April 2022 Grocery Challenge

Cheery_Daff

Evening all, 

Mr Cheery did an @ldi shop yesterday, and has just given me the receipt - £58.50, which I've added to my signature (bringing us to £68.79 so far (plus £23.01 in vouchers) out of £150. He couldn't find the list I'd made (which was in plain sight!!) so some things were forgotten, but we can manage. 

A lot of it was stocking up with different types of tinned beans, porridge oats, more coffee, lentils etc, and quite a bit of veg. £13.68 was alcohol - some to have with a friend who stayed last night, and the rest just as a stock up. I'm adding that in with the grocery budget for now, but I'm keeping track separately this month too. 

So not too bad, although ahead of where I'd like to be at this point in the month... I was all for eating the stores down a bit before stocking up again, but never mind - most of it is stuff that won't go off. Hopefully we can get away with fairly small shops for the rest of the month now (and we've got some dried beans, so I'm going to batch cook some and get them in the freezer, and hopefully we'll be able to do away with tins of beans after a while). 

allmannerofthings

Could I join in, albeit a bit late, please?

I'd like to set a target of £160 for the remainder of April.

That's £30 a week each for myself and my husband, which should be very doable if we can stay away from the takeaways. We've a lot of food in the freezer/pantry that I'd like to use up, so I'd like to come in under that amount if possible. We've been spending a massive amount lately and I'd really like to get it under control. 
Off to read this month's posts thus far for inspiration   

DawnW

I am up to £114.03 / £200 for groceries so far, and am expecting a delivery from Icyland tomorrow (some of which will come from other budgets though to be fair). It disappears so quickly! However, for the rest of the month I will only need small amounts of fresh stuff, so here is hoping!

nannygladys

No money spent but OK with that, I could do with milk but I will make it last until next week, I have some dried milk in case of emergencies but it's not opened yet so I would rather leave it like that for a bit - it has a good best before date.

otb666

293/600 Got Takeaway Must do better

otb666

Meal plan following veg box
leek +potato soup 
fennel + carrot soup
pepper +spring green soup
spinach with chicken kiev
mooli radish +beef soup
roast beef with cauiflour

If anyone can improve or make alternative suggestions please advise, its just me as hubby and son do their own cooking. apart from sunday roast

PipneyJane

Good morning All

@goldfinches - I hope you’ll be very happy with your new cast iron cooking pot.  I have multiple pieces of cast iron cookware, having collected them over the decades, and the only one I can recall having an upper temperature limit was due to the knob on the lid.  

@GreenCat80  - I’ve just read your signature.  Congratulations on paying off £12k of debt!  Well done you!  

@Greying_Pilgrim and @MissRikkiC may I thank you both for triggering such a thoughtful discussion about treats and needs and balancing the books.  What I love about the GC is that it gives an insight into strategies others use, how they shop and how others cope in tough times, which in Britain is quite rare thanks to the classic British reticence.  (I used to belong to an American forum similar to MSE, and their members were much more forthright about household incomes, etc.  You do notice the difference.)

Today will be a “shopping day” because we’ll be heading out later to buy things for my MIL, who is still housebound after breaking her hip last November.  We are also out of fresh veg.  I am hoping for a £1.50 veg box in L!dl, after the last one we bought was full of mushrooms (at least 2kg) and onions (ditto), but we’ll see… I only buy them when they have things in them that I can use.   I’ve only just finished up using the onions from the last one and that was after making 6 tubs of Base on the day of purchase to use up some of the mushrooms.  (Base is fried up onions, sliced mushrooms and crushed garlic.  Most of my main course dishes start the same way:  fry onion with garlic, add mushrooms.)

I do have one small spend to declare:  £6.48 spent in L!dl on Thursday by my DH, who popped in to see if they had any YS items.  That L!dl is next to MrT’s petrol station, which is the cheapest one around here, and DH was hoping to fill up.  (No diesel, so he couldn’t.). He bought a “Slow Cooked Gammon Shank” ready meal for two - definitely not worth paying even the YS price for, maybe 200g of meat if you’re lucky - some Lemon Pepper Pork Steaks (now in the freezer) and a quiche, which we’ll have for dinner tonight.

Included in DH’s change was a £2 coin and 5p of coppers.  We never spend £2 coins.  They go into a money-box known as “The Running Away Fund”.  Ditto copper and 5p coins, which go into separate jars used for purchasing treats when full.  (The copper jar holds about £22 when full, while the 5p coin jar when full holds over £100!  They take years to fill, though.) 

