning.  After checking out what they had available meat wise - no YS items - in the end, we decided to buy two large Steak Pies - really good quality - at £3.70 each, a couple of pizzas and a bottle of wine, with the “Date Night Fund” coughing up to pay for the latter items.  The pies got allocated all the discounts, so £5.40 was spent from the Grocery Challenge money.  One pie will be dinner tomorrow night, while the other is now in the freezer.  (Date Night on Saturday was pizza, red wine and three episodes of The Mallorca Files.)

Yesterday, we drove to MrT’s and stocked up on the items we can’t buy in L!dl.  £40.70 spent.  Their 4 tins-chopped-tomatoes-for-£1 offer is back.  They also had a half-price Clubcard offer of 3 packet of Kleenex tissues for £2.50, which is cheaper than we’d normally pay in C0stc0, so I picked up 2 lots.

Throw in the £2 spent on crisps today - so that DH has something to nibble on while he’s watching the Super Bowl tonight and chatting to his mates doing the same, via SKYPE - and the above brings our Grocery Challenge spend for February to £81.86/£142.30, leaving £60.44 for the rest of the month.

We also went to the Butchers’ yesterday, spending £55.70 from the Meat Fund.  Since our meat shopping is all about getting the biggest bang for our buck, I thought I’d share what we bought, what the plans are for it and how many portions we’ll get.  The butcher doesn’t do an itemised bill, so I’m only recording prices where I saw them and can remember them.  Remember, there’s only two of us in this household.

1 large roasting chicken - £7.99 - dinner tonight (we’ll eat the legs), chicken fajitas on Tuesday and chicken risotto on Wednesday.  That’s at least 10 portions, plus stock.  

1kg minced beef - at least 16 portions when padded out with veg, lentils/beans, etc

1 rolled, stuffed, boned breast of lamb 1.2kg - £13.60 - minimum of 4 portions of roast lamb.  The butcher cut it in half for us, so we have two roasts.

8 chicken breasts, average weight 200g each - between 16 to 32 portions, depending on whether I double up in a recipe.   I usually only use one in a stir fry or chicken pasta dish that serves 4.

8 large chicken thighs - 8 portions of chicken tray bake.  

4 pork chops - two will definitely be served as chops, while the other two may get chopped up to make pork-and-beans and a stir-fry.  Either 4 or 10 portions, depending on the outcome.

That’s between 54 and 80 portions of meat-based meals.  As I said, it’s all about getting the biggest bang for our meat-buck.

With the exception of tonight’s roasting chicken, I have just finished shoehorning it all into the freezer.  Everything has been “bagged and tagged”.  I had to do it in stages to maximise space/freeze things in shapes that will stack and fit together, especially since the freezer was pretty full already with lunchboxes, tubs of soup/cooked pulses/homemade ready meals and sauces, not to mention the haggis that threatens to leap out at you... The mince was divided into 4 and carefully stuffed into freezer box to form 4 rectangles.  The chicken breasts and chops were bagged separately and frozen to be as flat as possible.  The chicken thighs were bagged in fours, while the lamb was stood on its end, to freeze upright.  

As you can see, once again, I win at freezer Tetris.

• Pip

Some top tips in here Pip - lots that others could learn from

zafiro1984

Help.
I'm self isolating so do not go out to the supermarkets but have online deliveries. I've come across Morrisons 'food boxes' which sound as if they would suit. 
I've logged in selected a veg box but I cannot see anywhere to select a delivery or pay for it. I've emailed them but had no reply. 
Has anyone tried their boxes and any idea where I'm going wrong? thanks

Pixiehouse55

Big shop done for the month. £150.35 at Asda and £12 on Amazone for toilet wipes(10 packs) Our Freezers are still pretty packed so food shop was dried foods and fridge stuff. Using loads of full fat milk at the moment for our gent who is poorly. 
We do need to get fruit and veg still