May 2022 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

I've completely lost track of my budget due to being under the weather again so think it would be best for me to start again on the first of June. For now I'll just read along to see how others are getting on and to refocus my mind on getting best value from my stores and spending.

Good luck to all those who are eking out their last few pennies and see you all over on the new thread. 

DawnW

@irishwexford there will be a new challenge for June, so keep your eyes open.

Shopping at Lidl today. I spent £48.94, plus a few items for the food bank which don't count as part of this challenge. Included dog food and beer for OH, plus basic toiletries as well as the grocery /  food items, no cleaning products needed this week. This brings my spend for May to £208.28 / £250. Probably won't need anything else before the end of the month, but we will see.

Got a good veg box in Lidl, and some 20p bread products as well

I had to throw away a few little green potatoes and a head of broccoli (though the other one packed with it is fine) from the veg box, but the rest is ok. I got: some easy peelers - a bit dull looking, now in the freezer for my next marmalade making session; Jersey Royal potatoes (for dinner); an odd carrot, plus a bag of Chantenay carrots; apples, blackberries (cooked the least attractive apples with the blackberries to make a pie or crumble filling); 3 perfect avocados, which I mashed with lime juice and a chopped tomato to make a simple version of guacamole; some red onions; broccoli; parsley, a huge lemon, which has become 2 lemon drizzle cakes; organic tomatoes... I think that is everything. Very good value for £1.50, though I find I do need to make time to sort through it carefully.

Spent the afternoon cooking and prepping. I had got some meat and fish out of the freezer intending to do this. Got loads done! I made some fish cakes, a big batch of game pie filling in the SC, and a vegetarian pie, as well as the lemon drizzle cakes, guacamole and apple and blackberry pie filling. Also chopped and froze some carrots and celery from last week, which had seen better days, and tidied the fridge. OH helped, but I seem to have been washing up all afternoon!

Just had dinner, so I now have more washing up, but once that is done I don't intend to do anything else apart from box up the meat and fruit pie fillings and check my seedlings in the greenhouse!

PipneyJane

Good evening All

I’m 7 pages behind, so hope I haven’t missed anything momentous.  Will try to catch up shortly.

Firstly, though, I have a spend to declare.  £5.73 in L!dl.   Popped in on my way back from collecting my car from its MOT, since it was after 5:30pm and I thought there might be some bargains to be had.  I’ve noticed that early evening on a Wednesday seems to be a good time to get deeply discounted meat.  From the 90p meat tray, I picked up 2 packs of 4 pork loin steaks (and ignored the packets of beef burgers).  I also found a YS stuffed roast in the bag chicken for £3.35 (use by date is Friday).  From the deeply discounted deli tray, I picked up 2 packs marinated anchovies at 70p each (BBE 23.8.22), and from discounted bread “cage” a packet of YS English muffins for 20p.  After yesterday’s dash to buy some, I also bought 2 cans anchovies  at 49p each.   The total was £7.73 but we had a £2 off voucher to spend before Friday or we’d lose it.

The pork steaks have already made it into the freezer,  packed in 2’s in ziplock bags.  Ditto the muffins. I think we’ll have the chicken for dinner on Friday, since we’ll both be WFH.  It’s stuffed with a pork, sage and onion stuffing.  Should be interesting.

The above brings our total spend to £136.93/£146.30, leaving £9.73 to take us through until Tuesday.  The GC purse currently owes me 73p and holds a £10 note.  Neither it nor my purse has sufficient change.

- Pip

SausageDogSandwich

Evening all, I’ve spent £11,18 at Asda yesterday on milk, butter, eggs, salad bits and Handwash. £2.77 at the coop just that wasn’t necessary but I needed to get some change and they finally had some reduced bread, a 12 pack of chocolate donuts for 75p so they are now in the freezer for next week.(who am I to resist) and my son wanted some crisps and herbals while we were there. Also 75p earlier as I went out with littlest and didn’t take a drink so had to get her one. Making my total £148.03/150 with only tomorrow remaining, however I have just run out of coffee and any form of cleaning products apart from washing up liquid.  Other than that I don’t plan to do any shopping until June .. but will see what happens. I will declare tomorrow 

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening May GC'rs!

FrugalHedonist - thanks for that recipe link.  I shall certainly bear it in mind - and yes, it's good to have a raft of recipes that enable us to have our cake, and afford it!

