August 2022 Grocery Challenge

London_1

Dobbies coffee morning and as usual checked out the deli part which is allied to Sainsburys Got as expected half a dozen reduced tomatoes 37p and dated until 25th so still firm plus a bag of carrotts for 12p for 500 gms and 6 chicken and chorizo empanadas which will go down nicely for dinner tonight at 79p so spent a huge £1.28 but happy enough as the salad tomatoes are still pretty hard and will easily still be sliceable, and the carrots will maybe made into soup or peeled diced and frozen for another day. 


                                            £46.08/£64  leaving  £17.92 in my purse to last until 31th August  

otb666

I feel a bit of a fraud as my husband now does all the food shopping but we do go through his spends and list them so i can join in here.  I was fed up with being the one responsible for food in the house So i quit and it works really well been doing it since January.  We do not have any food waste as he eats what he buys and i eat all leftovers plus veg box Works for us. But we did go over this month 690/600 3 adults and tortoise

otb666

i just cant handle the stress of it all and after 30 years thought it was his turn and he really enjoys it and like I said as long as its not wasted even though a bit costly I do point him to cheaper options deals etc

JIL

wishus said:

I did a shop on Sunday in Aldi* £21.17 which leaves me £20.44... but I paused the milk which gives me back £3.60  - that will probably go on camping food. I'm travelling to a tourist trap city where a lot of friends are and they tell me you can't get anything breakfasty for under a tenner. I'm trying to think of things that will be okay unrefrigerated for 3 days. Beans, eggs and tomatoes I suppose! Ideas welcomed!

I spent on a campsite mains adapter too £36, but that will come out of the camping budget.

Flapjack breakfast bars, bananas, muffins. 
I love eating out when overseas but I often just have something light for breakfast and then sit and have just a coffee. Bacon and eggs or toast is usually the same all over, so I save my pennies for evening meals. 
I hope you have a lovely time.

goldfinches

JIL said:

wishus said:

I did a shop on Sunday in Aldi* £21.17 which leaves me £20.44... but I paused the milk which gives me back £3.60  - that will probably go on camping food. I'm travelling to a tourist trap city where a lot of friends are and they tell me you can't get anything breakfasty for under a tenner. I'm trying to think of things that will be okay unrefrigerated for 3 days. Beans, eggs and tomatoes I suppose! Ideas welcomed!

I spent on a campsite mains adapter too £36, but that will come out of the camping budget.

Flapjack breakfast bars, bananas, muffins. 
I love eating out when overseas but I often just have something light for breakfast and then sit and have just a coffee. Bacon and eggs or toast is usually the same all over, so I save my pennies for evening meals. 
I hope you have a lovely time.

Mix up a container full of powdered milk, porridge or jumbo oats, nuts, dried fruit, spoonful of dark muscovado sugar and anything else you fancy and then put some into a lidded container with some water last thing before you go to bed or make granola at home and take that with you with milk powder to make up fresh in the mornings.

gill5blue

Hi All,
not going too well here. -£73.49 budget is £50. on the plus side I do have a lot in my larder.
I think it could be a bit of buying unnecessary items and price rises.
so far for 3 weeks of 4 £186.35 of £200. eek
hope this week is better
gill5blue

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning GC'rs!

Happy to report a NSD (on food/groceries) yesterday, and hopefully will bag another today.  

Had a lovely day out yesterday with my friend and the children.  Definitely glad I took the leap, as the attraction was wonderful and we all had a brilliant time, on so many levels.  We were far from the only people to be eating our own picnic (there was actually a designated area), and my friend is like-minded, so had packed a picnic for her little relatives 😊 Thing was, the cafe at the site was also doing a roaring trade, as was the mobile drinks van.  Whilst I can rarely afford to give these places our hard-earned, I do realise that venues rely on catering for revenue, and without them they would struggle - or would simply raise the admission fee - so actually, it's good to see folk still able to afford to use the facilities.  We successfully managed to navigate the gift shop with a small momento bought (treats budget).  LG doesn't normally fuss for stuff, but in the company of peers was a little more 'can I have', but unfortunately there wasn't anything on a 'must have' level anyway, so a couple of useful things were plumped for, and the thrill was in being trusted to go to pay for the items alone - whilst remembering to wait for their receipt 🤣

I have been gifted some garden produce by a chum, who loves gardening and is highly supportive of the 'make do & mend' ethos.  Tomatoes on the vine, plucked straight from the mother plant smell d.i.v.i.n.e.  True riches left in a bag on the doorstep 😉

August Budget £170.92/200   Treats Budget £2.62  

Greying X

LadyWithAPlan

JIL said:

wishus said:

I did a shop on Sunday in Aldi* £21.17 which leaves me £20.44... but I paused the milk which gives me back £3.60  - that will probably go on camping food. I'm travelling to a tourist trap city where a lot of friends are and they tell me you can't get anything breakfasty for under a tenner. I'm trying to think of things that will be okay unrefrigerated for 3 days. Beans, eggs and tomatoes I suppose! Ideas welcomed!

