April 2022 Grocery Challenge

DawnW

Greying_Pilgrim said:

Suffolk_lass - sorry I missed you post.  I do know about TGTG, but I'm unsure whether they would be 'for us'.  My reasoning is this (so feel free to tell me if I'm wrong), is that from what I have seen (people have talked about their purchases/posted pics on MSE), the most likely 'best fit' for my purchase style is the MrM, offering.  However, our MrM is over the other side of town, it would need a round-trip of at least 6 miles to get there, and I'm aware that TGTG bags are offered at certain times of the day - which could be more difficult to match into journeys. The idea was especially unattractive recently because of fuel price hikes.  

If we are talking about - for example, cakes or buns, what i need to make happen for 'me' is to work out how (for example) a pack of 6 hot x buns could be added to the MrL shopping list (of milk, bread, butter, porridge oats type purchases), without it breaking the budget.  The buns would be enjoyed as a 'treat' (we choose not to eat them year round - but appreciate others do), but we would also have the 'staples' for other meals that week.  

TGTG (and Olio too) don't work for me either, for similar reasons. TGTG round here is bread / pastries from C*sta, the only outlet in our town which participates. OH and I try to limit our intake of these, and collection would necessitate either a special car journey, or a walk of a couple of miles into town, at the end of the day when I don't feel much like it. Similarly Olio items tend to be a mile or more away, and it doesn't seem worth it. We have no community pantry or anything like that, and supermarkets here don't offer the fantastic reductions that some on these forums report.  There is a food bank, but that is not applicable to me - though I do try to donate to it weekly.

Greying_Pilgrim

Thank you DawnW - that sums up the situation pretty accurately in my location too.  

I just popped in to report that the new (to me) recipe for Turnip & red kidney bean curry was a success, tasty and economical to make.  I did add in a bit of cumin too, as although it wasn't in the recipe I used, other recipes did include it.  I served it with a Potato Mustard curry, which I am 99.9% sure is a Rick Stein recipe from his 'Far Eastern Odyssey' book, but I cannot find the recipe replicated anywhere on the web.  If you have it, I made it without the pandan leaf or the fish flakes, and my mustard seeds were brown, not yellow.  My curry leaves are dried, rather than 'fresh'.  It still makes a tasty, economical curry though.  Lentil dhal accompanied both curries.  I made both curries in the PC, and the lentil dhal was out of the freezer.



NSD achieved.  Shopping for staples tomorrow.

Greying X

thriftwizard

£14.64 added for a quick top-up supermarket trip yesterday - milk, yogurt, bread, bananas & other soft fruit & some beansprouts for today's stir-fry, which was otherwise an eat-it-up exercise, using up chicken from the freezer (from 2 weeks ago) finishing the elderly red cabbage DD1's partner contributed, kale from the allotment (starting to form flower-heads now, so that'll be "out" in a week or two) mushrooms from the weekend for the girls, peppers from the Lidls box, a handful of cashew nuts & HM plum sauce. Today was an NSD but tomorrow I'll probably start the weekend's shopping - time permitting!

Tmjthomas

NSD for me but I won £75 on a lotto scratchcard I bought in exchange for coins for a shopping trolley last Friday. Forgot I had it in my purse. That will go towards buy paint 
Tina x

GreenCat80

I popped into Tesco today, everything seems so expensive 😣 I’m going to plant some seeds tomorrow in the hopes of having a bit of home grown veg and relying less on the supermarket 🤞🏻

otb666

289/600.  Going to be tight again determined to keep it under 600. Definitely no dominoes allowed

K9sandFelines

MissRikkiC said:

I love the discussions had on these posts and appreciate the varying views people have. I don’t ever feel like any are to be challenged, just always makes us think more that’s all  

Humous made at home is a treat for me, but I’m also a meat eater so it’s not so much a staple in our house. 

What do others who are in this challenge deem as treats? 

Normally for us, sweets,chocolate, fancy crisps and pop are treats. We have only eaten these on Saturdays for years. Although as the girls have got older (now 19 and 24 nearly), and are independent; they decide for themselves when they eat these things. I still only tend to eat that kind of thing on a Saturday and cake or ice-cream on a Sunday. Sometimes a more expensive bread will be a treat. Like a nice baguette or something like that! 
We don't have takeaways. Had two in the past three or so years I think.

Not spent anything since last update and stuck to meal plan.
Whatever was scheduled with mash might have to be rejigged, or mash omitted, as have no potatoes left. I had them tonight with kebab style filled pittas 🥙 , as yesterday we just had Kyivs and veg (without chips) 

goldfinches

Just popping in before I nip up the road to the Farmers Market to report a top-up at Mr T's yesterday to take advantage of their CC offers on dates, lurpak slightly salted (which is what Delia uses), condensed milk, f/f g. s. yoghurt and y/s sultana cookies. That outlay got split between budgets so that the main GC came to £11.08 making my new monthly total £20.48/£120 and my average daily spend £3.41.
The Baking Budget part of the bill came to £4.95/£20.

