April 2022 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning April GC'rs

Went shopping to MrL this morning.  Was lucky with a £1.50 box.  There were several that could have been useful to me, but I plumped for the one that had slightly less aubergines in it (just the 5.....) but only one bag of radishes.  There were also 3 peppers (red, green, yellow), 2 apples, some 'premium' British baking potatoes - bagged, some 'pedestrian' potatoes (not bagged 🤣), onions, some vine cherry tomatoes and a white cabbage.  I had to compost 3.5 tomatoes and throw away a mouldy onion.  But everything else will be utilised.  I also bought a punnet of pomegranate seeds from the RTC section for 20p.  I am planning a salad plate next week, and fancied a bit of 'ponce'.  I'm pretty sure I read on MSE, that pomegrantate seeds can be frozen - I think EssexHebridean does it.  So I'll give it a go.

There was not much tea (and not the sort we buy), no simply porridge oats, and I picked up the wrong stock cubes (picked up the branded sort thinking they were MrL boxed own label - had to ask to put them back at the till 😔).  Thankfully, a branch of MrAl is just up the way, and they had all these items, identically priced to MrL, so we aren't 'without'.

So, today's spend (inc the veg box) was £8.37.  Which leaves me with £1.88 for the rest of the month.  Possibly just about enough for a loaf and a bottle of milk next week......  With stores, we should make it through, but it's tight.

I was delighted that LG munched their tea last night - they had Sausage & puy lentil casserole as did we.  They did balk at there being carrots in it, but did eat it all, and declared they liked it!  There was mixed peppers in there too, another veg LG is a bit sniffy about, but it got eaten.  Fingers crossed, we're making more progress towards making more meals that we all eat - as the budget needs this compromise at the mo.  Plus I did serve the casserole with pasta - which LG loves, so it wasn't a totally 'alien' tea for them. 

Right, I'm away to plan an aubergine curry cooking-fest 🤣

Greying X

OrkneyStar

OrkneyStar said:

Last £5 cash in hand spent, including a huge cauliflower, OS eggs and OS large brown baps. Signature updated. Next bigger (Lidl in town) shop planned for Friday or Saturday.

Ended up doing the bigger shop today for logistical reasons, and in Tesco (not Lidl) - I came in on budget and also managed to buy a couple of 'extra' things which we don't need right away but always use (lentils for example). £40 spent and £10 allocated to 'cash in hand' (aka COOP OS items if they appear) for next week. 

MissRikkiC

Well we have 3 days to go and enough food to see us through but thought I’d check in with a few thoughts.  

I’ll still need milk and probably yoghurt before Monday morning however we still should have £20 left of the budget for April. 

Once again a few things I should really note (and I wish I could find these again with ease!) are the bulk/one offs we have purchased from this months budget. These are not limited to but do include (off the top of my head!)

130 washes washing powder box 
£4 Sudafed which were not needed 
£7 worth of calpol for my daughter and £3.50 for piriton medicine for her 
£30 or £35 of pork products from the local farm 
£12ish on Oxtail and lamb koftas from the butcher 

We wouldn’t have managed without most of them, but they could have been purchased as smaller items or not taking advantage of deals etc. As a result they will certainly run into next month and help us out then. 

There will be more items such as this but these are just the ones I can remember now. 

Then there is also the benefits of

not having hosted that much for dinners, particularly roast dinners
not had any roast dinners ourselves

Havent required DW tablets due to large purchase in previous months
Used the local veg company* note to add to this below* 
Purchased milk in 6 pints (75% of the time) and frozen it where there was space 

I also think that I must have changed some habits (or maybe I’ve just got OH on board too) as this Is the 3rd time we’ve come under budget now and I felt it was tough that first month of the year. My budget isn’t tiny but I do feel like we are mindful so something is obviously working. 

I said I would come back to a note about the local veg company. I’m not overly impressed with the quality of the food, albeit the price is really reasonable. I’m going to try a provider we’ve used before 1 last time (I think…) but otherwise revert back to better quality (and more expensive) company’s (Mabel and Vole or R1verford) as I really enjoy fruit and veg but huge woody, manky parsnips don’t impress me that much. Even if it is a 500g single item! Nor do underripe ‘salad’ tomatoes. Hmph. 

Greying_Pilgrim

A vat of Caponata has been made, and one tub put in the freezer, and another slotted into the fridge for tea tomorrow.  It will replace the pizza that was slated, as we're on 'cheese watch' to try and get the cheese to last until the 30th April.  LG can have a piece of pizza out of the freezer, as I used the last jar (🥲) of black olives in the Caponata.  I used the recipe from my hamlyn vegetarian student cook book, but it is quite similar to Jamie's version, although there is celery in my version, and I hadn't got any capers, and my olives were black, not green....... i made my caponata in the PC, and I never fry, nor salt aubergines......  I used 3 aubergines from the MrL box - 2 that had rotting spots and the softest.  That leaves me 2 medium aubergines to make curry with.  I also used the traffic-light trio of peppers from today's box, along with an onion (sadly not red) in the Caponata.  

