September 2022 Grocery Challenge

stoplurking

JackieO I just realised I didn’t thank you for your brilliant reply of 31 August @10:14.  So, thank you so much for that, it is a great help. The “amount of potato in a bag of crisps” was funny, but also a real eye opener. I haven’t bought crisps since,so maybe you’ve cured my guilty addiction 😀.  

LittleGem

A NSD for me, nothing needed but also the weather has been so miserable we’ve just been hibernating today.

Tonight we are having a roast chicken - I rarely do a proper roast, we usually have it with chips and salad, but trying to be more organised with having other things to fill the oven with while it’s on, so have defrosted some sausages for tomorrow’s tea, prepped 4 jacket potatoes and going to make a chocolate banana cake with DD to put in the oven too. 

LadyWithAPlan

stoplurking said:

JackieO I just realised I didn’t thank you for your brilliant reply of 31 August @10:14.  So, thank you so much for that, it is a great help. The “amount of potato in a bag of crisps” was funny, but also a real eye opener. I haven’t bought crisps since,so maybe you’ve cured my guilty addiction 😀.  

 You are not the only one thinking that - I walked past my favourite aisle (crisps) and couldnt buy them - Jackie O what have you done!

Thanks also @London_1 for the celery soup recipe. I normally make chicken soup, a bean version and also beetroot soup from my stock bones as standard (best beetroot soup I ever made was from a lamb bone stick)  but your celery soup is next level frugal I will try it.

@FrugalThyme good luck on the HM /freezer takeaways You have inspired me to have a go at making a HM GF pizza and freezing some - I wont pay £4+ for a shop bought GF pizza and my GF seeded bread I made last week and froze in slices is amazing and way tastier than any expensive GF bread I have ever bought. 

I will try some of the MSE grocery delivery guide offers - need to wait til I need some food as I am pretty stocked right now but it all helps.

cinnamon123

@elsiepac thank you for the thread. Budget is $400 for the month (Sep 1-30) plus a $200 stock up amount. 

Hello all from across the pond - this is my first post as I have finally delurked after about 10 years   

Budget is for 2 adults and excludes alcohol and supplies. Like most everyone everywhere we have seen prices increase bit by bit and it's a struggle to keep it at about $100/week. Of late it's been trending to $120/week due to the summer fruit-veg bounty. I'm hopeful our spends will start to decrease/stabilize given that autumn/winter weather is coming and that means a shift to soups/chilis/curries. It's the only way I can see us spending less since most of what we buy is fruit-veg/dairy/fish (i.e. the basics) and that isn't changing anytime soon.

Every year I try to stock up adequately on primarily tins and jars ahead of the cooler months since you never know when a storm will come or just not feeling like shopping when the temperatures dip super low. This is what the $200 stock up budget is for.

Today was the first spend of the month and totals are now $94.52/$400 (main grocery budget) and $27.75/$200 (stock up budget)

Shopping today was disappointing to say the least. Fridge was empty of essentially all food and even spending nearly $100, I'm not sure there will be enough food for a week. On a positive note, the purchases for the stock up budget were a good price (reduced!) and I got several good deals on some supplies (not counted in the grocery budget). 

Very happy to be onboard the MSE train (and forums!)!

thriftwizard

Hello & welcome, @cinnamon123! Sounds like the days of everything being cheaper Over The Pond may be behind us now?

A couple of small spends to report here; £12-something added yesterday after a very strange outing looking for sensible quantities of pasta, and £5.50 today at the bakers in passing; won't need to go that way tomorrow or Friday now. Yesterday I sallied forth to try to find our local Past-It's-BB4 warehouse, which has moved since the last time I went, which was admittedly several years ago, when most of the Offspring were still at home. I knew I was in the right area, but couldn't see it anywhere & ended up in something called the Food Warehouse instead. (Turns out I was on the wrong side of the through-road. And that FW is basically an oversized Iceland) Anyway, this place was full of people raving about the "bargains" but the prices I looked at were actually higher than W8rose! But they did have what I was looking for, albeit at a price slightly higher than I normally pay at the wholesalers, who haven't actually had it for several months. So I queued up to pay, then the cashier asked the lady in front whether she was over 60, as "you get 10% off on Tuesdays, provided you have official proof" which the poor woman hadn't. But I have somehow strayed into that zone now, and had my driving license in my wallet, so ended up paying less. I suppose that's a win, even though the Past-It's-BB4 place would have been cheaper still. Note to self - check the map next time!

