September 2022 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

Just popping my head round the door to say hugs to @FrugalThymes and sympathies for your chagrin. We've all been there, regretting past actions. I think that it's quite nice to remind yourself, firmly, that you are intelligent enough to learn from experience. You don't have to look far to see that many people never do.

After that small rant  I shall burnish my halo by claiming another NSD entirely due to having unearthed a savoy cabbage I don't even recall purchasing from the depths of the veg drawer in the fridge and stir frying it for dinner. Tomorrow is the rest of the cabbage, swiss chard and some leeks that also surfaced during my scrabble around.
I'm trying to resist the temptation to just nip to the shops to buy whatever I feel like eating and instead eat what I've already got and it's sort of working. I'm going to plan to make a special dinner on Sunday with three courses and see if that helps to sublimate my urge to shop meanwhile.

bargainhunterss

£300 again for this month please!

katkin

PipneyJane said:

@katkin Good luck sorting out your pantry.  May I suggest that you measure out the heights of your containers and space your shelves out accordingly? In my old flat, I had one shelf for tins, one for my spices (in re-used Douwe Egberts coffee jars), and another for flour and rice.  Each shelf had an inch clearance on top, all carefully measured out.  (My flour and rice are stored in the largest Lock-n-lock boxes.)  

Also, the most useful pantry "drawers" I've ever found were fruit boxes, perfect for large jars of spices, as well as loose tins, packets of pasta, pulses, etc. We lived for 3 years in this house with a very rudimentary kitchen - we ran out of money mid-renovation - and my kitchen storage was a couple of Ikea "Ivar" bookcases, with fruit boxes for drawers.  Not pretty but very functional.

HTH

- Pip

Many thanks @PipneyJane that's really helpful advice.  

There are built in wooden shelves along one wall but some are shoogly and bowed (its an old house and the shelves look original) OH wants to replace those. I will make sure to measure those up for the storage containers I have - I should be be able to fit a few more shelves into the space. 

If I do an audit of all the boxes and containers I have collected over the years I hopefully won't need to buy any more. It's tempting to want it all matchy-matchy and pretty but it's a money saving exercise to allow me to build up more stores, especially for items that are ramping up in price. I've also stared to look at what I can buy in bulk and may start a separate bulk-buy budget for a few months until I feel we are better prepared for any potential emergency situation. 

The space is quite warm as I have a 2nd freezer in there so I will have to be mindful of what I can store or move the freezer. 

Said to OH jokingly I may paint it fuchsia pink lol, he wasn't too impressed. Left to him he'd spend months sanding down all the wood and re-varnish it. 

Thanks again!   

FrugalThymes

Thank you to @Greying_Pilgrim and @goldfinches ,  It's hard not to feel really silly but yes, we will learn from this! We're going to get some 'junky' stuff to keep in the freezer then air fry when the takeaways are calling to us

I'm loving Olio right now - breakfast was eggs and bread that we were given for free, some cheap ham from Ldl and bbq sauce sachets left over from summer holiday fish and chips. Last night's dinner protein was no-chicken pieces; another Olio gift and a huge 2.5kg box at that! 

Reading your chat about freezers makes me want to replace ours, but two (second hand ones) have broken now and we think it's because of the cold; they were in the basement which has no heating and died over the cold snaps at the beginning of the year. We lost over £300 worth of roasting joints and lots of things, thankfully all picked up for about 20% of the full price in the post Christmas A1di and Ldl sales but still incredibly frustrating. I need to look into something that would cope better with the cold!

DH picked up some baked beans and rice pudding on his way home last night so our running total is now 

£52.10/£200

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning GC'rs!

Hoping for a NSD today, although will have a look-out for any YS's whilst LG is across town at their club.  But it's going to have to be really, really good offer to get me to open my purse at the mo!

FrugalThymes - my 'inherited' Bek0 freezer is supposed to be able to withstand temps down to -15 degrees.  They are apparently a popular brand choice for garages and outhouses because of this - and certainly this freezer was positioned in an unheated outhouse when it was with it's first owner.  When we lived in a property with a cellar (which was damp), we put our freezer down there because of lack of space. It died pretty quickly in those conditions.  When we had the cellar tanked, and had a different (but not a bek0) freezer, it coped OK. So if your basement is dry, it should be OK, but I'm not sure any freezer can cope with cold and damp - but I'm not a white goods technician, so don't take my word for it!

Greying X 

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, a few spends to add here. £4.50 icelan on 12 cones, 6 ice lollies and a bag of chips and £7.17 that husband spent at work on toilet roll, brush and some cleaning spray that he had hoped would salvage the unsalvageable carpet  Haven’t been in a shop myself for the last few days and plan to keep it that way, will be a NSD today as we’re not going out. And should be NSDs until Sunday, fingers crossed! 

£24.77/150 spent.

LittleGem

Another little spend of £11.30 today in MrS, needed milk and bleach but thought I’d get some of the kids snacky bits in there too as it’s a bit more variety than MrL. Glad I did though as I got a £4.50 off when you spend £30 instore voucher, so planing to use that next week and do a little top up of tins etc then. 

mumtoomany

Bigish shop this morning. Spent £55.73, across five shops. Best value was the cash and carry. Bought six loaves of sourdough granary bread, 24 Rowntrees jellies, (the blocks you make up with water), filo pastry, six litres of curry sauce, large pizza bases, large bag of chicken chowder soup, 24 Cadburys ice creams, four chorizo, and a box full of sachets of bourbon glaze. Total £15.40. The question now is what do i do with bourbon glaze??? Never seen it before, but it was 5p a box! Answers on a postcard please.
Will need potatoes next week, forgot them today! Other than that we should be ok i think. Two spare Milk in the freezer. 
Total now for the year is £1935.28/£2640. Still hoping to keep it under £2000, until after we collect the pigs, watch this space! Hugs.xxx

London_1

Good Afternoon all, first shop of September ,but a very small one as I want to see if I can get through this week unscathed and unshopped IYSWIM
 Using as much as I can from stored stuff indoors at the moment and trying to keep the shaopping down as much as possible.

No reduced tomatoes in Dobbies this morning ,but a reduced pack of carrots for 28p which will come in handy this week.
I have a good  head of celery in the fridge at the moment  so that will be turned into soup I think this week.

Streched the remaining lettuce out for today and tomorrow, and only used one of the tomatoes, so one left for tomorrows lunch.

Got the potatoes I wanted in Tesco's and four baking ones as well and although tempted at a few bits in there I stood firm and shut my purse with a snap and came out with exactly the stuff I wanted

Hopefully enough now for several NSD ahead

JackieO xx


     Todays shopping only £4.89/ £55.11 remaining only 24 days left this month  

boultdj

mumtoomany said:

and a box full of sachets of bourbon glaze. Total £15.40. The question now is what do i do with bourbon glaze??? Never seen it before, but it was 5p a box! Answers on a postcard please.
until after we collect the pigs, watch this space! Hugs.xxx

As a glaze on a ham is one I can think of,  or sausages, if you've got any in, I would treat it like a barbacue cooking sauce, 
ooooo! noodles, plain ones and do like my own pot noodle with a sachet on it.