April 2022 Grocery Challenge

mumtoomany

Back to declare the shopping. Total of £76.35 across five shops. Won't need much other than milk for a while, maybe till next month if I'm lucky. Also £2.55 for milk and sweets earlier in the week. Total now stands at £686.97/£2640. We also live on a farm, eight miles from the nearest supermarket. I tend to have enough food in to last for several weeks, or longer, in case we are stuck here with bad weather etc. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

diminua

I've been having a bit of a busy (and spendy) weekend, courtesy of family members inviting me to fun things last minute (Raphael exhibition, WASD games festival), and am going to take today to do the shopping, tidy up, and perhaps go for a long but local walk. So far I've spent £126.80. 

atrixa

I'm up to £118.45/£135 

Latest spends were on essential food and laundry products- laundry liquid from Mr M (£3) and then bicarb of soda (1.49) and white vinegar (£1). I've been using these three in combination in an attempt to get the perma-stink out of some of my older running kit. Seems to work well enough if I soak in vinegar every other wash. I quite like the cheap laundry powder from Mr S, but every time I've looked recently it's been out of stock.

16 days until payday, so I need £16.55 to stretch that far for 'top-up' shops until then. Hmm, not sure.

diminua

Since all that going out has left me a bit skint, and also with a whole pack of veggie sausages now one day out of date, I've made toad in the hole and cheesy leek and sausage bake to heat up for dinners tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday (with mash potatoes and boiled carrots) - and made up a sausage, tinned tomatoes, red pepper and cucumber thing I can do in the microwave tonight (sausages fried first so they don't go soggy) and which I can have with bread and lettuce (as all my salad veg also needs eating up).  
Another £4.31 spend on groceries - milk, bread, carrots, orange juice and eggs. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Ducking by to declare a £2.86 spend.  We went around and about and took a picnic lunch to see a different view.  We passed a 'new to us' MrL on the way, so called in to see if there were any bargains/boxes - there weren't 🙁

I bought; crisps, bottled water, apples and a family pack of peppers (2 red, 3 orange) which I thought were good value at 94p.  A similar offering in MrS the other day was 85p (on special offer), but there were only 4 peppers, and 2 were green in all the bags.  i'm annoyed at having to buy the water - LG has their own water bottle, and we're not doing very well with the "you're in charge of remembering to bring it places...." 🙄 I was doubly annoyed because MrL charged me 3p more for it than the advertised SEL stated 🙄And yes, if it was for us, I would have bought the 17p 2l bottle, but a 500ml bottle was easier for LG to hold/handle.  We have re-usable water bottles - just need to ensure they are with us when we travel!

There were no lentil curls (must be a national shortage), so we had some ready salted crisps at 69p for 6 bags.  A treat and it didn't bust the picnic budget neither.  3 bags are still available for another adventure 😊

Greying X

DawnW

No spends today. Made a use-up dinner of pasta bake with a couple of handfuls of penne, cheese sauce, spring onions, broccoli and cauliflower florets (the rest of a bag of cheapie frozen ones from Icyland), topped with a sliced leftover tomato and more cheese. Sometimes I add a bit of cooked bacon or ham to this kind of thing, but today I didn't. Served with sauteed garlicky chard on the side, for a bit of crunch. Lots of chard in the garden at the moment, so this will be making repeat appearances over the coming couple of weeks.

nannygladys

Meals out of cupboards, freezer and fridge the last couple of days. Sometimes I don't realise how much I have in the cupboards until I have a good look in them. I'm not very good at keeping inventories or meal planning come to that, well I meal plan but easily go off-piste lol!!!!

nannygladys

Oh, so no money spent!!!

Cheery_Daff

Evening all 😊

I never did write a meal plan 🙄 There's only really me to feed - Mr Cheery does live here and eat 😂 but usually fends for himself, eating bizarre things like a bowl of plain chick peas, or an entire bag of sprouts just with soy sauce. I'm certainly not joining him in those type of meals so need something more conventional 😂

My current aim is to NOT have to cook on work days, which means Mon-Thurs dinners and teas (so 8 meals) need to be in the freezer (and preferably a few extras for the weekend too). I'm trying to batch cook *something* every weekend, and slowly building up a stock of frozen meals so I can have a more varied selection. 

So, available in the freezer for consumption this week:

* cooked quinoa with green lentil & leeks x 4
* tomato and red lentil pasta bake x 3
* canellini bean pasta bake x 2
* red lentil and mushroom gratin x 3 

There's also 4 portions of cooked brown rice that I can defrost and fry up quickly with a bit of veg and some eggs, and some pizza dough and tomato topping that I could get out to make pizzas with - both of those are more weekend things. AND I've made and frozen a batch of small flapjacks - no more than one a day as a snack.

I've only been doing this a couple of weeks and I LOVE it. I'd got into such bad habits of eating toast and porridge when I couldn't be bothered cooking (not helped by not having a proper kitchen for 2 years) so this feels like a great luxury.

Not going to dictate what I'll eat on each particular day, just going to say I will eat a proper, home cooked meal from the freezer twice a day when I'm working 😊 And usually a smoothie for breakfast which I'll make the night before.

If nothing else I'm eating a lot more veg and wading through some of the storecupboard! 

Happy grocery-using this week folks, looking forward to seeing what you're all eating 😊

otb666

i am eating more veg too, i toasted some pumpkin seeds and they were lovely For some reason i thought i would break my teeth on them But they are soft so all good. i am making leek and potatoe soup, spring cabbage beef pepper stir fry with mooli raddish noodles, fennel and cauli soup. fry up and chicken salad.  I have found my snacking has gone out the window and feel a lot better down below.  I love the MSE Old style boards.