September 2022 Grocery Challenge

diminua

Another £10.15 spent on milk, peanut butter (£1 off. I love peanut butter but don't buy it regularly as the speed with which I can get through a whole jar of the stuff means it's neither good for me nor frugal at all) eggs, currants, tuna, tinned tomatoes, mozzarella and vinegar. I also had a large bar of chocolate but put that in the foodbank on the way out so have taken it off the spend. It would have been the tinned tomatoes but there were loads of tinned tomatoes. 

Had a baking day today, as planned. Some spiced biscuits from the national trust recipe online - I forgot to cream the butter and sugar together first and had to add a splash of sunflower oil and another of honey to wet the mixture and get it to mix properly, but they turned out ok considering I've never done them before.

One Mary Berry Earl Grey teabread with extra fruit, a different tea (I don't drink Earl Grey) and half the usual amounts of everything else the bbc website says to add - plus, again a splash of honey substituting some of the sugar (I'm a 'friend' of a local cemetery in South London. We have hives and get four jars of honey each a year, and the rest is sold), and a heaped teaspoonful of rye flour because that's one of the things I need to use up (why did I buy so much?). I've done this recipe several times now, so I'm confident I can mess about with it quite a lot and still get something edible. 

I also made a vegetable lasagne - mostly onions and soya and tinned tomatoes - which used up a good two teaspoonsful of oregano and the last of the dried soya, and should see me for at least two meals, and some roasted carrots to go with it. 

I tried to go blackberry picking after, but all the fruit that should be black and juicy is withered and dry around here. There are some more red ones coming through though, so I'm hoping for a second flush. 

Saver-upper

This month I have been a bit better with meal planning and shopping. I have been trying to run down the contents of the freezer, which has helped the budget a little.

So far this month, for my family of 2 adults, a 20yo and 3 teens, I have spent £145.19/£300.

MissRikkiC

JingsMyBucket said:

Hello @elsiepac thank you for running the challenge each month. I'm back after traveling in August and taking care of family stuff that came up. Please put me down for: 

£300 for September 1 - 30. That's for 2 adults with no kids or pets.

This past Sunday was my birthday and on Saturday we went to a food festival, bought some fun stuff and then bought picky bits at M & S on the way home. So my monthly budget reflects the little birthday indulgence bump for this month instead of the usual £250 or £260. 

£5.80 at Tesco for berries, jalapeños, cilantro, and potato chips

£15.00 at the food festival for a truckle of cheese, sausage, and a fancy cocktail. 

£36.77 at M & S after the food festival for picky bits and some basics like berries, cheddar, yoghurt, etc. 

£20.00 paid this morning to farm supplier for a fruit and veg box 

£77.57 / £300.00 total spent so far. 

I just put in a Tesco online order for delivery tomorrow morning. The estimated cart is £66.37 but I'll update that tomorrow after it's delivered. 


ROUGH COOKING PLAN 
Here's what's on the plan for this week in no particular order

• Mexican black beans - Might cook quinoa to make it into bowls for OH. I usually just eat it as is with shredded cheddar, bacon, yoghurt, red onion, and cilantro on top. 
• Roasted sweet potato and roasted eggplant 
• Hamburger soup (with lots of beans and veg)
• Spinach and bacon quiche 
• Stir fried pork belly and vegetables 

This may change depending on what's in our farm box tomorrow. There's a lot to catch up on the thread – it's already at 170 posts! Have a good morning everyone!

Sorry if this has been asked, I’m a few pages behind but I’d love the recipe for hamburger soup! 😍

LadyWithAPlan

diminua said:

Another £10.15 spent on milk, peanut butter (£1 off. I love peanut butter but don't buy it regularly as the speed with which I can get through a whole jar of the stuff means it's neither good for me nor frugal at all) eggs, currants, tuna, tinned tomatoes, mozzarella and vinegar. I also had a large bar of chocolate but put that in the foodbank on the way out so have taken it off the spend. It would have been the tinned tomatoes but there were loads of tinned tomatoes. 


One Mary Berry Earl Grey teabread with extra fruit, a different tea (I don't drink Earl Grey) and half the usual amounts of everything else the bbc website says to add - plus, again a splash of honey substituting some of the sugar (I'm a 'friend' of a local cemetery in South London. We have hives and get four jars of honey each a year, and the rest is sold), and a heaped teaspoonful of rye flour because that's one of the things I need to use up (why did I buy so much?). I've done this recipe several times now, so I'm confident I can mess about with it quite a lot and still get something edible. 

ooh this teabread sounds amazing and I love earl Grey tx for pointing it out. I also eat peanut butter in about a day .. I cant have it in the house along with Harib*/sweets and crisps - or rather I love to have such stuff in the house but if it lasts 24 hours its a miracle. Luckily I am fine with alcohol and dont smoke..

