February 2022 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

Hello everyone and a big welcome to all who are new to GC threads.

@elsiepac, I'm sorry to be so late joining this month, I've been under the weather for ages and have let things slip a bit. Thankyou for setting the thread up for this month.

Could you please put me down for 

£112 for the calendar month for all food and household items and £5 per Wednesday for baking.

This is for one vegetarian adult with no pets and is based on a budget of £4 per day.

I also have a bulk fund but am considering increasing that monthly amount slightly in order to buy staples in larger quantities so will not include it here for now but may change this later on in the year.

joedenise

esjw said:

£103.78/£475.00 spent so far.

Made the mistake of shopping while hungry - mince pie chocolate digestive anyone? (60p pkt)  Looking forward to haggis for lunch tomorrow (75p).

How does everyone organise their freezers and keep track of the contents? I have a 4 drawer upright and a large chest freezer. If you speak to OH the chest freezer is a black hole and he can never find anything. Have a couple of days off work this week so going to have a sort through them.

I'm the same but with a 3 drawer upright freezer and an outside chest freezer.  The inside one is easy enough to organise - I have veg in the top drawer, meat and HM ready meals in the middle one and fish and fruit in the bottom drawer.

The chest freezer is much harder, particularly as I can't reach the bottom so I use different coloured carrier bags and tie top bin liners - chicken in one, burgers, bacon, sausages in another, spare bags of veg in another etc.  Much easier to check the bags for what I want than rummaging around to find what I want.

I use the baskets at the top to keep more HM ready meals, soups etc.

I use the shelf at the side to freeze stuff as it's much colder than the rest of the freezer.

Keeping track is a different matter!

HTH

wannalot

Hello all, 

I got my first grocery shop for Feb yesterday, a Tesco delivery. There’s enough veg now to do me for at least 10 days, and the fridge is generally packed full. 

I’m going to try to fit in some batch cooking around work today (i.e. lunchtime and after work). I’ll slow cook ox cheeks (from the freezer) and a low carb chilli bake, although Tesco annoyingly failed to deliver the cheese I ordered,  so the latter may be made without the topping, and frozen. 

Anyway, the ox cheeks will provide a few main meals and I’ve got a chicken for later in the week, which will provide meals for at least another four main meals.

no spends for me now until Saturday, when I’ll shop for cheese, milk and any yellow stickers I think will be useful.

i suspect I’ll find it hard to stick to the budget I set for this month, but I think even just trying is good for self-discipline!

Have a good day all!

DawnW

My month will run from today till the 28th. I shall need a few fresh bits this week, but not much, as I had an Icyland delivery yesterday. I spent £268.37 in January, on toiletries, food, cleaning products, dog food and OH's beer (he only has a few cans a week from Lidl) and this total includes a couple of bulk buys, but this needs to come down! As it is a short month and I am well stocked up, it should be relatively easy.

Hummingbird0_12

I would like to join properly this month after trying to keep track last month. My budget will be £150 for the month which is for myself and my dog, this is to include basic toiletries and cleaning products as well 
I'm aiming to include any snacks and drinks  bought out too. May go over as this is my first month of trying😊 but will do my best!

Suffolk_lass

joedenise said:

esjw said:

£103.78/£475.00 spent so far.

Made the mistake of shopping while hungry - mince pie chocolate digestive anyone? (60p pkt)  Looking forward to haggis for lunch tomorrow (75p).

How does everyone organise their freezers and keep track of the contents? I have a 4 drawer upright and a large chest freezer. If you speak to OH the chest freezer is a black hole and he can never find anything. Have a couple of days off work this week so going to have a sort through them.

I'm the same but with a 3 drawer upright freezer and an outside chest freezer.  The inside one is easy enough to organise - I have veg in the top drawer, meat and HM ready meals in the middle one and fish and fruit in the bottom drawer.

The chest freezer is much harder, particularly as I can't reach the bottom so I use different coloured carrier bags and tie top bin liners - chicken in one, burgers, bacon, sausages in another, spare bags of veg in another etc.  Much easier to check the bags for what I want than rummaging around to find what I want.

I use the baskets at the top to keep more HM ready meals, soups etc.

I use the shelf at the side to freeze stuff as it's much colder than the rest of the freezer.

Keeping track is a different matter!

HTH

I've got a catering upright freezer in the outhouse, full of homegrown veg and fruit.

I have a chest freezer in the cart lodge that usually has meat, bread and treats like icecream and ice bags in (currently has butter, Christmas chocolate chip panettone and overspill veg from the garden too) and these are organised is baskets in "regions". There is one drop in wire basket that has all the stuff I am wanting to use first.

My indoor freezer is four small drawers, bottom (smallest) with cheese, ice and orange and lemon slices in t/away boxes, number 3 is opened veg (peas, corn, chips), bag of homegrown chillies and bits like prepped squash. Drawer 2 is meat and fish. Drawer 1 is ice cream, frozen peas for icing injured people's bits, a bag of berries and some ready-mix crumble, frozen puff pastry and the collar for instantly chilling a bottle of wine

I also have a fridge freezer in the toolshed (beer and wine fridge !!) and the freezer has prepared elderflowers (for cordial) and seville oranges (someone bought me some the same day I found them last year, so I prepped them all but froze half - one household with few visitors can only really eat so much marmalade.

