August 2022 Grocery Challenge

mumtoomany

Took advantage of DD1 being off work and just took the "babies" shopping. Spent £11.50 in the vegetable shop and £33.42 in aldi. Total now, £1736.39/£2640. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

joedenise

Now £188.66 left of my £250 budget for this month after buying a tub of yoghurt and a TGTG bag for collection this evening from Morries.

LadyWithAPlan

August so far  spent 
  Grocery  £65.02/£170   
  £4.50/30 bulk - coconut oil and coffee

I also spent £17.50 on my won Sains £50 grocery card - which I guess I should count really.

I cant remember who on here first mentioned having a bulk pot but it is a great idea and reduces stress.

I do have the Holland and B subscribe and save where you get your 5th order free so I have a large vegan protein powder on route for free as I speak.

I am back in the gym  most days and swimming which means I am showering at the gym which is a great electricity saver as well
However I keep popping into my local lidl  by the gym to see if any bargains ... which there are but then I buy more  veg and fruit - too much ....
I did see a £1.50 veg box but full of potatoes more than anything and I don't eat that many myself 

I am off tomorrow to look after  for 2 weeks a family members house and pets (very definitely plural - 16 ! plus some fish so I have actually managed to pull back on the daily grocery spending this week as I know I need an empty fridge tomorrow.

 She lives in a cheaper part of the UK (I live in London) and will no doubt have some food in for me anyway so I should be on and indeed below target - the £170 was  a start as this is my first grocery challenge in many months so will try to get it down by £10/month to where its livable - not including eating out which I dont do much of and is budgeted anyway.
 I will have to order no doubt some food in for when they all get back.

My budget busters as always are crisps, sweets and occasionally chocolates. If I buy them I eat them and may pop on way home to get some .. Good news is where I am going to - its a car drive to the local shop - I will have her car to drive - she is insuring me -  but the almost daily snacks will not happen especially as she has a gas guzzler and petrol prices look awful - i got rid of my car a few years ago.

Also this week I have been out every night catching up with friends - some of which I have not seen pre lockdown so being out in the countryside will stop my entertainment spending as well (which is also tightly budgeted). 

So still only on 3 NSD of my targeted 13 this month NSD. I may get away with one today but travelling tomorrow so will be spending then.

thriftwizard

£118.23 added for this week, between the butchers, bakers, supermarket & market, which takes us up to a slightly alarming £343 and we're not quite halfway through the month yet. Still "catching up" from feeding 9 last weekend, to be honest! Plus not exactly wanting to cook in this weather... 
So I'll need to tighten the belt a bit for the rest of August. Hoping that cooler weather, if any, will make that easier...

PipneyJane

LadyWithAPlan said:

August so far  spent 
  Grocery  £65.02/£170   
  £4.50/30 bulk - coconut oil and coffee

I also spent £17.50 on my won Sains £50 grocery card - which I guess I should count really.

I cant remember who on here first mentioned having a bulk pot but it is a great idea and reduces stress.

It may have been me.  I am certainly an advocate of putting £10-£20 a month aside for bulk spends.

No spends to declare for me, so far this month, but that's because a) we were at the Commonwealth Games for most of the first week, b) we got home too late on Sunday to nip into L!dl or Sainsbugs to buy fresh veg, and c) I promptly woke up on Monday with a streaming cold so didn't want to go near anyone, and we both subsequently tested positive for COVID on Wednesday morning.  (DH finally developed symptoms yesterday.)  Fortunately, we have a freezer stocked with meat, fresh milk, cooked pulses, some frozen veg, the odd tub of Base*, home made pesto and some leftovers.  Also fortunately, we have a well stocked pantry full of basics like dried pasta, rice, flour, dried pulses, dried herbs and spices, tinned tomatoes and tinned fish.  Oh, and there are 6 eggs in the fridge. Unfortunately, the only fresh veg we had in the house were 6 baking potatoes (<2 weeks "old" but sprouting madly), 2 sweet potatoes, about 20 bulbs of garlic, and 10 onions. 

It's been an interesting few days on the meal planning front, especially as we've both had to work and not felt much like cooking in the evenings.  Here's what we've eaten:- 

• After we got home on Sunday, I cooked up a pot of dhal, making the takka from a tub of Base from the freezer, a tin of tomatoes, 1/4 kilo of frozen mixed veg, and served it over bulgar wheat.  It made 7 lunch boxes and a small dinner for me.  (DH didn't want to eat anything. Did I mention that DH had spent the second half of our holiday with a stomach upset and, subsequently, not much appetite?)
• On Monday, I defrosted some bacon, fried it up with an onion, garlic and two tins of tomatoes, boiled up 500g of pasta, and made dinner plus 4 lunch boxes.
• Tuesday, I defrosted some chickpeas and a tub of frozen spinach (from March 2021 !), diced up 3 of the 6 potatoes (the rest were too far gone so were binned), fried up an onion with half a chorizo sausage (diced) and made Chickpea & Chorizo Stew, aka "Scrummy with a touch of spinach". (Recipe is on my blog but I'm not allowed to link to it.)
• Wednesday, I defrosted a 1kg lump of YS gammon and roasted it with the sweet potatoes.  Served them up with some frozen sweetcorn.
• Thursday:  the plan was to make a crust-less quiche variant of the Cheese & Ham Quinoa Bites from Eat Well For Less, using a fried chopped onion instead of the spring onion and cooking the whole thing in a lined, springform pan for about 45 minutes instead of in muffin pans.  (It always sticks when I try cooking it in muffin pans.)  Instead, I finally caved and ordered Chinese Takeaway.
• Tonight:  I'll make the quiche and serve it accompanied by cold, tinned sweetcorn.