Talking of that L!dl, it’s new and only occupies part of a retail unit that used to be Toys-Aren’t-Us.  The smaller side is advertised as having been taken by HB but, after 4 months, still no sign of a shop.  I’ve never shopped at an HB.  If/when they do open, for what things are they good?  

April GC spend is now £33.58/£142.10, leaving £108.52 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning!

PipneyJane - I find HB good for a range of things.  I predominantly use them for their groceries (ie tins/packets/coffee/eggs).  In general they are cheaper for branded items, and carry a good range of 'fresh' produce too (does rely on the size of the store though as to whether they stock fresh/frozen food).  But I have also purchased medicines/toiletries and stationery from there.  Best thing to do is go and have a look around when the store opens, and see what might be of interest to you.

I have drawn up my meal plan for the next week.  It's a bit humdrum, as I'm trying to have a 'relying on stores/freezer' week to keep costs down.  Although as we know, a 'top-up of essentials' shop usually makes a mess of at least £15, so........  But on the bright side, we won't starve, even if meals will be of the non-frills variety.  I don't have plans (at the mo) to try any new recipes this week.

M - Curry plate (freezer dive for components)
Tu - Lentil bolognese and pasta
W - Roast Quorn filet, mash and veg
Th - Eithiopian lentil wat and rice
F - Black olive pizza and wedges
Sa - Curry plate (freezer dive for components)
Su - Mushroom risotto (using mushrooms from the freezer).

For tea tonight, we're having pizza and 'something' - if we have chips, we're in danger of having chips 3 nights on the trot, so I'm going to have another think.  DH & I will be OK with baked potatoes, so may do them for us, and pasta for LG.  At least I have options - so I remain grateful.

Greying X

Ginmonster

otb666 said:

Meal plan following veg box
leek +potato soup 
fennel + carrot soup
pepper +spring green soup
spinach with chicken kiev
mooli radish +beef soup
roast beef with cauiflour

If anyone can improve or make alternative suggestions please advise, its just me as hubby and son do their own cooking. apart from sunday roast

If you fancy a change from soup the pepper, spring greens and mooli would all be really nice in some kind of stir fry, perhaps with the beef? Some onions,  garlic and a splash of two of soy sauce make it taste delicious if you have them but good old salt and pepper make most things taste good. If you have five spice or chilli flakes you could add those too and if you want to keep the beef for something else you could always add a handful of pretty much any nuts or seeds to add some protein and crunch. Similarly you could have noodles, rice, couscous, whatever you like with it.

PipneyJane

ragz_2 said:

£12.27 spent today at the Asian Supermarket. Wanted to get the teens out the house and they always like a trip there. It isn't cheap though, I was shocked at how expensive a lot of their stuff is, so we didn't buy much. I did get the lentils and black beans I wanted (for recipes in my new Instant Pot!) but they were more expensive than I'd expected. Plus their super spicy noodles. 

I need to find an online supplier for spices and pulses I think. DH gets out peppercorns on Ebay! Also spent £7.20 on hot Asian buns for everyone as their treat, they wanted to buy frozen ones but they were £6 for 4 frozen, so I've said we'll make some at some point.

Also £6 on toothpaste in £land. Should last a while though. 

How much spice do you get through @ragz_2?  Are you buying those small jars?  Also, are you anywhere near a branch of WingYip?  I usually buy my spices from there, in 500g bags, and each bag last years.  I am a curry cook, always from scratch.  Even my most used spices take 2-3 years between refills.  I store my spices in reused large Douwe Egbert coffee jars, in a drawer in the pantry that was specifically heighted to take those jars.  In a well-sealed jar, stored in a dark place, it takes years for a spice to lose its potency, for example my jar of 5-spice dates from before 2010 and is still going strong. 500g bags of spice cost between £3 and £5.  (Sorry, I can’t be more specific; their website is down for maintenance today.)

I can’t speak more highly of WingYip for bargains. One part of the site is set out as a supermarket; the rest is a wholesale warehouse, and you can happily wander between the two. They’re a well-kept secret amongst the Chinese and Asian communities and we are frequently the only Europeans in the shop, but they are very welcoming.  When things were really tight a few years back - DH unemployed and more than half my salary going on our mortgage - we stooped to a 10kg sack of broken basmati rice for about £4, when the cheapest regular was £12.  A couple of staff members politely questioned our choice, to make sure that we knew what we were buying, while another nodded sympathetically and said it made really good sticky rice dishes.

As well as spices, I usually buy rice, washing up liquid, rubber gloves, some pulses, noodles, frozen squid, tubs of concentrated Chinese Curry Sauce - the greenish curry you find in every Chinese restaurant - and large bottles of sauces from there.

- Pip