March 2022 Grocery Challenge

nannygladys

Haven't been out today and not going out tomorrow so my £10 is still in tact - yay, just another ten days to go!!

diminua

I'm down to £9.07 left. Biggest extravagances were a half bottle of amaretto and my W8rse bought lunch on Wednesday (Friday I brought a sandwich in). I've also bought the usual things - milk, pasta, bread, fish, crumpets, pesto etc. Back in the office tomorrow so I'll have pain au chocolat for breakfast and then homemade egg roll (plain roll and pastry to be bought on the way in, egg and tomato and salad cream brought in tupperware) and some ldl fruit and nut chocolate and peppermint tea.

I will need to get milk and bread on the way home tomorrow, and also seem to have a lot of apples left so there may be a crumble made this week, which means buying butter too, but I should just squeak under the wire all the same. 

Blackcats

I think I've finished spending for the month of March.   

I have £50.70 left in the food budget, but this is not as marvellous as it seems as this month the cats had a separate £40 budget pot.  They are very fussy .. their only compromise has been to downshift to Lidlees own brand cat treats.  

So, here comes the maths .... £50.70 less their £40 leaves £10.70 of the budget, however cats came in under budget by £8.77 so I reckon I'm ending on £19.47 under budget - my first underspend this year 🥳.
live used olio for the first time this month and I think it's really helped.
I've got a £10 lidlee voucher to spend by 31st so I'll use that for milk, bananas and other fresh bits and bobs.  I promise not to spend more than £10 so that will be a head start for April.
meal plan 
Monday - pulled chicken burger with salad and wedges
tuesday - salmon linguine, using a salmon fillet from the freezer and frozen spinach
wed - gammon, new pots, sprouts from freezer
thurs - jacket pots, spicy beans and cheese
fri - Thai basil pork (from freezer) with veggie noodles that use up peppers, onions, carrots and Pak Choi from freezer 

Greying_Pilgrim

Managed a NSD today (YAY!).  

Took a picnic lunch out to a near(ish) NT place and enjoyed fresh air, birdsong and the company of Team Greying.  A friendly Robin joined us for lunch and appreciated 'tibbits' - esp. the banana cake 😁

Changed the menu plan around this weekend, to accommodate 'lack'.  But we've had nice nosh anyway! 😊  Last night was 1/4lb Veggie burger, baked tattie (pasta for LG), broccoli and baked beans.  This evening we had Red Lentil and pepper bake, mash, roast parsnips (last of the MrL box haul), peas and sweetcorn.  LG munched up the lentil bake without complaint, but did whine about the peas - apparently their only offence was to be green........  They did get eaten up in the end though.  I got the recipe for the lentil bake originally from a student cookbook, that I purchased eons ago, although I found the link for the same recipe elsewhere online, but it doesn't mention the student cookbook, so I don't know who developed the original recipe.  However, it is good - I have made it with and without the topping (tonight's was without), either version works.  Tonight's bake made good use of the mushrooms that were in this week's MrL box 😊 We had l/o tinned pineapple and yoghurt for dessert last night, and tinned fruit cocktail and yoghurt for dessert tonight.  Yoghurt is infinitely nicer than evap milk (imho), but sometimes I do wonder if I'm stuck in a 1970's childhood timewarp...... 🤣

The cooker was filled with 2 potatoes for baked potatoes for tomorrow night's tea, and with a carrot cake for packed lunches later in the week.  The tins of peaches and chickpeas that should have made tonight's curry remain on the shelf in the cupboard for another day/tea.

This week's menu plan:

M - Omlette, baked potato/pasta and beans
T - Spicy lentil soup and jelly
W - Black eye bean and mung bean curry with rice
Th - Lentil bolognese and pasta
F - Fish nuggets, chips and mushy peas
S - Curry plate, lentil dhal and rice
Su - Veggie sausages, yorkies and mixed veg

Greying X

goldfinches

@diminua - I've made crumble topping with oil rather than butter before now and it was lovely and crunchy. There are loads of recipes around because doing it that way makes it vegan but here's one just to show you what I mean Vegan Crumble Recipe For Apple Crumble (olivemagazine.com)

I had a lovely day yesterday because I met Delia Smith!!!  She gave a talk as part of the Literary Festival here and then afterwards she not only autographed my copy of her new book but she also autographed my copy of her Complete Cookery Course that I'd rather cheekily taken along. It was great to listen to someone I've admired for decades and I floated around in cloud cuckoo land for the rest of the day. 

MissRikkiC

How wonderful @goldfinches not even close to DS but I remember watching master chef one year then seeing the winner at a food festival in south London. I was beside myself! 

MissRikkiC

Is there an April thread or do we need to give @elsiepac a helping hand? I’m pretty pants but can follow instructions 🤭

Soontobeoap

Went to a lovely wedding yesterday and met up with all of my family. Such a lovely day and then lunch at DDs on Sunday. What a glorious weekend. I am back onto challenge today and so walked to Iceland which is based in the Range to take advantage of Dolmio sauces that are £1.00 there and £1.85 in Tescos. Spent £7.00. This afternoon a walk to Aldi for some beef burgers, mince, meatballs, bacon and raisins! £13.70. Very pleased with the exercise to remove some additional weight that was put on over weekend.😂.
Hosting DS and family in a couple of weeks so made up a big Lasagne for the freezer.
No more food shopping now until April. Declaring £221.44 / £250 for this month.

tomorrow I am going to plant some tomato and cut and come again lettuce seeds that I bought last year and put them in a windowsill to bring them on. Also will be transplanting strawberry runners to a really sunny spot in the garden.

After doing challenge for 3 months it does look as if I am spending on average £200 a month on food during a normal month. I found my account book for 2011 the other day and with only 2 of us at home ( same as now) I was spending £300 a month so I am pretty chuffed with my efforts although I was in full time work then which does make a huge difference to the time you can spend finding bargains. I also know that with a little more organisation that I could save more.

thanks for all of the tips guys.

nannygladys

My £10 is still in tact, so very pleased with that. The end of my month is a week tomorrow (5th April) as I get paid every 4weeks, but as I write all grocery spends down by date , I will add up March' s spend at the end to see how much it is. I'm working on a yearly amount as I'm doing a zero budget this year but as the price amounts for bills are going up I will have to adjust the budget, it won't leave as much for food and extras so it may mean I will have to spend less.
Nannyg

DawnW

I have overspent again this month, but won't need to spend anything else till after the 31st.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to either increase my budget, or confine the current amount to food / groceries only, and make separate budget entries to cover other items. The latter probably makes more sense, as I have separate columns on my spreadsheet for other things.

For March £252.65 / £200. This covered all groceries, the milkman's bill, cleaning supplies, dog food and OH's beer. With rising prices, £200 wasn't enough to cover all these categories to the standard that we are used to. We could of course cut down further, but we are not by any means extravagant. We shop mainly at Lidl and grow and preserve what we can.