@goldfinches
This crisp recipe and your pic looks great - thanks so much - i will treat myself to a mandolin and some oil fry spray .. mandolin will be useful for courgette pasta as well

Grocery Sep 22 £16.32
GC £68.13/£160  + £15/55.50
NSD Sept 5/16 as spend day again 

I had to pop into a couple shops on way home as went to Buckingham Palace with a friend to pay my respects and (accidentally) saw the tail end of Charles  III car entourage. Thousands of people laying flowers everywhere so  was hard to get in front of the actual palace - I got to 40 feet away, and gave up but all the trees in St James Park had hundreds of flower bunches around it and so many kids hand drawn queen pictures. Very moving and everyone was very respectful - no pushing.  The people with flowers were every shape, size, gender, age, dressed from uniforms, pearly kings and queens to punks.- even young men in their 20s - shows what an impact she had on us all..
Really not ready for a King.. (and 3 in succession!).
Central London, Soho and the Southbank has screens everywhere with the Queen on there and all the flags were half mast.
I wont buy flowers but I will get some extra for the food bank in lieu.

 I discovered that my Sain local had amazing bargains again (about 7.30pm) - I only went in as I had not got toilet paper yesterday as Li* had run out.. so I ended up shopping again- I did leave some for others but 6 chicken kebabs, lamb kebabs and pork kebabs all down to 84p each!
I did buy myself some sweets Sqush** as was starving - had refused to buy myself food when I was out - but that come from my treats pot not grocery spend.

Then  popped to Mr L to find again they had ran out of toilet paper  apart from huge 24 roll packets but bought some reduced GF sausages after the triumph of my GF toad in the hole plus some super 6 veg (avocados, peppers, lemons,), a red cabbage and some mayo (never tried Mr L brand so an experiment), some Mr L earl grey (not as good and I love Twinings but not going to shop again til next weekend)  ..some houmous, salsa, organic DF almond milk 85p each.
Also Mr L  bathroom cleaning spray.

I ended up finally buying toilet rolls from Mr T. No real bargains there. (Home cleaning stuff is in a different home pot) 

Tomorrow is my first DIY lesson - plumbing here we come!! I will need to catch a bus back after 9pm  but will walk there for exercise , sunshine and save the bus fare

As on my diary  - Meal Planning for week
 - 1st time I have ever written these words with an actual plan!!

all with at least 3 portions of veg - got carrots, red cabbage, 3 courgettes, onions, salad in, 

- YS Chicken koftas and YS oriental stir fry
- YS fishcake with tin of tuna or mackerel for extra protein
- toad in hole GF made with YS sausages with  onions and mash. 
- YS lamb kebabs
- meatballs in sauce - in slow cooker or pressure cooker.
- oat protein pancake with vegan protein powder for healthy snacks and apple/summer fruits - make and batch
- tuna with mayo in baked YS potatoes
- cottage pie - yet to make as got loads YS organic potatoes and carrots that need using up. Will add mung beans to see if I react to them. Some pulses make my belly v unhappy
- A  (red) cabbage, carrot and celery soup as loads of all in - got a lot of HM chicken stock in freezer and finally bought some onions ...
- either HM bread attempt number two 
-  a GF crumble with apples I have picked
- stew some apples to freeze or bottle 

goldfinches

@LadyWithAPlan - glad you like the look of the crisp recipe, there are a couple of cons you might like to know about. One is that they taste bl**dy delicious so you end up eating loads and the second is that mandolines are very sharp but your fingertips and nails do grow back eventually! 

@FrugalThymes - thankyou for the felting suggestion for soap. Having looked at various examples online I realised that I could do something similar with a wash mitt and all the little ends of bars that I saved in a yoghurt pot which would mean I could actually use those up rather than keep feeling guilty about them hanging around so thanks for the help.

I'm just popping by to claim another NSD on account of going for a healthy and free walk to spot more foraging opportunities instead of doing any shopping which was very MSE of me. I didn't pick any more free fruit today as it rained on and off so like @diminua I'm also hoping for a second flush of blackberries and for other fruit to plump up a bit too.

cinnamon123

Adding in another $12.04 for my stock-up budget. Purchased some tea online - more than I wanted but I couldn't get a smaller quantity. All good as it's always nice to know there is another box tucked away. Still need to buy a different brand/flavor of black tea and then we will be set for the autumn/winter so far as tea goes. (I hope...I'm a tea fiend...)

Totals are currently as follows: $94.52/$400 (grocery budget-food only) + $52.77/$200 (stock-up budget) 

I'm another one who loves peanut butter - always try to have a jar at home.

Made a list for this week's shopping and then tried to cost it out using an old receipt (the store I'm going to doesn't sell online so no online prices). My target is roughly $100/week and that was spent before I even reached the second column of food items.

Thankfully we can afford food right now but considering that we always shop with a list (rarely deviate unless there is a good sale), try to eat fairly healthy (don't buy junk food as a rule), know how to cook, cook nearly every meal at home (haven't purchased food or coffee out in about 4 months and that purchase was about $4), and do not waste food unless it cannot be avoided, it really worries me for other people who are not in our position or who do not have any skills in the kitchen. 