I keep telling myself that I am paying the SM to store their stuff but actually, over half is homegrown now. That said, my siege mentality probably means I should move (to somewhere where my stockpiling might be more appreciated). The last siege in Suffolk was very possibly 1240 (Framingham Castle) although Colchester was 1648 - so maybe not quite so much in stock

joedenise

First shop of February today of £15.34 which leaves £234.66.  Have also spent some of the bulk fund which I don't keep track of on here but it's well within budget.

Doom_and_Gloom

esjw said:

How does everyone organise their freezers and keep track of the contents? I have a 4 drawer upright and a large chest freezer. If you speak to OH the chest freezer is a black hole and he can never find anything. Have a couple of days off work this week so going to have a sort through them.

We bought a roll of whiteboard and stuck it on the freezer - an upright that is 175cm tall I believe. The fridge freezer has a blackboard version down it. We have a cup with white board markers and chalk pens. 
On the freezer there is grid (7 by 4) my OH put on it for meal plan, another grid (2 by 3) is for the contents of the freezer each grid part reflects a drawer in the freezer. 
The items are written and we mark next to it how many with a diagonal mark for each of the type. Remove a mark when it is used. 
At the top is a more bare area that items needed for shopping is written, time the hot flask is filled (for coffee and tea), a time when the water that needs to be filtered will be ready and a place we can write down things we will be doing over the month. 

The fridge freezer has two freezer drawers (they pull out independently and not in a door if you understand) and the contents within are written on the draw door in chalk. Same check system as the other freezer. 

Organisation went out the wondow ages ago in the large freezer and it was a if it fits it goes there. The only 2 drawers that are mostly organised is a large drawer that has vegetables and bread and a small one with different fruits. 
After the use up organising the drawers will be on the cards. 
OHs meats, cheeses etc are in the large fridge freezer drawers. 


£15.63 spent at Mr S yesterday. 

We are having home made chinese tonight as it is Chinese New year. 

£15.63/£150.
£134.37 left. 

goldfinches

Suffolk_lass said:

joedenise said:

esjw said:

£103.78/£475.00 spent so far.

Made the mistake of shopping while hungry - mince pie chocolate digestive anyone? (60p pkt)  Looking forward to haggis for lunch tomorrow (75p).

How does everyone organise their freezers and keep track of the contents? I have a 4 drawer upright and a large chest freezer. If you speak to OH the chest freezer is a black hole and he can never find anything. Have a couple of days off work this week so going to have a sort through them.

I'm the same but with a 3 drawer upright freezer and an outside chest freezer.  The inside one is easy enough to organise - I have veg in the top drawer, meat and HM ready meals in the middle one and fish and fruit in the bottom drawer.

The chest freezer is much harder, particularly as I can't reach the bottom so I use different coloured carrier bags and tie top bin liners - chicken in one, burgers, bacon, sausages in another, spare bags of veg in another etc.  Much easier to check the bags for what I want than rummaging around to find what I want.

I use the baskets at the top to keep more HM ready meals, soups etc.

I use the shelf at the side to freeze stuff as it's much colder than the rest of the freezer.

Keeping track is a different matter!

HTH

I've got a catering upright freezer in the outhouse, full of homegrown veg and fruit.

I have a chest freezer in the cart lodge that usually has meat, bread and treats like icecream and ice bags in (currently has butter, Christmas chocolate chip panettone and overspill veg from the garden too) and these are organised is baskets in "regions". There is one drop in wire basket that has all the stuff I am wanting to use first.

My indoor freezer is four small drawers, bottom (smallest) with cheese, ice and orange and lemon slices in t/away boxes, number 3 is opened veg (peas, corn, chips), bag of homegrown chillies and bits like prepped squash. Drawer 2 is meat and fish. Drawer 1 is ice cream, frozen peas for icing injured people's bits, a bag of berries and some ready-mix crumble, frozen puff pastry and the collar for instantly chilling a bottle of wine

I also have a fridge freezer in the toolshed (beer and wine fridge !!) and the freezer has prepared elderflowers (for cordial) and seville oranges (someone bought me some the same day I found them last year, so I prepped them all but froze half - one household with few visitors can only really eat so much marmalade.

I keep telling myself that I am paying the SM to store their stuff but actually, over half is homegrown now. That said, my siege mentality probably means I should move (to somewhere where my stockpiling might be more appreciated). The last siege in Suffolk was very possibly 1240 (Framingham Castle) although Colchester was 1648 - so maybe not quite so much in stock

You took me right back to the day the elder of my two brothers managed to fall down the wooden steps into the dungeon at Framlingham, one moment our mother was telling him to go down backwards and he was starting off forwards with his feet sticking out into mid air and the next he'd vanished. 

I have an upright freezer with pull out baskets and try to keep a running list of what's in there and to keep one basket for fruit and veg, another for butter, bread and stock and the top one for things to pull out for a quick meal be they homemade or bought in. Ice trays etc. go in wherever they will fit as do things like egg whites and citrus zest or peels. I'm considering making space for nuts too but that would mean I would no longer have space to freeze flour when it is bought so I'm not sure about that, I might just have a nut box in the fridge instead. I do find that labels don't stick well so I usually write on the container in dry wipe marker, even if that partially rubs off I can work out what was written there.

Tanya12345

First spend today £17.06 in Lidl, 50p in Grocers.
Wish I could help with the Freezer question, we now have 4 and they are just a treasure trove of "stuff". They are so packed that I need to really grit my teeth/gird my loins to try and do an inventory..... Needless to say that is till on the to-do list !
Loving the ideas for keeping control of them, will try some out when I'm brave enough to venture into them !

17.56/100