ETA:  each day, breakfast has been cereal, while lunch consisted of leftovers from the lunchboxes made up previously.  Today it was leftover Chinese.

Tomorrow, if I'm asymptomatic, I'll go to L!dl in the morning wearing 2 layers of filter mask and buy fresh veg.  If I still have symptoms, I might do a "click and collect" from MrT's, A$da, or Sainsbugs, assuming one of them still offers that facility and I can get a slot.

- Pip






*Since virtually every dish in my repertoire starts with frying chopped onions, sliced mushrooms and garlic, if I get a load of cheap onions and/or mushrooms, I'll fry up 3-6 meals'-worth in a batch, use one meals'-worth in dinner, divide the rest into tubs and freeze it as "Base".  One meal's quantity per tub.

LittleGem

Hi all,

no spends for me today 🙌🏼and got back late from seeing friends so an easy tea of beans, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast for us. Means I’ve eeked out an extra day on the meal plan so I’m happy with that. 

I love how many of you talk about a well stocked pantry, always sounds so comforting. I’m trying to build up more of a stash, motivated by this thread and price rises of course. Although I haven’t got a huge kitchen I’m going to aim to add a couple of useful tins (beans/tinned toms) to each shop, and maybe some pasta and rice. 

Would love some more ideas for useful things to add to the list. 

Blackandgold_2

Depends on what you like to eat really.

I always keep tinned tomatoes in the cupboard, along with chilli kidney beans, coconut milk, stock cubes, marmalade, chopped garlic and tomato puree. Sweet chilli sauce is always handy too.

gill5blue

Hi All,
very pleased with this week as I popped into shops too many times and didn't keep a mental record.
spent £51.44, (total -£112.86 of  £200 for month)
gilll5blue

gill5blue

LittleGem said:

Hi all,

no spends for me today 🙌🏼and got back late from seeing friends so an easy tea of beans, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast for us. Means I’ve eeked out an extra day on the meal plan so I’m happy with that. 

I love how many of you talk about a well stocked pantry, always sounds so comforting. I’m trying to build up more of a stash, motivated by this thread and price rises of course. Although I haven’t got a huge kitchen I’m going to aim to add a couple of useful tins (beans/tinned toms) to each shop, and maybe some pasta and rice. 

Would love some more ideas for useful things to add to the list. 

This is part of my larder.
gill5blue

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning GC'rs!

NSD for me yesterday, and likely to be the same today.  I've no idea what to cook for our evening meal - but that's down to the weather rather than any 'lack'.

A minor success yesterday was that LG ate precisely what DH & I had for us tea, which is where I want to get to.  We've been moving in the right direction for a while now, but this was a case of 3 completely identical meals - YAY!  We had plant-based 'balls' they were the brand fArmf00ds carry - '000mph' I think they were called, in a vegetable/tomato sauce, served with rice.  I made the sauce myself, and put 'all' the veg in 😉onions, celery, garlic, carrots and red, green and orange bell peppers (used the last of the bell peppers from the MrL box that had had 3 green peppers in it) along with a tin of tomatoes, a stock cube and some paprika.  Cooked in the PC and then used the stick blender to make a smooth sauce.  There was enough sauce for another dish, another day. I was supposed to serve it with steamed broccoli, but I think the heat had withered my braincell by that point in the afternoon, and I forgot.  However, I think we achieved our 'five a day' without it - it would just have added colour and a different taste.  And the broccoli is still good for another day, so win-win.

For dessert we had cherries and yoghurt.  I had picked up a punnet of Cherries from the waste re-direct, as they looked OK, and they were actually produce of Kent.  I'd had some cherries in the MrL box last week, but hadn't eaten them as they had literally gone blue with mould overnight.  These cherries were ripe but not over, so they were relatively easy to de-stone.  They were really purpley (I have the stained fingers to prove it! 😊), but unfortunately they lacked in the taste department, which was a shame.  In hindsight they would have been better being shoved into alcohol to make a warming winter tipple - but as I didn't have any, pudding it was!

I was delighted to read about residents of Orkney being able to benefit from an impromptu food waste diversion opportunity 😊 Great that there were 'ordinary' foodstuffs as well as a few treats for everyone too.  

Greying X