March 2022 Grocery Challenge

atrixa

Greying_Pilgrim said:

atrixa - that is awesome that you have come in under budget this month.  Something for us to aspire to! Where do you (usually) get your 10kg bags of rice from?  I was entirely happy with the MrL offering, but found a 10kg bag on offer for £10 in MrM this month, so 'jumped provider'.

I went with Mr T this month at £12. I was just going to stock up on the really cheap small bags but they were nowhere to be seen on the website. I always get it with an online order as I'll have to lift a few more weights to carry it home!

Greying_Pilgrim

atrixa - ha ha , I hear you about lugging 10kg bags of rice about.  I felt sorry for the poor lass on the checkout in MrM who had to wrestle my bag over the barcode reader.  She was very sweet about it.......... (thankfully).

Inspired by talk of community larders, I looked to see what was available near me.  There are several outlets (operate at different locations on different days), but unfortunately they are all a car journey away, and it would be difficult to co-ordinate other travels needs to make a single journey serve multiple uses IYSWIM.

nannygladys - I wish you well with your target.  If it's any help, I'm going to be trying ever so hard to hold onto my £5.26 until close of play on Thursday.  Not too sure it can be done, but that doesn't mean I can't try. I've got to try to keep to £100 on groceries for this month, as well as April, and possibly May too. I can't thank everyone enough on this thread for the encouragement and just the plain and simple understanding of how gosh darn hard it all is.

We had tea as planned last night.  I made the Ha1ry B1k3rs 'Banging banana, walnut and sultana cake' to fill up the oven (sorry, can't find a link for recipe).  I used a bag of oven chips, that I'd got cheap from H3r0n F00ds.  Mmmmm..... not overly impressed.  They seemed to take forever to cook, and still had a 'raw' background texture.  They didn't taste of 'chips' either.  I'd say that I won't buy them again, which is fine, but I stocked up on 4 bags as they were so cheap....... 1 bag down, 3 to go............ 🙁The cake was still a bit undercooked right in the middle - so I'm pondering whether the tin was slightly too small, (my other cake tin would have been too big 🙄), or, whisper it, the oven is on its way out.........

I might have to come up with something other than pizza for tea, as we're running low on cheese, and it's got to do sandwiches x 5 next week 🙁 

Greying X 

joedenise

@Greying_Pilgrim - if you grate your cheese on the smallest grate on the side of a box grater it will go much further and you won't need as much in each of your sandwiches.  I follow SW and 30g of cheese isn't very much at all but grated it becomes plenty for a sandwich - I certainly can't slice it thin enough to fill a sandwich!

Greying_Pilgrim

joedenise said:

@Greying_Pilgrim - if you grate your cheese on the smallest grate on the side of a box grater it will go much further and you won't need as much in each of your sandwiches.  I follow SW and 30g of cheese isn't very much at all but grated it becomes plenty for a sandwich - I certainly can't slice it thin enough to fill a sandwich!

Thanks hun - but i already practice that tip 🙁There is enough cheese for pizza or sandwiches, not pizza and sandwiches.  To be fair to DH he does go light with the cheese on butty's, but will only take cheese for work sangers - so egg or hummus or whatever are out of the frame.  LG needs butties this week too for a school trip - which is an anomaly we don't usually have to deal with.  Having said that, LG's cheese requirement won't make us go broke.  It is simply an either/or not both situation.

Greying X

PipneyJane

RandomOne said:

Hey Everyone

I'm new to MSE and am desperate to get a handle on my food shopping. I currently spend about £400-£600 a month for my family of 4 adults, 2 dogs and a cat. 

I NEED to slash this by 50% over the next few months so that I can pay off my debt ASAP. I'm currently overpaying my debt and should have it paid off in 10 months, but if I can do it in 6, that would be better.

I'll be keeping a very close eye on this thread and the OS board in general. But is there anywhere specific on MSE you'd advise me to look in addition to this? 

Welcome @RandomOne.  The posts linked at the start of the Grocery Challenge thread are brilliant and well worth the time it takes to read all of them.  Also, I always recommend reading the Sneaky Ways To Save the Pennies thread (now closed) and it’s replacement, Lots More Sneaky Ways to Save The Pennies.  Those are both huge threads but I have learned so much from them over the years. There are also Debt Free Wannabee boards, which are a goldmine of information and support.

I have multiple shops to declare from the last week and half.  DH did half of these shops on his way home from work.

• 15 March-L!dl-£7.13-Wraps, YS chorizo slices £1.05, YS ham slices 70p, butter 2x£1.45
• 16 March-L!dl-£8.08-Coffee, mushrooms, pie
• 18 March-L!dl-£12.76-YS muffins 30p, YS diced lamb £2.64, YS diced stewing steak £2.09, YS tortillas £1.39
• 21 March-MrT- £2.81-Peppers 96p, Crème Fraiche £1.85
• 23 March-L!dl -£32.87-Cider 6x£1.25, YS Pork shoulder roast 1.5kg £4.95, 7x29p penne, butter 2x£1.45, eggs £1.79, frozen sweetcorn 76p, frozen peas 44p, £2-off coupon - £5.87 saved overall
• 23 March-MrT- £6.62-Yoghurts £1x6, thyme plant 31p, stir fry mix 31p

Apologies if the above is hard to read.  I tried to copy and paste in the numbers as a table from my spreadsheet, but couldn’t get the table to format in a readable state.