I spent on a campsite mains adapter too £36, but that will come out of the camping budget.

Flapjack breakfast bars, bananas, muffins. 
I love eating out when overseas but I often just have something light for breakfast and then sit and have just a coffee. Bacon and eggs or toast is usually the same all over, so I save my pennies for evening meals. 
I hope you have a lovely time.

I used to make a banana blueberry oat pancake or muffins  which travelled well on planes -I am GF so planes are a nightmare for that) I added vegan protein powder - often strawberry flavoured so it was super  tasty and traveled for a few days as cooked. Eggs, some oil, you can add nuts or peanut butter and I would use oats to bind.

Protein powder - many of then do free samples so see if you can get hold of a few? I also mix it in with DF yogurt and fresh fruit on my travels

NSD to yesterday Tues 10/13

Grocery Aug 22 £97.42/£170    + 17.50 Sains card    
£4.50/£30 bulk - 
SD  £13.40 now though as I popped to local shop this morning as I got a lift - still not moved car here- to get basics such as ground coffee, DF milk, onions, toilet roll etc £14.90 spent but £1.50 was dog food - been given some extra cash here for that so will say £13.40
I did spend £4.40 on Lavazza coffee I could have got for £4 in waitrose but I kept spend down and 0 travel cost.

Paid cash as have now most monthly grocery money in cash.  I always spend less with cash

Family member popped round yesterday and bought GF fish and chips - the local one changes its fryers on a Tuesday so Tuesday is all GF. I tried to give them cash but failed. so NSD yesterday  and enough to reheat for my lunch today.

There is a brand new Panasonic bread maker here where I am staying (at a family members whilst they away looking after the animals) so I made some GF bread earlier in week - works out about £1.30 for a small but fabulous  GF loaf. GF bread retails at £3+ and often tastes not great. My HM version has no preservatives though so you have to slice and freeze the same day. Comes out with a perfect crust.
I had a go at making a banana bread GF in the Panasonic yesterday - it was lovely and sent family member home with more than half of it - as well as frozen bread.

I am only way ahead of budget due to not being in London and in easy walk of many shops! Plus I have offered to defrost their freezer here as it is in a right state, so eating whats not freezer burnt down so less to buy,

pelirocco

LittleGem said:

Well £30.59 spend in Mr.L’s. Not bad as I had to get nappies and kids vitamins but also added another bag of pasta and some store cupboard bits. Also chuffed to get a £1.50 box - they regularly have these in there but I’m always wielding a pram and a toddler on the loose so never able to carry it! But I spotted one with a punnet of grapes, pack of 4 corn on the cobs, a few onions, sweet potatoes, peppers, couple of sad looking carrots and satsumas so grabbed one and decanted it into my shopping bags only to discover a huge pile of radishes at the bottom 🤣definitely worth it but has anyone got any ideas of what I can do with radishes other than salad? Pickle them?

£146.63/£200

Roast them

MissRikkiC

Good evening all,

I’ve not posted much this month because, well I knew I’d bust about a week to 10 days ago but literally everything has been paid for from this budget this month so I’m not surprised. 

Money towards breakfast out, port and cheese for a friend and us in, bulk purchase of chicken breast and organic oats to name a few things.  The last couple of weeks have only been fresh things but still cost more than I’d set out overall including those more expensive items. 

In haste, I felt we needed a handful of things today so I’ve spent another £3ish which will cover dinner tomorrow and lunch too but quite honestly, with 5 minutes breathing space, I now realise we could’ve done without. 

It was technically £3 I didn’t have so I umm’d and arr’d over everything anyway but still purchased bread, 1 banana, cooking bacon and eggs. It could’ve all been avoided. 

The banana was for my daughters porridge, I have 1 apple left which she could have had instead had I have found the time to stew it, the bread could’ve been subbed for pittas or similar I’m certain there is a packet of lurking in the freezer and the eggs and cooking bacon were for carbonara tomorrow as I wanted to use the courgettes from the garden but since we have other things in, I could’ve made do. 

I’m a bit deflated with the empty state of the fridge and quite looking forward to a shop for September, but other than buying the go to ‘need’ items I may challenge myself to go another day with what we have in, especially as I’ve now got these items, as a bit of a nodd to what I felt I could have done with those 5 extra minutes to think. 

It wasn’t a wasted journey at least as I had to go to the shops to charge my car (I was tinkering with just 1% when I arrived) however it’s amazing what a difference it makes without 2 young children at my feet 🤪