MissRikkiC - honestly, the sponge has exceeded my expectations, it just tastes so lovely.  You know darn well if I needed an orange cake to impress someone, it would have tasted of nowt.  But this is nice on it's own - and again, it would make a lovely base for a zesty trifle or something.  I reckon I dropped lucky tho.  One time gig - never to be repeated exactly so ever again....... sigh......  The good news is that LG  liked it, so some of those 5-a-day things are getting in...... by hook or by crook 🤣

Tea turned out OK.  I was secretly pleased that it was a bit of a 'YS' tea (well, MrL box).  I pressed and marinated the tofu.  The marinade was basically a dijon/lemon dressing with mint and garlic added in.  It didn't penetrate far into the tofu, but it crisped up nicely on the outside, so it was certainly acceptable - smoked tofu remains my fave tho.  I chopped up my rainbow cherry vine tomatoes - I only had to take out the core on the orange ones (a bit fiddly, but I did it with minimal waste) as they had started to rot from the stem, and I lost half of a orange tomato as it had a grot spot on it - but the rest of the tomato was OK.  I was able to use all of the yellow and red tomatoes.  They were just marinated in an olive oil/balsamic/basil dressing.  The lettuce was a small, slightly wilted iceberg from the box.  I didn't have to waste much (mostly stem), and it perked up with a little soak as i washed it.  I think I was most pleased with what i did to the broad beans (frozen).  I found a broad bean salad recipe of JO's, which I used for inspiration.  Rather than follow the recipe, I used what I had, so i gently cooked some thinly sliced red onion, with some (frozen) chopped peppers and a bit of garlic.  I steamed the broad beans in the microwave until just cooked (as you know, overcooked beans go grey.....), and then i added (dried) parsley and mint to the onion/pepper mix and added in the beans and stirred together.  I hadn't got any whole/sliced almonds, so I crushed up the few toasted hazelnuts that I had left in a packet.  It hasn't been a bad day, but goodness it felt good to take a rolling pin and do a bit o' bashin!  The rice was steamed brown basmati.

Pudding was orange cake, greek yoghurt and a sprinkle of a few blueberries.  And today was a NSD.



Greying X

Soontobeoap

Have just found an ocado voucher for £20 off a £60shop. I know that their food is more expensive and just wondered if anyone had tried this offer. If so what did you think of the value for money? 

EssexHebridean

A £5.30 spend for me to declare today - I had to visit the next town along to run an errand, and the only parking in the town aside from T’s is chargeable. T’s have the “spend £5 and validate your ticket to park for free” thing so I did that - and acquired 3 cheeses (the cheapy “Greek style salad cheese”, a goats cheese and a pack of Blacksticks Blue) and a tub of British cherry toms for my money. I’m now hankering after a salad using the Greek style, the toms and some of the cucumber from the veg box… 

MissRikkiC

@Greying_Pilgrim Mine too was actually lovely!! And whilst I won’t share the photo my husband took (probably not here or anywhere else as it’s indeed now very special), It’s meant the baking of said cake has given me a wonderful pictured memory of baking with my daughter with my 4 day old son snuggled into my chest in the sling which is exactly what I’ve been needing these last 48 hours. So thank you. For the inspiration and for being the kickstart to this happening ❤️

Blackcats

I think I'm doing ok this month as I've currently got £40.78 left for the calendar month.  

I've done well with olio and we've been adapting our meal plans to use items we've received.  Also, the freezer is well stocked and so are the cupboards.  I know we are fortunate to be in this position and I don't take it for granted.

This thread is helping me in many ways - meal planning is so obvious but I've never done it methodically and consistently and of course it's a game changer.  Not wasting food - obvious but relatively new to me.  Using a shopping list 🤷‍♀️ - you guessed it - a new to me concept 🤦‍♀️.  

I'm grateful for the honesty and generous spirit of everyone who posts here.
we are all doing well, even when we go over budget we are trying.

Greying_Pilgrim

MissRikkiC said:

@Greying_Pilgrim Mine too was actually lovely!! And whilst I won’t share the photo my husband took (probably not here or anywhere else as it’s indeed now very special), It’s meant the baking of said cake has given me a wonderful pictured memory of baking with my daughter with my 4 day old son snuggled into my chest in the sling which is exactly what I’ve been needing these last 48 hours. So thank you. For the inspiration and for being the kickstart to this happening ❤️

Oh my goodness - MisssRikkiC - I'm in tears here!  (And I can't even blame post-natal third day hormone drop syndrome!!!! 🤣🤣🤣) How wonderful - and we can imagine the picture!  It'll be pure ❤️

Well done with the cake baking with your daughter and congratulations on the birth of your son.  Thanks for posting 😊

Greying X