May 2022 Grocery Challenge

pamsdish

Unexpectedly out to lunch yesterday, I contributed wine so £15.94 in A1d1 on a selection of reds.  

Greying_Pilgrim

Good morning May GC'rs

More spends to confess 😔  We're now at all the 4's - £44.44.  Had I needed to spend exactly that amount, do you think I could have? 🤣

I'm starting to lose faith in MrL.  For sure they had quite a few £1.50 boxes today, but the contents........  The stuff is supposed to be still edible/fresh, and yet I get the impression that the store is reducing it's food waste disposal bill, by trying to palm off rotten veg and fruit on customers, at their own cost.......  I did end up buying a box, but I very nearly left them alone again.  I shall be admitting I was wrong to bother purchasing it if the punnet of peaches turns out to be inedible.....  I'm assuming that I will have to cook them as it is.  The rest of the box contents were only just worth the price - although I chose it in part as there were a bag of carrots in there, and I was going to buy carrots anyway - but i did notice on getting them home that they were organic...... (which my budget doesn't stretch to......)

I had to go up the road to the MrAl store again today, as MrL was still out of stock of flour and porridge oats. Considering our MrL is quite a big store, located to take on the 'big four', I think they're doing a great job of dissuading any new customers to bother shopping there.  In contrast, MrAl was well stocked (although they had no black olives) and the lass on the till was so cheerful (and no, exchanging a few words didn't slow her down at all, I still went through the till in a nano-second).  I did get some mushrooms from MrAl - they weren't on my list, but the 'Everyday Essentials' were reduced by 10p and were the chestnut style of mushrooms, so I considered them worth £1.30.  I then popped into MrA.  They have the 8 LindaMc burgers on special offer for £2.50 a box.  I want to see if I can convert the fam to eating these, over the 1/4lber burgers of that brand, as they are getting so expensive.........  I also got some frozen broccoli and a jar of black olives (although MrA is more expensive that MrL & MrAl for these 🙁).

I will be using most of the mushrooms for a curry that can be put in the freezer for another day, but I shall also make a bit more caponata, as the MrL box contained an aubergine (complete with rotten bits 🙁), and put some mushrooms in that for a bit of a change - probably tips it over to being more like rataouille that caponata, come to think of it.......

Greying X

PipneyJane

Good morning All

@Elsiepac, please change my budget to £146.30 for May.  It now includes April’s surprise underspend.

@DawnW how was the pie? It sounds lovely.  Also, when you say “spinach” do you mean perpetual spinach?  When I grew the latter, I found the over-wintering leaves to be quite tasteless.  You could taste the chlorophyll but nothing else, none of the pepperiness you get in regular spinach.  (As my DH said, “it tasted green”.)

I have one small spend to declare for May: £3 spent at a market stall for some huge Kentish strawberries.  (Bought from the grower.). I couldn’t resist.

Meal plans for this week are les vague than normal thanks to this challenge:

• Monday:    Brunch: Welsh Rarebit to use up a L!dl sourdough loaf.  Dinner:  YS rolled shoulder of pork from the freezer, with roast potatoes, roast sweet potatoes and (maybe) roast onions, if there are any small ones left.  While the big oven is on, I’ll make NIgella Lawson’s rice pudding and bake it too. Portions of that can go in our lunches for the week.  Depending on oven space, I may also bake a ginger cake or a carrot cake.  (I do mine in loaf tins.)
• Tuesday:  Lunches:  Leftovers from the freezer (aka “lunchboxes”) plus portions of rice pudding and the cake if I make it.  Dinner:  stir fry using leftover pork, leftover flavoured rice/bulgar wheat from last week’s Hoisin Chicken Tray Bake, plus some carrots, mushrooms and peppers from the fridge. (Notes, re the recipe link: I double or treble the quantities of peanut butter and hoisin sauce.  Also, I use 1 cup rice plus 1 cup bulgar wheat and double up the stock, add a cup of frozen peas, a cup of frozen sweetcorn and some small cubes of sweet potato.  Oh, and I use 1 large chicken thigh or a whole chicken leg per person instead of two small thighs.)
• Wednesday:  Lunches will be portions of Tuesday’s dinner.  Dinner will be my version of Pork and Beans from Bernadine Lawrence’s “How to Feed Your Family on £4 a Day” cookbook.  That should use up any remaining pork and clear a tub of black-eyed beans from the freezer.
• Thursday: lunch will be leftovers from Wednesday plus any remaining rice pudding and a slice of ginger cake.  Dinner will have to be fast because we’re due at a friend’s at 7pm to play board games.  I think I’ll defrost a tub of home-made pesto and have that with spaghetti.
• Friday:  No idea yet.