We are going to aim to push out the main shop another 2 days this week as that will help with the overall monthly budget. I'm also going to see where I can tweak the list a bit more and remove a few items.

I also think that soup season will help immensely. My new very large (7 quart = ~6.89 L) slow cooker has just arrived! I've been using a 1.5 quart one for about 12 years now so this is a big change, but an exciting one - oh how I live And I've order some plastic containers to help store the batch cooking. Made some chili in the small slow cooker yesterday, using up some old dried beans, and that will give us each 2 meals for this week. But I can't wait to test out the big one and use up the rest of the old dried beans later this week.

It's very helpful to read how everyone else is doing. Keep on shouldering on

London_1

My gorgeous grandson flew back to NYC this morning after his break at home in the UK. he's hoping his landlday of the apratment block has got them some fresh milk and bread in, but if not then they will grab something when they get home.One thing he says about living in the city that never sleeps is they can get food almost 24 hours a day Bless him, my DD and son-in law will miss them badly now,but are booked to fly out there next March. He took some packets of Polo's with him as he really misses his favourite sweets:)

I managed to forage some nice blackberries and they are washed and in the freezer to have when the weather is cold and frosty and I fancy an apple and blackberry crumble to cheer up thos long winter days.
I love the availabilty of free foraged blackberries, it make me feel very squirrelly as I am hoarding the bounty away .

Book club tomorrow so I must take my flask as we have been told no more free coffee from the library ,but I don't mind as my coffee is nicer anyway .

Coffee morning Tuesday, but I shall avoid the deli counter at Dobbies as its too much of a temptation, unless they have some reduced chicken and chorizo empanadas as they had a few weeks ago they really were delicious, but I won't pay 2.30 for 6 but reduced they are only around 79p a packet. 
Wednesday will be my 'Shopping' day and I have already got my list written out and ready

Onwards and upwards chums

JackieO xx 

FrugalThymes

Morning all! Just had a weird breakfast of some pesto pasta, an avocado and hot sauce because the first two things were given to us on Oli0 last night, and I've recently discovered a love for hot sauce on everything

Last night's dinner was cheeseburger pasta bake which went down very well and there was enough for a big portion for DHs work lunch. Another thing that has been very much enjoyed by me and the kiddos is the 'not quite rocky road' thing I made; about 20 melted miniature bounty and snickers bars from a tub of celebrations, a few digestives, loads of honey nut cornflakes, raisins and cashew nuts and some butter. 20 little chocs would be gone in minutes but this lasted over the weekend and now some for school lunches. 

Today I'm going to try making damson sorbet as the kiddos collected a load of damsons from the tree in our garden. They also grabbed loads of elderberries for me but I think we were just too late with those and many were shrivelled. I WANT to be enthusiastic about elderberry recipes but prepping them is so time consuming I just get bored

No more grocery shopping yet, but we picked up 10 free Minecraft magazines from facebk marketplace last night and they're going away for the youngest's birthday just as a little extra gift for her. I've also just found a 4l cast iron pot that somebody is selling, after one use, for £15 and I thought it would be perfect for a diy haybox/wonderbag. It needs properly seasoning so I'm going to have to learn how to do that. 

Another couple of great fbook market place finds led to some weekend diy- DH has hung a very strong and solid curtain pole (£10) over the archway between our dining room and lounge and hung some thick, lined 90" Dunelm curtains (£22) to help keep us warm in the winter! We could not have afforded to buy new for this so incredibly happy with those finds!

Hope you all have a lovely day, I'm off to do a bunch of work I've been putting off...

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, just caught up with everyone. 

Didn’t do any grocery shopping during the week. Did end up going yesterday as it was husbands day off and couldn’t of waited until mid week for a couple of things. First spent £12.58 in ald1, got about 80% of what was on the list. They didn’t have any straight cut chips for 99p I think it is but had the crinkle cut for £1.29 for the same weight, so there was no way I was going to buy them. Had to go to asd@ to pick up a parcel so thought I’d get chips from there, they had none of the own brands at all, so no chips but managed to spend £4.04. Finally spent £9.48 in her0n as cant pass up an opportunity to go in there when already in the town. They had birdsey3 fish tray bakes for £1 so I got a couple of those and the kids spent the rest of the money on crisps, crackers, cereal bars etc so they are stocked up for a few weeks now. 

I did get a tin of kenc0 coffee from oli0 at the weekend, we are used to the own brand so can definitely taste the difference   and a small pack of chicken to use for curry this week.

Planning on not spending any money again until Sunday as it worked well last week and there is nothing I can think of that we actually need but will see how it goes.

£50.87/150 spent.

LittleGem

Morning all, 

DH spent yesterday on some milk and fizzy drinks - not sure how much so adding £5 to our total to cover that. 

I find I have simplified our meals plans and shopping to keep costs down but am already getting bored of repetition so going to search through the recipe list for some new ideas ahead of our next shops.

Trouble is we are trying to all eat the same meal/variation on meal for DD aged 3, which somewhat limits us and how adventurous we can be!

£94.73 / £200