June 2022 Grocery Challenge

EssexHebridean

Hello all - just catching up as I’ve popped in to post our spends today. 

First up Farmers market this morning - £18 on the lamb stall on a half leg (the only shoulder having gone minutes before we arrived, which was about 2 minutes before the market officially opened!) and a pack of breast rings. I reckon I’ll get three meals from the leg, and a further two from the breast - and two of those will be Sunday dinners so I’m happy enough with that. Then £10.23 on the beef stall - beef & horseradish sausage rolls for lunch (a favourite treat!) and a decent sized pack of mince. This afternoon was a quick dash into F@rmf00ds for the cherry toms they have on offer at the moment - they are delicious, super-local to us (as in they were grown about 5 miles away!) and 69p a pack. £2.07 spent. Then T’s for the main shop - £20.68 spent there. Finally the veg box has been delivered - £15.99. One other small spend - we decided on pizza for tea which will come from our general spending money but we bought it from Al’s rather than getting takeaway - while in there £1.50 spent on two packs of crackers. 

So this week’s total spend is £68.47 - eek! That adds to last week’s £67.03 (I hope that’s right) to give us £135.50/£200 = £64.50 remaining. Theoretically that has to do three weeks shopping - which feels horribly tight. However, we’re away next weekend, so food for those three days will come from our fun budget, and so I expect to see a low spend next week. We’ve also already converted some bits into several meals - tomatoes from the veg box and peppers from the fridge have been roasted to give the base for two pasta sauces, and the last two sweet potatoes, a bunch of spring onions, half the mince bought today, a couple of onions, a handful of mushrooms and some storecupboard ingredients have been turned into a big pot of curry which will certainly do two double portions, and possibly more - I’ll find out when we divide it up! 

PipneyJane

Greying_Pilgrim said:

PipneyJane said:

What did they say, please, @Greying_Pilgrim?  The Food Programme is available as a podcast, so I’ve downloaded both episodes about beans (from 27th March and 3rd April), but other people may not be into podcasts.  (I do most of my listening that way and my queue has 453 programs in it. Gulp!)

- Pip

Hey hun, lovely to "see" you.

It was along the lines of the varieties and quality of beans that are bottled are generally higher than those that are tinned, so the resulting dish made with bottled beans should be more flavourful/the beans keep their shape etc.  Spanish bean bottlers tend to use beans grown either in Spain, or a small selection of countries, whereas they were explaining that tinned beans often come from countries with less history of growing beans, and that the varieties grown were selected on the basis of high yield/propensity to be processed etc.  The MrL bottled beans are spanish, and i did find them tasty, and they retained their shape in the soup, so in my humble opinion, they were a better product than the majority of tinned black eye beans that I have used.  However, I'm also a pragmatist, and whilst tasty food is great, my budget doesn't always stretch to purchasing bottled beans.  It was great to be able to try these beans for a slightly lower price.  I wouldn't be able to afford the beans from the UK company that is featured in the Food Programme podcast, irrespective of how wonderful they tasted.

Greying X

Thank you for explaining @Greying_Pilgrim.  Yes, I can see you keeping an eye out for L!dl’s next Spanish Week and pouncing accordingly.  I often find the promotions on the marked down shelf, the week afterwards, so slightly cheaper.

- Pip

Bluegreen143

This morning I can confirm that crumbled oat & choc chip bars = a very nice granola eaten with milk. Still on the search for the ultimate cereal bar though 😆

Any ideas for using up apple juice which is out of date by a day? My friend left it here and she did buy it YS for 10p (a friend after my own heart!!), so not a major loss if we don’t use it, but just wondering if anyone has any recipes? I’ve already given the kids a cup of it each today and I’d prefer to avoid it myself as I’m on a diet and not really drinking sweet juices.

diminua

Flour, potatoes and margarine bought as planned. Also soft fruit, and staples again like milk, bread and coffee. I’ve also been for a drink or two and had another coffee and cake lunch though.  

I had some limes starting to go brown so made lime syrup for use with the sodastream (literally a mug of water, a mug of sugar, boiled down with the juice of two limes. It doesn't have the kick of shop bought as I think they put extra citric acid and flavourings in that, but it's refreshing. I sometimes make cream soda too - same sugar/water mix with vanilla essence to taste). 

I'll make veggie shepherds pie today for dinner today and tomorrow and put a cake in the oven at the same time (Mary Berry's Earl Grey Teabread but with a different tea). Hopefully if I've plenty in I won't be so tempted to buy out, 

I’ve got £45.85 left for the rest of the month.

PipneyJane

Bluegreen143 said:

This morning I can confirm that crumbled oat & choc chip bars = a very nice granola eaten with milk. Still on the search for the ultimate cereal bar though 😆

Any ideas for using up apple juice which is out of date by a day? My friend left it here and she did buy it YS for 10p (a friend after my own heart!!), so not a major loss if we don’t use it, but just wondering if anyone has any recipes? I’ve already given the kids a cup of it each today and I’d prefer to avoid it myself as I’m on a diet and not really drinking sweet juices.

Do you have any popsicle moulds @Bluegreen143 ?  You could make apple-juice popsicles.  Just pour in the juice and freeze.  

Also, remember that a best before date applies to the packaging’s ability to keep the food fresh, not the contents.  Usually juice packaging says “once open use within xx days”, so you still have a day or two in which to use it up.

- Pip

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning GC'rs!

£9.35 expenditure in HB to own up to.  Coffee (as it was actually back in stock), honey and some 'feminine hygiene products'.  

