August 2022 Grocery Challenge

EssexHebridean

Hello all - another one here with a storecupboard - standard items for us in tins are tuna in brine, sardines in tomato sauce, chopped toms, baked beans, chickpeas, kidney beans and sweetcorn. Dry goods it's long grain, risotto and basmati rice, pasta/spaghetti, couscous, straight-to-wok noodles and the sachets of mixed rice/grains that can just be popped in the microwave for a couple of minutes to heat up. Those are the staples and I add additional bits there as I see stuff that's a good bargain. 

This weekend has been a three-shop week after our frugal one last week - Al's for a start at £37.44 but that included a fiver's worth of stuff for our holiday, a big chicken which will do several meals, and a few other storecupboard type bits. F@rmf00ds for stocking up on tinned tuna on their offer of 2 x Pr1nces 6 packs for £8 - ended up adding a couple of packs of well priced ice creams too for an £11 total spend there, and finally £6.31 in Sainsbugs for various bits (mainly fruit) that we couldn't get in Al's because their delivery was late. So £54.75 in total, which is our first shopping of the month thanks to the veg box being charged on last month's CC bill. Meals for the first part of this week will be a combination of chopped salad with (probably) chicken, tuna pasta salad and probably couscous salad (see a pattern developing here?!) and MrEH will probably want to go and get himself some eggs for later in the week as I'm away Thursday - Sunday. I'll let him do his own thing for those days - he knows what we've got in but I'm guessing will do a personal money cost takeaway one night or another. My food & drink (there will be drink!) over the weekend will come from my personal spends and is budgeted for. It's all in hand...ish....except that I'll need a good solid meal plan for next week and a shopping list for MrEH as he'll be doing the weekly shop... 

The veg box yielded some more beetroot - some of which will be making its way to the various salads this week, some tomatoes which have already been chopped and roasted while the oven was on for the chicken yesterday, along with some of the peppers also from the box. Also mushrooms (meaning I roasted the last of the previous week's ones for freezing too) a cabbage (that will be used for salads too) potatoes, spring onions (more salad fodder) and what was meant to be "courgettes" but turned up as an enormous marrow! In fact, I need to give consideration to what to do with that - I can see that couscous salad being piled into some of it though! 

London_1

Hi chums owing to a technical hitch I have been absent ,but in my absence I have been busy sorting out all of my food cupboards and listing stuff needed, and binning stuff not required.

 I actually found a tin of carrots dated 2015 that really had to go Even I couldn't think of eating them

But on the upside I now have four large cupbards all in perfect order, and four shelves upstairs in my book case stacked neatly with tinned and dried goods.

No more shopping to get now until 1st September and my purse has hopefully snapped shut with a very loud click

I am out tomorrow, but shall spend a good deal of Wednesday catching up on what I have missed. My internet provider is doing work in my area tomorrow so I won't be able to get online during the day anyway.

Hopefully we are all sticking to our plans, and getting organised for the comng winter and possible shortages.

Glad to be back chums

JackieO xx 

Blackcats

I'm doing well this month - that's not a smug remark more of an amazed observation 😸
I've been fortunate with Olio and have had fresh fruit and veggies, milk (which averted a top up shop), some fresh pasta stuffed with ricotta which made a meal with spinach and passata.  A couple of fancy baguettes which we had for tea with salad and sweet potato fries so we pretended we were at a gastropub.

need to shop tomorrow though but will have a thorough list.  We've just booked a break at the start of October so any leftover money can go into the kitty for holiday spends.

so ... there is still 

£213 left 

SausageDogSandwich

Did our big shop on Sunday, but turned out a lot smaller than planned as big gaps or empty shelves of things that i wanted. The list was stuck to as planned, no extras purchased. So another week of using what we have unless there are some bargains when I go to buy kids ice creams from Icel^nd tomorrow as it’s not near ald1. 

£4.75 on loo roll at hb and £23.98 at ald1. Makes my total so far £62.53/£200

Greying_Pilgrim

**** Greying tiptoes in.......... to report.............. LG ate the soup!!!!!!  WHOOOP!!!!!  First.time.ever!!!!!  I think it was the pasta that was the clincher 😊I didn't use kale - I had intended to use some spinach out of the freezer, but then remembered I had some courgettes to use, so chopped one up.  I added carrots in too, and didn't put chilli flakes in LG's portion.  i'm just beyond pleased - I realise that next time I present white beans in something, it may well be rejected, but for tonight, for tonight, the same tea was munched by all of us 😊Sooooooooooo helpful to the budget......    Greying tiptoes out..........****

atrixa

Here to report I'm now at £138.49/£145. There's no way I'll make it to the end of the month but I'll try to keep it minimally over-budget.

There seems to be no end to the price increases. I'm judging the economy by the price of Morrisons Bakery doughnuts and at 85p, it's not looking too clever. My partner is now refusing to buy them.

LittleGem

Thanks all for the store cupboard/pantry suggestions. so useful and will make a real difference in the months ahead I hope. 

Budget is currently £98.16/£200.

Spent £38.28 in L1dl but had a £20 voucher for switching my car insurance so that was helpful. I’m therefore aiming for around £180 as our total to factor the voucher in. 

Mealplan done for the next next two weeks although we have a BBQ to host so will need to shop fresh for that closer to the date as the freezer is jam packed!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning!

£5.87 expenditure to add - popped to the bank and library and ducked into a (small) branch of HB to pick up some dried herbs as we're on the verge of running out of parsley and thyme, a jar of coffee and whilst there, I spotted they had reduced some of their boxes of 15 medium eggs from £2.09 to £1.00.  There was 6 days 'left' on the BB so I bought a box.  We also picked up a TV listing mag.  I went for a pootle around H3r0n on the way back, but nothing of note caught my attention, although they were discounting a lot of (presumably close to sell by) bread and bread products.  But I have some bread in the freezer, and can't really spare more room, so the YS'd opportunity was passed up.  

Tea this evening will be omlette to use up the (second box) of 6 extra large eggs that I got YS'd in MrA last week.  I had hoped to use them for cake-making, but there hasn't really been an opportunity to have a baking session to make full use of the oven - partly down to heat, and partly being down to the economics of switching the dang thing on!  I have potatoes from the food waste to use too, so hopefully it will remain cool enough for mash......  Carrots and a frozen veg will complete the plate I think.

£106.74/200.

Greying X

mumtoomany

Sent OH to garage for milk. Two x2lt semi-skimmed, and two x1lt full fat, (they didn't have 2lt bottles) £5.40 spent. Much dearer than the supermarkets, but no fuel to get there, just a mile and a quarter walk. Total to date, £1741.79/£2640. Still where I should be, end of August will be 2/3 of the year, 2/3 of £2640 is £1760. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

SausageDogSandwich

At last, it’s a lot cooler here but of course this lead to money being spent   
£3.39 in her0n, stocked up on some sauces then £2.35 in HB on drinks for the kids and some biscuits for me, haven’t had any for a while. Went to icel@nd as that’s why we went into town, almost all of the £1 ice creams were oos, managed to get two boxes of majestics as that’s all they had -£2 spent. Finally youngest and eldest wanted a pot noodle from bm, so £1.20 spent in there. 

This brings my new total to £71.77/£200. Just need to stay out of the shops for the rest of the week now.