August 2022 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

I definitely agree that cheaper prices for food equals more single use plastics and combined packaging that often can't be recycled. While I'm sure that some of the price differential is justified I can't help thinking that retailers charge what the market will bear and that many people pay thinking that they are helping farmers, growers etc. when most of the money never gets past the retailer.

I'm off to a flying start this month with a trip to Sains this am for baking paper which cost £2/£25.
Then I went round the corner to M*rks where I spent £9.95 on 4x organic milk, fat free greek style yoghurt, poppy seed crackers and 2 treat ready made salads. That makes my monthly spend £9.95/£124 and my average daily spend a horrifying £9.95, gulp.

purpleybat

evening all,
little spend in the local corner shop of £1.69 today, £1.39 for chorizo for some chicken pies i made for the freezer and 30p for 2 reduced egg custard tarts for my dad.

tomorrows morries order came to £29.83, which im pleased about but i forgot i was making said feezer pies and have ordered some. oh well, at least they weren't expensive and i have freezer space for them.

i'm back to work on weds after 7 weeks off and if i'm honest i'm absolutely dreading it, so to try to stay calm i've been cross-stitching like a demon most of the day, if i can't get my anxiety and depression in check i'm going to be spending a small fortune in kits  

franby64

I had a Sains delivery on Sunday night, my first August spend and bought a couple of bits today. £63.34 spent so far.

I'm never sure what to include in here but this time I've decided to include food, cleaning products and basic toiletries. I'm not including toiletries that are a treat or cat food/bits (that's Panda in my picture!).

Tomorrow I will sort the pantry out. Recently I've just been shoving bits in, no organisation and lots of little end bags of pasta. Checking all the dates is going to be interesting as well!

wishus

First grocery spend of the month done, it's the big one, and it's online because I still have Covid.  😷 Boooooo.

Found the cheapest slot - let's face it, what else am I doing? - £1.50 at bedtime tonight. Went through Quidco so that delivery charge should come back to me eventually, and I got a tenner off my shop. So I spent just £65.34 and it included the big laundry stuff, loo rolls and cat food. 

What I didn't buy was any meat, because I should be by myself. I'm living upstairs until OH leaves again. He just got back from working away and I had hoped I would be Covid free, so I haven't seen him. He's in the same house, I bloody miss him, but he needs to stay safe to leave again tomorrow and I won't see him until 8th by which time I had better be Covid free. I am happy to eat veggie.

What I notice about online shopping - yes, lots of temptation is removed as you go straight to your list, but there are noticeably fewer fresher or wonky items available. No fresh aubergines! Regular brown onions, not wonky. Maris pipers, not normal white potatoes. This is at Mozza, not sure if it is everywhere?

Also got in some alcohol free ciders, just in case I'm still riddled at the weekend.

London_1

Well we all seem to be getting off to a good start don't we. Well done everyone ,day two of our August challenge and its not looking too bad. 

JoeDenise I too store my spuds in a dark lined veggie bag and keep the bag in the cupboard under the stairs ,the door of which is in my kitchen.
Mine tend to get a bit sprouty after about 10 days, but I just nip them off and carry on peeling .Sometimes I will peel a good few and keep them in a long green Tuppaware box in water in the fridge on the top shelf out of the way and just change the water every two days This seems to work ok as once peeled and in water ,no sprouting at all

I dug a small bag of mince from the freezer just now, as I have three smallish carrots left to use up, so later today will probably diced those up with a handful of diced onion from my freezer and make either a couple of cottage pies (using some of my peeled spuds to top them with ) or a couple of portions of chilli.
It's only about half a pound in weight, and I think it was some left over from ages ago but it will make a couple of ready meals to freeze for another day and will use up some of my spuds and the three carrots, by the time I've added a handful of red lentils and some bisto gravy (made from the powder I don't like the granules ) it will be a tasty sauce.

I made a nice cheese and tomato quiche yesterday and also a nice custard tart from the pastry from the freezer so my fridge is looking reasonably full at the moment, also some meringues which I have stored in a tin. The left over yolks from the meringues I had scrambled for breakfast this morning

 I do have three peppers that will get used this week at some point, maybe stuff them with some savory rice I'll see how I feel

I am making an effort to use every scrap I can before shopping for more this month, my purse is firmly closed this week that's for sure  
lunch today will be quiche and salad, and a slice of custard tart for pudding

Last night I didn't fancy much of a pudding so had some low fat greek yogurt and drizzled some honey through it, and smashed up a handful of bran flakes to give it a bit of crunch and it was delicious and a lot cheaper than Mueller Corners. I sometimes grate some chocolate through it, but thought that the honey made it quite sweet enough last night

Lets keep the good work going chums we will beat this COL crisis by battening down the hatches  

Chin up folks 

JackieO xx

rileyg26

@elsiepac please could I put down £120 for August.