Tea was sort of as slated last night, although I swapped out the wedges for potato salad instead, as I had some mini potatoes from the MrL box to use.  I also used up the last of the plums for a crumble - from a previous MrL box.  They were excruciating to de-stone, and most of the 'flesh' departed from the skin, and clung resolutely to the stone.  I chopped up a couple of small apples that were 'wooly' in texture to bulk out the fruit quotient, and soak up the juice.  The skins did make the crumble a nice colour, but it was underwhelming flavour-wise.  I would have been disappointed had I paid full price for the plums.  I even managed to remember to cook the baked potatoes for tonight's tea - go me!

Meal plan for next week will be along the lines of;

Baked orzo with mozarella and oregano
Green lentil soup
Carribean one pot with yellow rice
Lemony spinach hotpot with brown rice
Lobia Masala, lentil dhal and rice
Salad/bean buddha bowl
Lentil bolognese and pasta

The only day that is currently set in stone is the soup on Tuesday as I need to be out with LG at the club.  Otherwise I'm cutting myself a bit of slack with being able to swap things around.  

Greying X

SausageDogSandwich

Afternoon everyone, 

Things have gone a bit haywire here on the grocery budget front. Have spent another £27.94 between a few shops. Wasn’t entirely sure how it happened but I did buy my dad a small gift, dog toy and some food for Father’s Day to do giant hot dogs, nachos and Mars fudge and a few other bits we needed which obviously soon adds up. £108.99/150 spent so far. Walking to Aldi in the morning to get milk, potatoes, apples, bacon, cucumber, weetabix and coffee and then that will have to be it for next week. 

Keeping it to basic meals this week, bacon hash, potato and pea curry, bean burgers, sweet and sour, cheesey pasta, pizza from freezer and steak pie with veg from freezer. I have everything for this apart from the bacon and potatoes. 

Already worrying about next months budget, just had the idea to change my dates to make it stretch another week and start my new budget on the 1st July else July is going to be an even longer month for me. It will definitely be a challenge but will have to be careful and keep my fingers crossed   

katkin

Top up shop done this morning at Morries costing £17.73.

Needed potatoes, fruit and salad things. Picked up 2 tins of sardines for 49p each, yeast and plain flour and treated us to some dark chocolate and me lemonade. OH has taken to drinking milk with his lunches (shocking - does the man think dairy grows on trees for free! ) so I bought 4l for £2.70 whereas the milk delivery costs £4.42 for 4l a week.

There wasn't much on yellow sticker offer and what was there wasn't that cheap, maybe I timed it wrong but it looks like rising costs are effecting "bargains" as much as everything else. 

GC Budget - £275
Spend to date - 201.21
Dairy / milk - £17.68 (paid at end of month)
Balance - £56.11

Still need to menu plan for the coming week and prep a few meals for easy dinners on work days. Cutting down eating out and takeaways has been one of the best money saving things I've done. I do miss it after a long day at work but it's now a treat budgeted separately so I'm a bit more in control of that spend.

It was me who said that money-saving and managing budgeting was a bit stressy. It's not the menu planning, that's a dawdle, its the constant checking and planning and keeping on top of the cost of living - on top of the usual stresses life throws at you. Before I could buy what I liked without checking prices  - those were the days! Though I do believe I am valuing things differently now and finding pleasures in simple things that aren't shopping or consumer related. There's definitely a sense of achievement in being frugal and making do. 

Wraithlady

Bluegreen143 said:

Does anyone have any really good cereal bar recipes? 

Today I tried an oat & chocolate chip recipe. In fairness I made so many substitutions to the recipe it’s probably my fault, but it’s all crumbly and not holding together. Delicious though so we will eat it as granola if I can persuade the kids they like granola 😅

Basically it was meant to be oats, seeds, chocolate chips & puffed rice held together by brown rice syrup & oil. I skipped the seeds as hadn’t any, was going to sub puffed rice for rice crispies but had none so used a mix of Os cereal and corn flakes, subbed in honey in place of brown rice syrup and butter in place of oil… 

Will try it again with more of the liquids and less dry ingredients, but thought I’d ask if anyone has a good nut-free cereal bar recipe for me to try in case it doesn’t work! 

Don't have a recipe per se, but upping the honey and oil a bit will help, also covering the mixture with greaseproof paper and applying a bit of mindful violence with a rolling pin (to REALLY tamp it down in the pan) does help.

JingsMyBucket

Jings! I haven't updated since June 2nd. I've been reading and trying to catch up but I wanted to post our total so far for the month. Mr. Jings spent a shed load of money right before I returned from my trip and I told him that he's never going food shopping alone again.  A lot of it was on curry ready meals at M & S and other things to "get the house ready for you"... That said, through his purchases we've discovered the M & S chicken madras curry meal which was excellent. Just sauce and lots of plump juicy chicken. We'll definitely be getting that again. 

I've been afraid to add everything up but we're actually still doing pretty well! £197.91 spent so far and we still have about £60 left in the budget for the next 10 days. We'll need to buy some fruit and maybe some vegetables but we've been getting a lot of spinach and lettuce from the garden lately. We have supermarket broccoli, bell peppers and mushrooms in the fridge and other veg in the freezer. 

I'm going to try eking out until the end of the month. OH is leaving this Sunday for a business trip and then I'll follow him on the Thursday 29/6. He'll be gone for 3 weeks and I'll be gone for 2 weeks; we'll return together in mid-July. We'll be stocking up on a lot of household goods in July so I want some money to roll over. Let's see if we can keep our expenditure to £30 for the next 10 days. Fingers crossed!

£197.91 / £260.00 spent so far. £62.09 / £260.00 remaining