I managed to continue the use it up theme by making an improvised cannelloni yesterday that used up onions, garlic, shallots, carrots, parsnips, thyme, passata, green lentils, stock cube, ricotta, spinach, nutmeg and box of cannelloni and although it's nothing special it isn't bad either. It was the first time I'd used a carton rather than a jar of passata and they were a real pain to rinse out so I shan't be buying those again. Having looked at the tins in the cupboard I think the next batch cook will be some form of chilli.

My treats are things that I don't usually stretch to that taste so much better than whatever I normally buy e.g. cheese from the cheesemonger rather than the supermarket or much nicer olive oil or lovely ripe fruit or fresh veg at the Pick Your Own. The other sort of way I treat myself is buying ready made things to save me work or only buying a small and therefore more expensive amount of ingredients so that I make just two rather than six portions of a dish. 

Suffolk_lass

@Greying_Pilgrim the other TGTG SM options near me are East of England Coop, Londis, M&S Simply food, NISA and various vegetarian restaurants. In all cases more than a mile from here, but that is because there are no shops within a mile. You might be right. I had ten items of F&V from Morries the first time. V happy with that, I combined it with my staple shop (but I always have to drive to get there, so do so infrequently).

I have not used Londis or Nisa but have tried the two closest Co-ops - both advertised veg and fruit but one only included 6 items and no F&V except some pre-packaged bean sprouts. They got two stars from me. Even then, 6 items that were all already YS came to about £8 reduced and I paid £3.30. I was just hoping for more F&V given they had a trolley of it reduced in the foyer when I collected. I have stopped for a while now.

Greying_Pilgrim

Suffolk_lass - I must admit, I haven't actually checked 'which' shops may or may not be on TGTG in our locality, but we have some of the shops mentioned both by you, DawnW - and elsewhere on MSE.  Some of the shops I just don't use anyway, so a magic bag is no incentive (for me) to spend money with them.  At this moment in time, I will purchase YS'd stuff (when I come across it), if I can use it/like it and it is reasonably discounted, and I will always look at the MrL £1.50 boxes (when they are available, which is not all the time), to see if I can use the vast majority of the contents.  

I went to MrL today - and forgot my shopping list!!!!! Doh!  MSE fail!  Apart from the fact that because I had so few items on my list, I managed to recall it verbatim 😔 I was lucky that there were five £1.50 boxes available today.  However, I will only purchase one if I can genuinely use all the contents, and they represent good value for money.  I don't mind that the produce is on the cusp of drawing its old-age pension, but it has to be edible.  I refuse to pay for compost!  Today, of the 5 boxes, there was one that was suitable for my needs, one that would just about be worth £1.50 (to me), and 3 boxes that would have not really contributed greatly to our household meal plan/budget.  I'm afraid I give a great deal of thought to these matters, and don't just grab a box simply 'because it is £1.50'.  It still has to be worth it to me.  I selected the box I have, as it had blueberries and mushrooms in it, but the mushrooms will need to be processed today - they are slightly on the wrong side of 'over' - I would not have bought them for full price.  I also have some leeks in the box, which I will use, but will need to be trimmed of yellowing outer leaves.  Again, I would not have bought them for full price.  Perhaps I shouldn't think that I have the luxury of being 'fussy' with a £100 budget for this month, but I still require the produce to be useable.  

In total, I spent £11.81 in MrL today, and i was minded of dear MissRikkkiC as I went past a RTC bit in the chiller cabinets, and noticed that there was a tub of hummus (reduced fat), and several 3 packs of mini trifles that had been discounted down to 20p each (several other items, inc 3 pack meat sandwiches were 70p ea.)  So I 'invested' 40p, 20p on the hummus, and 20p on a trio pack of mini trifles.  I wouldn't buy those mini trifles ordinarily (I remember having to buy them in the parental's shopping and they have got quite pricey), but I figured for 20p, a dessert that DH & LG will DEFINITELY be keen to munch, was a treat waiting to be purchased indeed!  So, dear reader, whilst my shopping list didn't contain treats today, for 40p I now have treats!  And co-incidentally, even had I the funds, MrL were OOS of lentil curls anyway.........  😂

It's a buddha bowl for tea tonight.  I will have to see if I can find a recipe to do 'something' with the 7 or so radishes that were in the £1.50 box.  I'm not a huge fan, but i did just try one, and they aren't as 'peppery' as some varieties, so I will look to see if there is something along the quick pickling line I can do with them.  There were also some parsnips in the box, and I DEFINITELY want to do something 'cakey' with one or two of them - building on the 'sneaking in veg' where LG doesn't think it is 😉

Today's expenditure has meant things will remain tight for the rest of the month, but I've received blessings in the form of discounted things today, so it's still all to play for!

Greying X