September 2022 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

K9sandFelines said:

goldfinches said:

Waving hello to everyone and apologising for being so late to arrive this month, thankyou to @elsiepac for the new thread, much appreciated.

Please put me down for £120 for the calendar month and £20 Baking Budget with a £20 Baking Slush Fund as well. 

This is for one vegetarian woman and includes all household items and basic toiletries but not alcohol.

I have to confess to having spent nearly all of the Baking Slush Fund in Sainsby's this afternoon. I don't quite know what happened but once I'd spotted the reduced vegan butter somehow I ended up buying black cocoa powder, salted and unsalted butter x 4, unwaxed lemons x 3 and Doves Farm organic strong white flour so £18.29/£20+£20 is my new total. The flour and all the butters went straight into the freezer as soon as I got home and I think they'll carry me through to December before I need buy any more.

The Grocery Challenge spending looks positively saintly by comparison as I spent £3.65 on paneer in Sainsby's and £3.48 in M*rks on 4x organic milk, YS mixed chillies and a packet of wholemeal pittas. I was very chuffed to run across the YS chillies as they were the only missing ingredient for tonight's dinner. That makes my new total £7.13/£120 and my average daily spend £3.57.

Which butter was this please? Also, was it just your store or national? 

@K9sandFelines - sorry I didn't spot your question until now. It was the naturli block and seems to be everywhere judging by this page on the website Naturli Vegan Block, Organic 200g | Sainsbury's (sainsburys.co.uk).

I have heroically managed to avoid temptation this afternoon while in town to return all my library books so I can claim a NSD! Hooray, hurrah and tantantara for me.   
I was very firm with myself about not needing anything for dinner or breakfast tomorrow as well as having no space in the fridge so I didn't go and have a look to see if there were any YS stickers and my bank account is the better for this too.

mumtoomany

The two little children went home yesterday, so fewer mouths to feed now and no more nappies needed. Sent them home with a huge box of home grown veg and fruit, eggs and jam. They will be missed, but so glad the whole family is now back together.
No spends this month yet, did need milk, but DS-i-L bought it. Will need some more today. The freezers are slowly emptying, must make sure they stay that way, so we can for in the pork.
Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

katkin

First spend of the month for me yesterday in L*dl. A leaflet came through the door with a £5.01 voucher for a £25 spend so off I trotted.

There were lots of temptations with what looked like the remains of a Provence special week. I bought anchovies in cute little jars which will come in handy, jar and flavour wise, and olive tapenade. Of course I had to stock up on chocolate. Also got a few other interesting bits and took advantage of the loose nuts getting small quantities of cashews, pistachios and brazils. The ground coffee was cheap at £1.59 for 500g so I'm trying their French and Italian style. I'm not a coffee snob (unlike my OH) so I'm sure it will be perfectly fine. I actually quite enjoyed this shop, lots of novelty items - but it did encourage me to spend more. 

Anyhoo the total came to £36.63 - with the voucher £31.62. Leaving a balance of: £218.38 for the rest of the month.  

To follow on from those speaking about fridge-freezers and food storage I have decided to sort out my pantry. I'm lucky to have the space and mostly use it as a dumping ground for my numerous kitchen gadgets, bake ware, hoover, pet food etc. I have an old CD book-case thingy in there that holds my stash of tins etc but my other food stocks are scattered illogically around in kitchen cupboards. 

I'll be on leave at the end of this week for 3+ weeks (another story about that as it was to be a big euro road trip holiday arranged pre-pandemic, now not deemed un-affordable...also been trying to get a refund on expensive overnight ferries for the last 6 months..grrr) Well I'm now going to use some of the time to refurb the 4x10 foot pantry into an actual pantry!  It won't look like an instagram pantry but it will be functional and organised    

Must not buy wicker baskets and kilner jars....

Back to budget - I can see my money stretching less and it's only going to get more difficult. I had wanted to start slowly reducing the GC budget down a bit more but it looks like treading water may be the best option for now. Other budget lines will be reviewed. 

