August 2022 Grocery Challenge

atrixa

CynicalPinnacle said:

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.

I know what you mean. I watch a few 'frugal' youtubers and they're always advising things like mending clothes. Of course they have time for it because most of them don't work!

My spends are up to £107.12/£145. Ended up buying hemp seeds from the big river company as I couldn't find any in Mr S and Mr M doesn't seem to sell them at all. Slightly better deal than Mr S.

ms_iiwii

just wrote a whole post and its disappeared! oh well, first shop £18.37 at mr T. quite alot of deals and ys, so were good for a few days! 

Soontobeoap

Started badly this month with a £17.76 shop in Sainsburys on quick lunches for 4 of us whilst travelling back to island from London. Was very tempted not too add this to challenge but that would be cheating and would not give me a fair evaluation of what I actually spend on food. Then Morrisons shop arrived this evening whilst I was putting GD’s to bed. ( he came early!) £81.00 spent there. Strange shopping order full of yoghurts, salad veg, fruit, and treats that we wouldn’t normally buy, 2 jars DH’s favourite expensive coffee on offer, fish that was on offer, a few sausages on offer, a chicken for when DS and DIL arrive on Saturday, bread and milk. Ham was not available! So one quarter of budget spent and we are only 2 days in with many summer visitors still to come this month!

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

elsiepac

Hi all

So, scarily, I'm 7 days into my month and I've done 4 trips to the shops - admittedly 2 of those were grab and go type shops from Mr T, and 2 were a little bigger (one Mr T and one Mr S) and I've done my bulk buys as usual from Amaz00n - I wouldn't say I have *loads* of stuff in though - certainly enough fresh stuff for at least the next few days but I must meal plan and I just don't seem to be able to do it anymore, I get totally overwhelmed by it - anyone else have this issue? I usually do ok by having lots of veg in as I plan my meals around that, then I decide on what flavours I want and therefore what protein and starch - but I wouldn't mind being a little more organised!

Made my lovely miso soup for dinner last night for me and mum, and I have leftovers for lunch today - I love it because it uses up whatever veg I want and the broth is made of ingredients that are my store cupboard staples:

Brown miso, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, liquid smoke, sriracha, sesame oil

I add hot water to that and add in whatever noodles I'm using - usually rice noodles for this one but last night's used udon as I had some in

Then I throw in whatever veg and prtoein I want to use - I usually use frozen soy beans (de-podded edamame) for the protein as no prep needed, just throw them in, and my basic recipe would be to add some tinned sweetcorn and some grated carrot and a green like spinach or pak choi or broccoli, depending on what I have in - last night's was fancy as it was for dinner and for mum, so it has:

chestnut mushrooms, the end of a pointed cabbage, a small pak choi, and a little microwave steam bag of veg which was baby corn, carrot, tenderstem and green beans

I always just chuck the broth together, add noodles, then veg, and let it cook for 10 mins - easy peasy, feels like a treat, and is a complete meal

Ooh I'm looking forward to lunch now!

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning GC'rs!

£7.38 expenditure to own up to in MrL and MrA.  Got a £1.50 box today as the........4 or 5 boxes on offer were all reasonable.  I went for one with mushrooms (most of the boxes had at least one punnet), and a selection of fruit and a bag of peppers, plus some vine salad tomatoes, which I have now noticed are organic.  I also got some YS'd baps that will do for lunches - keeping the sliced loaf for DH's snap and toast in the mornings.  

Then went to MrA.  Very disappointed that they are practising blantant 'shrinkflation' with their (newly logo'd) essentials range.  At the start of the holidays, they were selling 12 packs of their essentials ready salted crisps (packet size 18g) for 93p.  Today, they have changed the packaging, there are now only 6 bags in the packet (albeit 25g size) and MrA are charging 82p for them!  Boooooooooooooo!  I have to go a little bit further to reach MrA (although in a circular route) and so this just gives me one more reason to not shop there.  I did pick up a couple of bags of YS'd carrots - only 500g size packs, 12p instead of 25p, but they looked sound, so I indulged.  

£10.08/200

Greying X

mumtoomany

Went shopping at the end of July, have all the children this week and can only fit 4 in the car with us. Spent £146.33. Won't need to buy much for the rest of the month. This included nappies for the two littlies. Their baby brother is slowly on the mend now, thankfully, but they may be here another week or two. Total to date now, £1685.37/£2640. Now of to try and read back, while cbeebies is on. Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

rileyg26

Oooh that miso soup sounds good @elsiepac. Thanks for sharing. Definitely going to try it! 

LittleGem

Hi all,

checking in to declare our first spends of August. £22.88 in Lid! this morning, no major bargains to be had - my store is very lacking in orange stickers although I did spot some on meat but nothing I needed/would have space for in the freezer. 

Did pick up a 600g punnet of strawberries on offer for 70p, so chuffed with that as LO eats an extraordinary amount of berries but as they don’t last long I’m forever popping in to get more which leads to picking up other stuff.

have made a two week meal plan using up lots of stuff in the freezer and including quite a lot of repetition which helps keep costs down somewhat.

London_1

Good afternoon GCs, well day 3 of the month and a NSD no.2 for me foodwise.
 I turned my half a lb of mince into three cottage pies:)  streetching it with some porridge oats some diced carrot and onions and a small handful of lentils.
Three rectanglular take-away boxes (I snaffle them from friends/relations ) and had three single portions for meals, then spread a tin of baked beans between the three over the top, and finished it off with topping it with cheesy mashed potato, so I now have three tasty cottage pies tucked away in my freezer for a ready meal when I don't feel like cooking.  

My cheese and tomato quiche was delicious ,and another portion for lunch today with salad as its very warm in Kent, I will have a decent slice of custard tart with a dollop of squirty cream on top mid afternoon , then tonight I will probably just have some cheese and crackers and fruit . Bit too hot to eat much at the moment. Should finish the quiche off tomorrow so my glut of eggs cheese and tomatoes will have given me three decent lunches this week. I'm pretty pleased I found the pastry in the freezer and used it up.

My next use -it-up  is a pack of three peppers  and a pack of hallumi burgers in the fridge.
I picked the hallumi up by accident as I really like it, and there was a decent offer on it. Its long dated to May next year but when I looked at it closely what I thought was just a pack was actually four thick burger type slices so I will have a think about how to use them up as I don't eat burgers,but perhaps I could use one to stuff a pepper with They are chilli flavoured so it will give the pepper a bit of zing as well. Hmm maybe I should put some wraps on my shopping list of perhaps a roll or two, but I'm not mad keen on rolls .

The pears in the fridge are lovely and are still rock hard even though they are about 10 days old. I took a couple out on Monday and had one last night when they eventually softened up, the other one will go with my cheese and crackers tonight .

Cheers chums 
                              JackieO xx

                                                                                August spends so far £1.28 / £64.00

                                       
                                                                                 2 NSD out of 3