All breakfasts are porridge for DH, who buys sachets and takes them into work, and cereal for me.  My breakfast cereal is always 40g of a 50:50 mix of a more expensive cereal (e.g. own-brand Maple-and-Pecan-Crunch) with L!dl’s cheapest bran flakes (for fibre), to which I add a tablespoon of mixed seeds and a tablespoon of sunflower seeds (for the protein). 

I am not sure when I’ll go shopping.  If I fill up my car on Wednesday after work - it will need it by then - I’ll pop into the L!dl next to the petrol station and the one on the way back, to check out any YS items they may have.  (Wednesdays at 7pm seems to be a good time for 90p meat.). Otherwise, we might hold out until Friday and walk down to L!dl after work.  (We both now WFH on a Friday.)

- Pip

Bella_Budget

Weekly menu plan (lots of this is from freezer)
Mon salmon, potatoes and asparagus
Tues chicken and red pepper risotto
Wed h/m gf burgers and chips
Thurs 3 bean chilli nachos with trimmings
Fri h/m gf chicken pot pie, broccoli and potatoes
Sat greek salad omlette 
Sun sausage casserole and mash.

Weekly shop 47.23 
Total 284.92 left from 400

wishus

First spend of the month: Asda £3.34, Aldi £11.95 = £15.29
From that I bought a pork shoulder which I cut in half. One half will be eaten as sandwich fillings this week, the other next week. plus there's crackling. My husband mainly likes meat-based lunches but I will probably also soak and cook chickpeas for houmous. I'm trying to up my intake of veggies for the health benefits. We also have a mix of apples, bananas and pears, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, carrot, and handfuls of nuts... plus a few pork pie slices, which will go in his lunchbox. We can ring the changes in various ways.
Breakfasts for both of us will be overnight oats with yoghurt, raisins, mixed berries and mixed seeds
Dinner plans:
Tonight - from the freezer - minted lamb burgers in wholemeal buns, plus sweet potato wedges and salad.
Tuesday - the rest of the minted lamb burgers, as they were all frozen together (yeah that wasn't me).
Wednesday/Thursday - working in the office. Will try to bus Wednesday for the cheapest but will get the train on Thursday. 
Wednesday - veggie idea was artichoke risotto, but as we have chicken breasts in the freezer and my husband wasn't keen, that's now chicken and artichoke risotto. With black truffle oil! How posh! Nah, it's that truffle oil from Aldi we've had for years, and the artichokes are from the fruit and veg stall on the market.
Thursday - anniversary dinner, which will have to come out of social budget.
Friday - mushroom pancake and green beans 
Saturday - ratatouille pasta
Sunday - possibly Thai fishcakes

Soontobeoap

here I am again here I am again with more spends to report. This is going to be the tightest month ever and I am hoping that DH can reign in his little impulse buys that are pushing the budget higher than I have anticipated!

so, I am not sure that I reported that I bought 4 boxes of shop brand non bio washing tablets from Asda, as Tescos and Aldi have stopped selling their shop brand ones. So it was a £10.00 bulk buy! 

Then today I spent £9.11 in Aldi on a chicken, some ham pieces that looked really good quality , salad ,tomato’s, lettuce and onions.  My cut and come again lettuce that I have planted is coming along nicely so I am hoping that I won’t have to buy lettuce again this summer. 