Thank you.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning August GC'rs

Coming on to admit to the first expenditure of the month.  We nicked into MrL on the way back from hols yesterday to pick up milk and yoghurt (had bread in the freezer). 

As I managed to (just) come in under budget for July, it's all to aim for to try to remain in budget for August, although the school holidays do mean extra food expenditure, no two ways about it.  

£2.70/200

Greying X

thriftwizard

First check-in of the month, and I'm already a bit adrift; I have the receipts for this morning's L!dl & Chinese supermarket spends, but can't swear to Friday's market/bakery spends as it was a swift, pressurised dash with lots to prepare for; DD2's Birthday & a weekend away to visit DS1. It was about £40 in total so that's what I've added, plus this morning's £69.21, mostly on non-perishables & Eastern delights. 

For those who doubt the value-for-money, here are the contents of my £1.50 veg box today: admittedly I'm feeding 5+ this week so it will all be used up quickly. I've taken to looking through the store window to check what's in the current crop of boxes, so I know roughly what I'll be getting if I choose to buy one - we pay at the till & pick one up afterwards, so there's always an element of pot-luck. The big peppers & tomatoes will go into tonight's curry, with some of the onions, and the asparagus will be added to the accompanying veg. The celery, small peppers & cherry tomatoes will be eaten up in salads,  some of them for lunch right now. We use any amount of lemons & they, like the rest of the onions, will keep for a while, if they don't end up in the DDs' G&Ts. (They buy the G!) So pretty good value - for us.

CynicalPinnacle

atrixa said:

CynicalPinnacle said:

Has anyone any tips on keeping the plastic usage down as well as keeping the groceries spends low in these cash strapped times? I've noticed since going to A1d1 our plastic recycling bin is overflowing 😞. We did have a milk and veg box delivery during the first lockdown, and online shopping from Sainos and it was lovely to have very little recycling, but we could easily spend 30% of our income on food. It infuriates me that the cheapest way to feed ourselves creates so much waste and god knows how much increased carbon emissions from our food being transported from here, there, and everywhere.

I've done two 'zero waste' month attempts before, and both times my grocery spends were through the roof. I found that specialist packaging free shops were outrageously expensive and I couldn't always buy veg loose from normal supermarkets. I'm now just focusing on trying to just buy what I need and no more. I do occasionally feed back to supermarkets about their packaging and I bring back soft plastics for them to recycle when I have some saved up.

I'm up to £101.79/£145. The N3ctar prices were looking good today, so stocked up on some essentials in Mr S.

For tea tonight, I tried the Tarka Dal budget BBC recipe. Tarka dal with rice recipe - BBC Food

I'd make it again, but have it with a side of veg as well as rice and add in way more chilli and spices. I tasted before serving and it's a bit bland with only the directed ingredients, so I chucked in some extra chilli powder and some other ground spices I had lying around. Very quick and easy recipe, though.

It's frustrating, isn't it? The only way I can see out of this mess of an extractive economic model is if the environmental costs of transport, packaging and processing were included in the costs of food, then the package free would be competitive, but I suspect it would just all food much expensive in the short-term. And no one is going to vote for that right now. I've noticed a lot more of A1d1's soft plastics are marked as recyclable than Mr S's seem to be. Our local zero waste has been going since the 70s so, yes, overall it's still more expensive than a supermarket but it's cheaper (and better!) than even A1d1 on some dried fruit and nuts, and tends to sell the stuff A doesn't, like dried lentils. It also does more exotic veg so I still get to give it some support.

Spends to report:

• £9.40 in the Asian supermarket
• £6.29 in the local zero waste shop

Spent £89.76 / £550, £460.25 remaining

CynicalPinnacle

goldfinches said:

I definitely agree that cheaper prices for food equals more single use plastics and combined packaging that often can't be recycled. While I'm sure that some of the price differential is justified I can't help thinking that retailers charge what the market will bear and that many people pay thinking that they are helping farmers, growers etc. when most of the money never gets past the retailer.

I'm off to a flying start this month with a trip to Sains this am for baking paper which cost £2/£25.
Then I went round the corner to M*rks where I spent £9.95 on 4x organic milk, fat free greek style yoghurt, poppy seed crackers and 2 treat ready made salads. That makes my monthly spend £9.95/£124 and my average daily spend a horrifying £9.95, gulp.

Maybe if I can switch the family to a whole food plant based diet, we make our own oat milk, I spend 3 hrs + making everything we eat from scratch everyday, sew our own clothes etc. then may be I could justify the veg box, milkman and the zero waste shop. Oh, but wait, I wouldn't have time for my job that I would need to pay for all of that! There is definitely a yawning mismatch between what we need to do for the planet (and our own health?) and what the economy is set up for, isn't there? Anyway, I shall step off my hobby horse now.