September 2022 Grocery Challenge

joedenise

Soontobeoap said:

Does anyone have a recipe for sweet onion chutney that they would recommend. Also how to I preserve it so that it doesn’t go mouldy. I pay £1.50 a jar at the moment. With onions so cheap it has got to be cheaper to make it.

so pleased with the glut of runner beans that I have grown this year. So many in the freezer for the winter.

I am not very good at making sauces but have found that if I stew tomatoes and mix with one third of a 59p jar of pasta sauce from Aldi it makes a pretty good pasta sauce. A good way of using up a glut of tomatoes or the ones that go a bit soft in the fridge. I can’t believe that in January I was paying over £1.00 a jar for one meal! It has gone up even more now too.

I also add left  over red wine, sugar and a couple of apples to a thinly sliced red cabbage cook it all up and then portion it into 4 containers for freezer.

I saw swedes for 50p each in Aldi last week. They are 80p in Tescos so bought a couple and froze in small chunks after blanching. This will do 4 portions of veg for the 2 of us.


GS,s go back to Mum and Dad tomorrow and so I have a lot of fridge sorting to do. I am frying up the potatoes left from the boils that I did with gammon a couple of days ago. Have already managed to freeze the leftover sweetcorn, have sliced gammon that was left into small chunks. It will do at least 3 meals in omelettes or pasta along with the leftover grated cheese. Someone on this thread said that their freezer was their friend. I know the feeling. 🙂

This is the recipe I use (it's a Slimming World recipe but you wouldn't know it from the taste!)

1 Kg onions (I like to use red onions)
200ml balsamic vinegar
300ml cider vinegar
couple cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
5 Tbs granulated sweetener

Slice the onions up reasonably small and thin.  Add to a deep frying pan (I use a sautée pan)

Add the vinegars and sweetener and then simmer for about an hour until the vinegar has evaporated and formed a thick sticky sauce.

Transfer to sterilised jars and seal. 

Red or white wine vinegar could be substituted for the cider vinegar but I like to add the balsamic.

I've kept it for over a year and never had any go mouldy.

Crazycatlady2

hazeldreams said:

Hi all,

I’d love to join in please! 

We are 2 adults, 2 hungry teens and a hungry black lab! 

Our groceries include all food, alcohol, cleaning products, toiletries and we have been spending roughly £800pm over last 3 months (down from £1000pm before that). I know it’s a huge sum compared to others on here but we’re trying to do it slowly as we’ve crashed and burned just cutting right back in the past! 

£750 for September please

I’m a high spender in here too. 5 of us eating adult portions plus a dog and cat 

hazeldreams

Crazycatlady2 said:

hazeldreams said:

Hi all,

I’d love to join in please! 

We are 2 adults, 2 hungry teens and a hungry black lab! 

Our groceries include all food, alcohol, cleaning products, toiletries and we have been spending roughly £800pm over last 3 months (down from £1000pm before that). I know it’s a huge sum compared to others on here but we’re trying to do it slowly as we’ve crashed and burned just cutting right back in the past! 

£750 for September please

I’m a high spender in here too. 5 of us eating adult portions plus a dog and cat 

Glad it’s not just us! Do you mind me asking how much you’ve budgeted for September? I know you shouldn’t compare but it’s so hard not to when you feel like an outsider! 

redofromstart

@Soontobeoap the recipe @joedenise gives looks good, but also worth looking at piccalilli (I use the 'easy' good food recipe) and soused onions (again good food pickled onion recipe) as a great way of making a shorter lived but cheap but tasty condiment to use up gluts.  

Lucyv

hazeldreams said:

Hi all,

I’d love to join in please! 

We are 2 adults, 2 hungry teens and a hungry black lab! 

Our groceries include all food, alcohol, cleaning products, toiletries and we have been spending roughly £800pm over last 3 months (down from £1000pm before that). I know it’s a huge sum compared to others on here but we’re trying to do it slowly as we’ve crashed and burned just cutting right back in the past! 