£3.30 spent by DH when he changed his plans of staying with me for babysitting duties and ended up buying himself pasty  for 2 days running. ( not a great cook but he could have had beans on toast! 😖)

the worst thing is that when I popped into Asda on the off chance of washing tablets I hadn’t taken my bag and got stung 20p for a bag!!!!

only £30.55 left for this month now. Still it will only be for fresh produce like eggs, milk bread, fruit and veg so it is doable. I have been caught out 2 months running buying items in bulk so that we save money so it should pay off eventually and will all get used.
I am beginning to wonder if I should have a separate bulk fund like some other members on here but then I just end up with 2 many columns on my spread sheet.
also thinking I might up the budget so that I can put something into the food bank baskets. The situation is becoming so bab for so many people.

on a positive point this challenge has given me much more exercise because I am walking
to different shops and I have stopped eating snacks between meals ( unless they are my own bakes) which has resulted in me losing 9lbs since Christmas.  It’s a lifestyle change. I can’t help thinking that the NHS could save themselves a lot of money by asking folk to try the grocery challenge for 6 months before offering people obesity help.😂😅. It’s working for me! 2 stone to go! But that’s another story.

good luck this month everyone. Thanks again @elsiepac this challenge really changing my life.

Money_Choices

Hi Elsiepac

Thanks for starting this challenge. My grocery target in May 2022 is £120.
I've been given by a work friend a 2 person rice cooker which I am looking forward to using and she gave me instructions on how to use it. Now she has children she uses a larger rice cooker. 

Money Choices

atrixa

Now at £94.77/£140. 

I made some pasta sauce earlier for lunches and I'll make a vegan chilli tonight. Soup will be made tomorrow night, may need to nip out for some fresh veg.

Smoosh

Been a little bit absent - OH has had a tummy bug/food poisoning which thankfully I managed to avoid. It has messed up my meal plans a bit though! He is all better now so we did the usual big shop today.

First shop was £12.53 on 4 litres of fizzy drink, Quorn meatballs, Quorn steak pieces, 2 Quorn lattices, a jar of pasta sauce, a pack of cooked beetroot, 2 bags of salad, 12 stock cubes and a bag of tortilla chips.

Annoyingly they didn't have own brand stock cubes so had to buy pricey ones. Also didn't need all the Quorn products but they're on offer, so stocked up for use in the coming weeks. 

Next shop was £27.87 on 10 litres of fizzy drink, laundry detergent, 1 litre of juice, 2 bottles of shower gel, bottle of squash, bottle of bubble bath, vegetable oil, ketchup, jam, 6 pints of milk, salsa, bag of frozen chips, bag of frozen corn on the cob, 1 sweet potato, ready to eat chicken slices, 10 coffee pods, a ball of mozzarella, a block of goats cheese, 8 tortilla wraps, 500g Greek yoghurt, sour cream and 9 toilet rolls.

A bit of a pricey week but quite a few things we needed to stock up on and unfortunately no YS goodies. 

Also went to the dog food shop and spent £17.30 on food and a couple of treats that will last them approximately 2 weeks.

Meal plan (in no particular order):
1. Hot dogs (veggie sausages for me, YS pork sausages for OH) in brioche buns (YS) with chips
2. Korean style vegan "chicken wings" (YS) with fried rice
3. Refried bean and cheddar quesadillas (OH will also have chicken). Served with tortilla chips, sour cream, salsa and corn on the cob
4. Meatball (veggie) pasta bake with mozzarella
5. Beetroot and goats cheese risotto with salad
6. Goats cheese, sweet potato and sweet chilli salad
7. Undecided - will see what we can come up with!

Breakfasts will be yoghurt or porridge with frozen berries. There's also toast, cereal and a couple of YS croissants.

Lunches will be leftover quesadillas, chicken salad wraps for OH, YS soup and YS flatbreads. 


£90.11/£230.

Already feel like it's going to be a tight month 😩

nannygladys

No money spent this month yet I think it'll probably be towards the end of the week before I need to go. 
Managed to find a small notebook on my shelves so when I go I'm making a meal plan, things to buy and then putting prices by them as I go round so I can start to see how often I buy things, ie tins of tom's, loo rolls etc , so when I see an offer I can perhaps stock up on them.