Afghan carrot hotpot has been made for tea.  Will just need to boil up some basmati rice to go with.  LG won't (probably) eat it, so they will have an omlette instead, with rice and dhal.

Greying X

Smoosh

Last shop of the month done today. OH went by himself as I'm not feeling great. I have taught him well in the way of YS 😂 and he stuck to my list!

£3.61 in the first shop on 12 sausages (YS - 35p), 8 meat free sausages, a lasagne (YS - 43p), special fried rice (YS - 31p), katsu chicken pieces (YS - 20p), butternut squash and red pepper veg mix to make soup (YS - 10p), a bag of carrots, broccoli and Brussels sprouts (YS - 11p) and 6 rolls (YS - 11p)

In the second shop he spent £11.29 on deodorant, fabric conditioner, 4 litres of fizzy drink, shampoo, butter, 1 litre of juice, 6 hot dog rolls and a pack of noodles.

Meal plan (which actually started on Monday):
1. Out for pub lunch with family - no dinner needed
2. Peanut butter curry with Quorn chicken, rice, carrots (YS from ages ago), onion, broccoli and mushrooms (YS) for OH 
3. Takeaway from local Turkish restaurant (not actually planned but it was a nice treat)
4. Mash (YS potatoes from ages ago) and broccoli, carrots and Brussels sprouts (all YS) with mixed chicken and chorizo/pork kebabs (both YS) for OH and veggie sausages for me
5. Soy and sesame noodles with broccoli. With teriyaki pork belly for OH (YS) and Quorn chicken for me
6. At my parents for dinner
7. Hot dogs (YS meat sausages for OH, veggie ones for me) with curly fries.

For breakfasts we have yoghurt, eggs, bread for toast, cereal and porridge

For lunches there's soup (from the YS veg), flatbreads (YS), beans, potato skins (YS), halloumi that can be used in rolls and rice. OH also has the YS ready meals above. 

Little low on things for snacks but there are crisps and chocolate cake slices (YS).

£226.72/£230.

Unfortunately think we will need dog food before Monday 😩

Naturelover22

Hello, I'm not contributing much yet, but the posts are very interesting and are keeping me more focused on what is out there in the shops and I'm much more aware of using up the food we have recently.
We are now overbudget, I made a guess at the start of the month and we are on £225.30 so far (out of £200 budget)
Separately to this challenge, I have been logging our other spending and there is defiantly ways to improve there too! I'm kind of looking forward to the end of the month to add all the categories up and plan next month!

I got some good discounts on YS in Sainsburys today.
Albert Bartlet potatoes 2.5kg £3.50 down to 10p.
Some maris piper potatoes 2.5kg £2.60 also down to 10p.
A huge Yeo Valley natural yogurt £3.85 down to 95p.
Carrots 70p down to 10p.

Think I'll get some of the potatoes cooked into wedges and mash to freeze up, the veg will be for the guinea pigs.

QueenJess

Things are getting very tight with a week to go.  I needed £11.31 of personal care type items as DH only told me at the last minute , then milk will come to £12.98 for the next week.  That brings me to £196.69/£200 for the main shop.  I have my fingers crossed the bulk order coming at the weekend will come just under the budgeted £100.

As I'll have another £13 or so on milk next week (paid a week in advance), I'm just not going to make it, but it'll be the closest I've ever got to my target!

Total spend £196.69/£200 (+£100 for bulk shop).

diminua

I'm already fairly sure I'm going to go over this month. £172.35 spent and the fortnightly veg box still to go out next Friday. There were some more 'going out' spends last weekend that I could half-persuade myself belong in the Easter budget but know don't really. Since I do want to see people (and don't want to sponge) I'm taking this as a lesson that around bank holidays I need to budget for extra. 

Pinwheel

Hello

£44.34 spent at L**l this morning.  I went to look at the £1.50 boxes but was told that I couldn't walk around with it in my trolley, I had to pick it up at the end.  This didn't really work for me because as I couldn't see what was in it, I didn't know what I still needed to buy.  I was feeling a bit sensitive and felt like I got told off ☹️!  

Anyway fish, chips and peas from the freezer tonight, nice and easy.  Didn't get everything I needed this morning so there will be more spends tomorrow.

Does anyone have any ideas for using up sour cream?  I often have half a tub left after we've had veg chilli.  Also I bought an enormous tub of greek yoghurt in L**l for only 15p more than the regular size that I buy elsewhere.  It says to use within 3 days of opening but I know the quantity is enough to last us a week.  Can you freeze it?  Or would you use it after 3 days?

Thank you, have a good day.

thriftwizard

A massive £133+ added to my total, between the butchers, the supermarket, the bakers & the market over the last two days. More than I like, but the guests that didn't come last weekend as we'd been "in close contact" are coming this weekend instead! And there's still a (little) bit of slack, as there'll be a top-up of bead & bananas at some point early next week.