Did the MSE energy calculator this morning and oh boy is it eye watering    

Soontobeoap

Just had to share with people who would understand my joy!! No one around here really gets it but soooo excited. Went to Asda this morning and bought 3 Kirsty free from pizza for £3.10 each. ( would have got more but couldn’t fit them into freezer.)They are £4.20 in Tescos and so hard to get hold of anyway. They are also the only one that GS’s can have with their Allergies.I know that they are expensive but it does mean we can all enjoy a pizza night together and much much cheaper than a takeaway. I saved £2.70 a very small shop. £10.50 spent as I bought some coleslaw too. I know that I should be making my own but off to daughters this afternoon so no time. Also have just noticed that Asda have a loyalty scheme now. I am probably very behind here but it is new to me. Their quality street tins for Christmas were £1.00 if you were part of this scheme. Must look into it.

Crazycatlady2

First Tesco shop of month £106

no booze or cleaning etc on this one so a cheap one 🤷‍♀️ 

Not buying anything else till need bread then I’ll get a few bits from heron that are cheaper than Tesco I think 

Greying_Pilgrim

Afternoon GC'rs!

NSD today, and although technically the shops are still open, I'm not going back out to them!

We took our picnic lunch out to another 'auld ruin' (can ya see a pattern developing here? 🤣).  Anyway, we'd sort of plumped for a spot that was approx 20 miles away, but when I was looking on the map, I spotted somewhere much closer to home, which (amazingly) I can't ever remember visiting - most certainly not as an adult anyway.  Luckily, there was a fully adequate car park and on arrival, only one other person there.  So we had a pootle around and a looksee, and then found somewhere out of the breeze to lay out the blanket and munch our lunch.  

Despite it being sort of in the middle of nowhere, there were a steady stream of visitors in the time that we were there, but for the most part, we enjoyed our lunch in peace and quiet with only swooping swallows for company.  Whilst I realise that we're very lucky to have a vehicle to pop out to these places, it does feel like such a treat to eat a picnic with a different view.  The (relative) nearness of today's location was a bonus - but of course points to us all to do our homework on how to be a tourist in our own patch.  Sangers were cheese, tommy and mayo - with the tomatoes being 2 of the 4 'marmande' tomatoes that we managed to coax into being, despite the plant being confined to a little pot and with no proper 'support'.  LG has enjoyed watering the plant and seeing the tomatoes develop and ripen, so it was definitely a worthwhile exercise.  

Soontobeoap - I can't imagine that offers come on 'free from' type foods that often - so a definite bargain had there!  Well done 👍

Greying X

Ginmonster

I'm finally back home after being away for pretty much the whole of August either camping or visiting rellies and so the first spend of the month came today at £8.13 for a few essentials to keep us going until the big shop arrives on Tuesday. I'm trying to keep the big shop not too spendy but because we used up everything perishable before we left there's a lot to restock. Could be a tricky month!

£8.13/£200

Lucyv

My sainsby shop is getting delivered tonight and it’s going to be about £1 more expensive because a couple of things have been substituted, they also didn’t have jam so I’ll get that in the week.  I’ve also done an Amazon order today of a few bits the biggest cost was 4x5litre bottles of vinegar for £16.17.  I use vinegar for cleaning everything, this is the cheapest way Ive found to buy it and I don’t need to order more very often.  

SausageDogSandwich

First spend of the month to report, had a tesc0 delivery today with the leftover money from august and was abit over that. Will need to get toilet rolls tomorrow and then I plan to stay away from the shops, the only thing we will run low on is fruit but I have some frozen bananas/blueberries and apples to rely on for a few days when the fresh runs out. 

£13.10/150 spent.

atrixa

I'm up to £96.71/£155.

I've decided to have a separate pot for bulk/pantry purchases, too but I won't track here. It's throwing off my average spends too much.

Tea tonight was my usual vegan chilli with homegrown chillies and garlic in there