June 2022 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening,

Veered orf the meal plan (vague as it was), to make Greek New potato, pepper and courgette pan fry (although I made it all in the PC, so stewed rather than fried/crispy), to best use some of the contents of the MrL box.  I used some HM tomato/vegetable sauce in place of the suggested cherry tomato passata in the recipe.   Served with veggie sausages - sliced on the diagonal for added ponce and the last of the frozen green beans.  The sausages were cooked in the oven with an orange and blackberry cake that in turn used up the last 4 eggs that were a day out of date, but passed the sink test, and smelt perfectly fine when cracked ready to make the cake.  Yoghurt for those that wanted dessert.  The recipe was a new one to me, and tasted perfectly lush and the good news is that LG ate up a portion - making it another dish that served all three of us 👍 Can't say how pleased/relieved I am that we're moving to this stage, it makes such a difference.

Greying X

MissRikkiC

Well today is the day before pay day so in theory I’m done with whatever was left in the grocery pot however I’ve used it for July spends because I was already in town and the grocers is there. I’m not going to town now until next week and we were in desperate need of fruit (all frozen fruit has been used up, nothing in the fridge and honestly only a tin of mandarins in stores). 

Owning up to a scoff of a handful of strawberries from the haul and half a banana but otherwise it’ll start to be eaten from tomorrow so I’m not including it. 

Todays spent of £11.97 however did buy me 
2 250g punnets of blueberries 
1 200g of raspberries 
1 400g of strawberries 
1 large fennel
5 bananas 
6 huge carrots 
4 ripe avocados 
6 flat peaches 
2 limes
1 large lemon

Which I thought was very good value. 

Ending the month for June on £358/£370 

The extra budget (£370 vs normal £300) did help towards restocking stores and i am going to do what a few of you have done and buy similar stuff again this month to avoid further price increases. 

It was also the month where money was spent following the birth of my little boy so less thought went into the shop than usual! 

Will be reducing to £350 for July… see you there

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass said:

@PipneyJane @MissRikkiC Are you both familiar with The London Game? We bought it for Christmas and it has just the right amount of vindictiveness!

Nothing bought here. Just opening the freezer and shopping from stores for supper. I do need to shop next week to use up my voucher and also because I am doing the lunch for 24 people next Friday!

@Suffolk_lass - no, I haven’t.  I’ll keep an eye out for it, though.  We go to a couple of games conventions during the year; someone’s bound to have it.  Thanks for the recommendation.

- Pip

SausageDogSandwich

Went to asd@ again yesterday and spent £6.97. Bought a big block of cheese, lettuce, oil, wheat biscuits. Got home to realise milk was very low and it’s been polished off this morning by the kids. I’m not going to buy any today though as I want a NSD, going to try and have one tomorrow aswell as the kids don’t have cereal on Saturday, DH will have to make do with no milk in his coffee  but will be at work most of the day anyway. So the plan is to do a very small shop on Sunday and hope I can get a few things on olio this weekend as there hasn’t been anything this week as of yet. 

£127.70/150 spent. 

Kaylataste

Hello all,hope you are all keeping well,last delivery will be on sunday morning,I have £44/£230 left so just enough by the seat of my pants to cover it.

diminua

I haven't done so badly this week. Soft fruit again (apricots and strawberries), cream, milk, eggs, toilet rolls, ground coffee (which has gone up by 50p since I last bought it). Two cans of cream soda while at work and two pain au chocolats (pains au chocolat?) ditto. I had some nectar points so am now down to £31.88 for 6 days, which should be more than enough. 

Smoosh

I spent £6.50 last week on cat litter and toothpaste. 

I also got some YS goodies which my parents paid for so haven't been included - 2x ready made mash 15p from £1.50, 6 plums 20p from £2, a pack of veggie sausage rolls 18p from £1.75, mange tout 20p from £1.25 and vegan duck pancakes 30p from £3.

£15 on 4kg dog food. 

£15.85 on Monday on 4 litres of fizzy drink, carpet cleaner, beansprouts, tomatoes, 1/2 a cucumber, 2 packs of vegan sushi (YS - 24p each from £3.90 each), 2 packs of 2 scones (YS - 10p each from £1.50 each), 2 fudge doughnuts (YS - 15p from £1.65), 2 glazed doughnuts (YS - 20p from £1.65), 2 lemon buns (YS - 10p from £1.20), lamb shoulder (YS - £2 from £9.27), 2 muffins (YS - 20p from £2) and 2 fresh cream doughnuts (YS - 14p from £2.50)

Then £15.97 on 8 litres of fizzy drink, 1 litre of juice, sunflower oil, pasta bake sauce, curry sauce, 2 tins of coconut milk, spring rolls, 1.5kg carrots, 4 bananas, 1kg onions, mushrooms (YS - 62p from 89p), penne, a pack of biscuits, dry noodles, halloumi and pancetta.

OH has also bought milk twice but he can't remember what he spent, so I'll leave that coming out of his account! 

Meal plan, started on Monday:

1. Tom kha with mushrooms (YS) and spring rolls

2. Chow mein with onion, beansprouts and mange tout (YS). OH will also have beef in his. With vegan duck pancakes (YS) 

3. Peanut butter curry with carrot, mange tout (YS), beansprouts and Quorn steak strips. Served with rice 

4. Omelette (cheese and tomato for me, pancetta, YS mushroom and cheese for OH) and chips

5. Takeaway fish and chips 

6. Halloumi tikka masala and rice 

7. Pasta bake with veggie meatballs (YS) 

Breakfasts: cereal, cereal bars, pastries or toast. Lunches: sushi, sandwiches, sausage/cheese and onion rolls, crackers and cheese or pastries. Puddings: YS doughnuts/buns. Snacks: fruit, YS muffins, biscuits and crisps. 

I can't believe how much we've spent this month! I'm trying not to beat myself up too much as not so long ago we were spending £300 every month and we had one less dog to feed.

Tomorrow is the start of the new month for us so I'm declaring at £308.69/230 😱

PipneyJane

@elsiepac - just noticed that the Grocery Challenge threads are pinned again at the top of the Old Style Board.  It seems they’ve fixed the problem.

- Pip

ragz_2

Looks like I'm going to go over this month, despite increasing the budget to cover the Easter holidays. However, spent £17 at Sainsbo yesterday on last minute stuff to take to BBQ tomorrow so that's not really GC spending as such and £5 of the A1di spend on Wednesday was for ingredients for DS2 cooking lesson. If I took those off the total, I may scrape in. 
Need one more big shop to take us through to the end of the month. We have a lot of food in still but DH isn't very imaginative and if it's not in a box in the freezer or one of the 3 meals he cooks (very well) from scratch, then he doesn't think we have anything in. 

mumtoomany

A couple of small spends to add in. 20p on some YS crusty rolls OH picked up when he took DGS to beavers and milk and sweets. Total for all three is £3.09. New total to date is now, £1366.26/£2640. I about £46 over where i should be for half way through the year. Not too bad. DD3 is moving out at the end of June. I am debating whether I should reduce the total for the year to allow for this. She buys some of her own food, but I cover the rest and all the non food, toothpaste soap powder, etc. Maybe just see how we go, as all the prices are shooting up so much. The garden and poly tunnel are now producing well. Runner beans, courgettes, French beans, broccoli. Also have blackcurrants about to ripen and tomatoes and cucumbers growing. Should save us a few pennies. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx.