September 2022 Grocery Challenge

mumtoomany

So no money spent for the last few days. But, next Tuesday a new Iceland food warehouse is opening in local town. I have received a £5 off £35 voucher through the post and the first one hundred customers get another voucher of between £5 and £100. Having looked in the website, it seems to be expensive. I tend to buy ingredients rather than ready made food. Anyone shop at Iceland? What would be good to buy, to make the most of the money off, please? Thank you, mumtoomany.xxx

boultdj

The frozen fish fillets are good at Iceland @mumtoomany.

katkin

boultdj said:

The frozen fish fillets are good at Iceland @mumtoomany.

The 3 for £10 deal oily fish is really good, especially the trout and tuna. I wasn't overly keen on the white fish but I guess some of that may be down to the cook! 

Few spends to declare. Wax paper from Amz - c15m of it for £6.46. This was pricey but I'm trying to use less cling film and it is likely going to last a while. Then £6.82 spent on milk (it's always milk..) cucumber and a camembert. Also found an amazing yellow sticker bargain with unsalted country life butter at 49p marked use by today - snapped up 4 blocks for the freezer. Feel well chuffed 

I'm about to sit down to update my balance sheets and check my big online shopping basket that arrives on Monday. Cupboards and freezer are looking low and I need cleaning / laundry things this month so I reckon it's going to be tight this month. 

FrugalThymes

@katkin we need more oily fish so I'll check that out!

Popped in F4rmfoords as I'd heard they had some deals on, found passata, kidney beans and borlotti beans for 19p each I think and some tinned ham at a good price.

Another Ol1o success, adding free bread, cauliflower, grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, ham, sandwich filling and a few other bits and bobs to the cupboards (from a few different people last night and this morning). Then our friend offered us some unwanted chutney they had in a gift hamper, as well as butter they won't use, and almond flour and milk that they've discovered they're intolerant to. Plus after a get together there were a few handfuls of mini bounty and snickers bars that nobody wanted so I'm going to use them to make a sort of rocky road bar for the kids! 

With the freebies and the shopping I picked up from Asd4 this morning I've just written out a plan for 20 evening meals, with loads left over for lunches and breakfasts! There's a chance that we might not need to do another shop before October! 

£140.53/£200

Soontobeoap

A few spends to declare here. DH has been on his own for 5 days. He doesn't know how much he spent but only bought milk and 2 pkts biscuits so I have added £5.00.went to Aldi to get him some supplies for next week. When I will be staying with DD and SIL for 4 more days whilst they settle their youngest son into a different school to his brothers. So £20.71 spent there. Just goes to show that if you live off of beans on toast and pizza you can eat very cheaply. It has also shown me that he can live without meat for a few days at a time. Trouble is I am spending on traveling across the solent so not really saving much. Bus pass arrived this week whilst I was away so that will help. Have meal planned through to 23rd September when we go on holiday so should be able to stay within budget 

Crazycatlady2

I’m on £215 spent. Trying to stick to 1 shop a week with only bread bought in between 

hazeldreams

We're on £329.65/£750 after Friday's weekly shop.

After going over budget last week, I spent extra time really thinking through the quantities of things we're buying in our weekly shop from Aldi. I think we've been so focussed on keeping the big shop cost down, we've skimmed off too much, hence the constant trips to Tesco. Our list was much more comprehensive than normal. OH chose to ignore my request to get 12 pints of milk and only got 8 pints, so he'll not make that mistake again when he has no milk for his cuppa next week! I'm determined that there will be no extra trips to the local Tesco for "top-ups" even for milk!!!!

Wish us luck!

mumtoomany

Hi all, called in at the veg shop, i forgot to buy a sack of potatoes the other day! So 25kg of new potatoes, four lettuce, 15 kitkat type biscuits and a bag of sweets for OH, £11.50. Total now, £1946.78/£2640. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions for Iceland, sounds like fish it is, and maybe some beer for OH for Christmas, opening day offer, 18 cans £10. Also thanks to whoever it was gave me ideas for the bourbon glaze, used a sachet tonight on some chicken pieces for tea, everyone ate it, big win. I may buy another box if they have any next week, 5p for 20 sachets.
Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx 

Soontobeoap

Hi, me again. Been busy today harvesting raspberry’s, runner beans and tomatoes. All nearing the end now but will help us through the winter. Decided to make fruit cake for DH for next week and thought I would utilise the oven by doing a batch of 4 and freezing 3 for future use. Once mixture was ready I discovered that I couldn’t get 4 tins into my top oven so transferred all of the mixture into 3 tins. Although the cakes are bigger I think that they will probably be eaten just as quickly!! False economy!!! But I have learned my lesson and will only make enough cake to fill 3 loaf tins next time. I didn’t want to have both ovens working and they are both the same size.

thriftwizard

@Soontobeoap, if you're crossing the Solent you're not far from me, and I hope/expect to carry on picking runner beans well into October; have done for the past two years. I had a bit of a disaster with mine; got off to a very late start thanks to a contaminated batch of horse manure, but they've come back up from last year's roots about 18" away (left in to feed the soil) and some very late plantings (20-somethingth of July) are cropping now and flowering like crazy. My allotment neighbours have been ripping theirs out since the start of the month - to be fair, theirs had dried out, but they do this every year at the start of September - but now we've had some rain, you may get a second "flush" of flowers & beans if you don't need the ground for anything else. Every little helps!