£750 for September please

We’ve just started budgeting.  We are getting more overdrawn and with the cost of living going up we need to make some changes.   We are a family of five very active humans who eat lots plus a cat. I was thinking this month of going for £750 as in the past I think we’ve probably hit £1000 but I was nervous about £750 as everyone manages to get it so low!  

I think through August I spent roughly £828 but it was a 5 week month.  £750 will be for all food, cleaning things and toiletries.  It is my husbands 40th birthday in September so I’m putting a separate bit of money away for that weekend for whatever food/activities he wants. 

£750 for September please.  

London_1

Hi to high spenders its baby steps and not a race we are all at different levels of spends .I am a single widowed pensioner who has been doing this for many years so its second nature to me.You will get your spending down just eat before you shop and shop with instinct for needs and not 'Oh that looks good " we have all done that sort of shop at times and food shopping is not a great deal different from clothes shopping when you think about it and I have clothes in my wardrobe I thought were great and wore once and promptyly for got about

Root around your food cupboard and freezer and I bet you can find a good couple of meals thats been forgotten 
So chin up and a little bit at a time be the tortoise not the hare :)  

JackieO xxx

Herbyme

I blame big appetites for my high spend. My men (3, OH and 2 sons) especially, but mine too. JackieO I love your system, however I probably eat double what you do 😂 ( but my weight stays steady so I think I must need it!)

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning September GC'rs!

Definitely echo the comments that we're all different and our Grocery budgets have to cater for a variety of family sizes, tastes, dietary requirements, income, available shops, number of meals required etc etc.  Be kind to yourselves and others, the challenge is to find the level that is workable for your particular situation,

We're a household of 2 adults and one child of primary school age.  We're predominantly vegetarian although we do sometimes have fish (mostly limited to breaded fish portions and/or fish fingers).  Our budget is for food and household 'stuff' (soap, shampoo, rubber gloves, lightbulbs etc), although it's getting increasingly hard to cover all that if it is a 'stock up' month, or if everything decides to run out at once.......  We don't buy takeaways, primarily because the offerings are so lousy where we live.  I do try to cook from scratch, but don't beat myself up if that's beans on toast or omelette - these are perfectly good foodstuffs.  

Opportunities for YS'd stuff are few and far between.  I do buy MrL veg boxes IF they are available, but the deciding factor is always 'can we use what is in the box?' - that is not always the case.  The is a waste divert scheme operating locally, and if I can use items, I will get them, but it's a bit too hit & miss to rely on.  

Shopping day today.  I have my list and will try to stick to it!

Greying X

hazeldreams

Morning! All the kind words and reassurance are warmly recieved, thank you all. I've started and stopped this journey so many times but every failure has been a learn and brought me to this day so I know what breeds consistency for us.

We've started of well by ordering a "too good to go" box from our local supermarket. We're collecting this tonight and plan to decide what meals we'll be batch cooking based on whats in the box. It's grocery shopping day tomorrow so that should definitely help keep down the costs!

Have a lovely day all!

Lucyv

Jackie you are an inspiration.  Thank you for sharing your meals with us.

Last month I stared by writing out a stock check type list in order of importance.  I tried to cut out desserts completely but the children were very unhappy about this.  We’ve compromised now and most days just have a few squares of dark chocolate after dinner and once a week have a treat, for this weeks treat I’m baking brownies today as it’s our last day off before we’re back to work and school tomorrow.  (I don’t work during the school holidays.)  I’ve also change from Ariel to saindbury own laundry.  I’m going to re-evaluate everything like that as I run out of it. 

The hardest thing I’m finding about reducing our groceries is getting the children used to the changes.  Like Jackie said we will take baby steps.  

I’ve got my meal plan for next week ready and just about to do my first sains order for September, will order to be delivered for Sunday night.  There is now a ‘super saver’ delivery option which I’ve used the last couple of weeks and got the shop delivered for £1.