cinnamon123

Hi @thriftwizard - I think everyone has been impacted even slightly by inflation. But here in the States, it really depends on what you are buying plus your region IMO. I'm in an area where there are higher prices and although there is an A!di, it isn't a good one nor is it close by so when I consider the petrol plus wear&tear on the car, it doesn't make sense to drive out there. There are some great A!di stores but sadly none of those are close to us.

We also try to avoid processed food as much as possible so I think that adds to the cost. If you want to find crisps at a good price you can, but it's a big question mark when it comes to fruit and veg depending on what you want, any weather issues etc. Recently in my area I noticed that egg prices increased a lot but have started to come down. There were (are?) a couple of farms that had bird flu and unfortunately, they had to put down their chickens - this may have had an impact. But also, for what we eat there simply haven't been that many sales since March 2020. At the supermarkets where we shop, they have noticeably reduced the size of their weekly fliers/papers (e.g. 4 pages of weekly sales items down to 2).

I'm so grateful that we did benefit from all the previous sales and continue to be thankful that we still have a lot of variety when it comes to what we purchase (so I shouldn't complain )

Forgot that I purchased coffee online last week so that is $12.98 added to my stock-up budget.
Totals now: $94.52/$400 (grocery budget) and $40.73/$200 (stock-up budget)

goldfinches

I'm pleased to be able to claim another NSD as I didn't call into the supermarket on the way home from the museum this afternoon and I have been in the habit of doing that recently which meant I was hungry and tired so bought more than I intended.
I did try this recipe out on my friends this afternoon and the verdict was a wholly positive one so that means I've got another gluten free vegan cake in my repertoire. I did find it difficult to slice neatly as it's very soft so tried it as small cakes too and that was a great success. I got 12 of these 50 mm x 44mm muffin cases out of the mixture and here they are.

K9sandFelines

goldfinches said:

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.

Thanks, I will stock up and freeze. The last lot I got on offer was the big tub from Waitrose. 
This stuff is so good 😋

gill5blue

Hi All
1st week of a 5 week month (@ £250 for month). I spent £51.23 I am pleased with myself as it is an Improvement on last month.
2 adults 2 dogs and a tortoise.
good luck all
Gill5blue

FrugalThymes

Morning everyone, and thank you for all being so welcoming and lovely!

Asd4 click and collect shop this morning to pick up Saturday - there's a chance that things will be out of stock/substituted and there's the 50p charge, but ultimately worth it to not be tempted by impulse purchases and shiny things! Unfortunately in between 11pm filling the online trolley and 8am when I double checked the trolley before paying, somethings had become out of stock but luckily other, more useful things were back and available. Spent £49.54, which included some things for an emergency cupboard pantry I'm setting up, and a huge bulk bag of pasta. Wondering if I should have a separate budget for setting up this 'emergency rolling pantry' purchases, what do you guys do? 

I've been a little hooked on 'Under the Median', an American frugal couple's channel on utube, and will be trying out some of their energy saving tips and a black bean burger recipe that looked really tasty!

Bought some second hand 90" drop lined, heavy, D-nelm curtains last night. Splitting the pair, and having one up over a tall window in the dining room and one for the front door. Just £22, and then £10 being spent on a second hand heavy duty curtain rail tonight. Really trying to get as much cold proofing done as soon and as cheaply as possible!

Finally got the details for our online energy company log in and submitted a meter reading - we were significantly under their prediction so I think we're now an extra £400 in credit. 

Groceries running total £104.64/£200