Anyway, the above brings our total spend for March to £133.27/£160.66, leaving £27.39 for the rest of the month.

Payday is Thursday, so I won’t declare until then. There are a few things on the shopping list that I’d like to pick up today, that really can’t wait until April.  Also, this week is going to be hell for me, work wise, which means I need to do a bit of meal planning today or we’ll end up living on takeaway.  (It’s month end, year end AND we’re about to migrate to a new finance system.  Perfect storm.)

Meal planning wise:-

• Today will be homemade pizza.  We have mozzarella that needs to be used and some sliced chorizo.
• Tomorrow, we’ll be out all afternoon, so dinner will be Cuban Black Bean Stew done in the slow cooker.

- Pip

pamsdish

Needed to stock up tonic water and had an alert for Schweppes elderflower tonic on offer at &sda, £1 which is half price nearly, so toddled off to my big &sda, only 8 bottles in stock, cleared the shelf, got my other tonics. £15.50

PipneyJane

Well, my meal plan for the weekend didn’t last more than 5 minutes.  

We went to the butcher’s this morning. The meat fund had £250 in it and we both really fancied some lamb.  £88 spent on a 5lb leg of lamb (£31), a 4lb chicken £9.09, 4 marinated chicken thighs £2.36, two huge rump steak (£18), 4 lamb shanks £20, 4 chicken thighs and two steak & kidney pies (£5).  Our butcher doesn’t do an itemised receipt, so all the prices are from memory.

After some Tetris, I’ve managed to squeeze everything except the leg of lamb into the freezer.  The revised meal plan is now:

• Today:  pies for lunch, roast leg of lamb with roast potatoes, roast sweet potatoes, roast onion and roast garlic for dinner.  While the oven is on, I’ll bake 3 banana bread, using up the 6 blackened bananas that DH brought home from work this week.  We’ll take one with us tomorrow, to share.  DH may take another into the office with him on Monday.
• Tomorrow:  Cuban Black Bean Stew.
• Monday:  home made pizzas.  

- Pip

Greying_Pilgrim

I stopped thinking about what (ingredients) I didn't have, and started to think about what I did have.  Just enjoyed a (without tahini) hummus, grated beetroot and golden pepper sandwich for lunch.  If I'd have had a fancy-pants seeded bap, it would have just topped it off, but MrL sliced wholemeal was good enough 😉

Yes, I could have added peanut butter (have some) or greek yoghurt (have some) to the hummus, but wanted to try the recipe as written (although mine didn't need any added water).  Good enough for me, and whilst I like hummus with tahini in it, it'll possibly be without my budget for a time yet. So I'll make the tahini free version.  There is plenty left over to make sangers for me for this week, lessening pressure on the cheese block 😊

I cooked the beetroot (from the MrL box) in the pressure cooker.  Not done that before.  The beets were only small, so I guessed at 10 minutes full pressure.  Seems to have worked, and the beets were easy to peel/knife tender. I have 4 beets left over, so as I have apples again, I shall possibly make salad somewhere along the line, or grate more for sandwiches.

Will just have to remember I have eaten beetroot today.......... 😲

Greying X

ragz_2

Hello all. I've been lurking and reading all the posts since mid February and playing along at home this month. Just done the final shop for March, so thought I would join in and actually post. I used to be a regular on Old Style many, many years ago. 

Usually spend over £500 a month on groceries (I track all my spending on an app, used to be YNAB but their price rise was too much so using Actual Budget at the moment - not as good, but it's okay) for 2 adults and 3 teens who all get FSM. DH is gluten free (not severely, it just gives him itchy ankles!) which is fine when buying pasta as Asda is really reasonable for that, but very expensive for bread and 'treat' type things like biscuits. 

Decided to push myself to £400 this month, as we keep a very stocked pantry and freezers. Shopping is split between MrL and MrA. Just over budget, at £413.02, but I really should have checked the fridge as I now seem to have enough butter and cheese to last the whole of April! Still, at the rate of price increases, that isn't a bad thing, so I'm calling it a win.

It has really focused my mind though. Stopped buying DH gluten free snacks and been making flapjacks when I have the oven on anyway or baking with GF flour. Been mentally costing various meals and using lentils to bulk some things a bit. Thanks to all of you on this thread for the endless inspiration.

Not sure on April budget yet as it's Easter Holidays, so DCs will be at home and eating lunch for 2 weeks! 

otb666

i got my first odd box It did not seem much to look at But i have 2 pieces of fruit per day and I used fennel leak and spuds to make a nice soup.  That just leaves swede lettuce and carrots. Which i will use at some point.  I liked the fact the lettuce had its roots attached so i have put that on window sill with the root base in water.  The food box was a bit small But the quality taste and different varieties, that I cant normally find in supermarkets, are very appealing So i will give it another go in fortnight at full price. I am hoping this will help me stick to 600 food budget next month.