October 2022 Grocery Challenge

LadyWithAPlan

Grocery Oct  22 GC £77.42 /145   +    0/£55.30 for bulk

2 shops over the weekend  - £23.51 grocery

Saturday pop in to  Mr L after gym - some YS pork loin I apportioned up, special 6 prices inc bunch beetroot, frozen berries, veg, tinned tomatoes and beans, more of that Polish garlic sausage £1.99 and great to fry up and make my HM lentil soup more interesting, DF milk (back to 85p) , smoked paprika - £18.73


A Sunday eve Coop £4.78 inc YS dip, YS spring onions for my fried rice dishes, YS chicken roast in a bag  that is now in the halogen - (which runs about 30p/hour I now know) - that will get me a roast dinner, will use some to make green chicken curry as have a Mr AL seasoning mix in, plus stir fry plus soup stock .. maybe with the beetroots.

I have started freezing more of my cooking as I get bored  quick so did a brown rice, beans (red kidney) and peas in rice cooker with GF soy etc to go with my YS turkey breast (defrosted) and have frozen a portion of the rice as I always cook up too much and threw some away over the weekend that had been hanging too long in my fridge.

Treats - included  £4.39 on one coffee out yep London prices ... no alcohol this weekend though - I did drink Wednesday and danced til 3am but my covid 4th  jab has made me tired so was in bed 8pm Saturday eve!
£4.89+ sweets £2.30

My sweets and crisps comes out my treats and entertainment budget separately which is not looking healthy at all with 13 more days and a family bday dinner to pay for plus Nov comedy tix.. I also have a bday do tomorrow as well. I may go and not drink as really don't want to be drinking more than once a week.

Meal planning
Roast chicken with jacket potatoes
Jacket potato (cooked more than I needed deliberately) with a mexican chicken and refried beans extravaganza
Chicken stir fry
GF Toad in hole (sausages always in freezer)
Soup chicken and leek .
@goldfinches recipe link but no tahini in so doing this one instead with added sultanas and cinnamon  https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/gluten_free_banana_bread/

NSD 8/17 

Doom_and_Gloom

We have forgone the A&C and O~box deliveries this week. 
We have spent £25.65 since last post on here in Mr S.

£212.31/£294.50.
£82.19 left.

goldfinches

Waving to all and thanks for the recipe links @LadyWithAPlan. I'm planning to try this Gluten Free Oat Parkin tomorrow so I'll report back later on this week.

Meanwhile thanks to the lovely weather here over the last few days I've spent lots of time outdoors walking with friends, picking sloes and just admiring the golden sunshine before it vanishes into the gloom of winter so I don't think I've spent very much money. 

Looking at my receipts I've spent £1.15 at Mr T's on bread rolls and £5.20 at M*rks on 4x organic milk, bag of onions, a fresh pineapple (odd that it was only £1 when english apples were £2 for 4) and 2x radishes. 

That makes my new total £45.34/£133.30 and my average daily spend is now £2.66. 

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, A few more spends from the weekend here. Had a walk into town on Sunday and discovered a new shop that sells best before items, so glad we had walked and couldn’t carry to much else we would have spent a lot more  nothing that we needed part from Handwash was purchased, mostly spent on American cakes, drinks and crisps - can’t wait to go again next week but the bank card will have to brace itself lol. £12.93 spent there, 88p on two drinks for kids at HB, husband bought pumpkin spice latte coffe from asd@ at £2.50.
 Then yesterday we went to sainsbrees as was near by to get my shopm#um offers, after cashback on those and then a few other things we needed I spent £3.45.

Making my total so far £95.88/200 

I need to get milk, fruit and veg in the next couple of days, but not buying anything much else as I’m trying to defrost and use something out of the freezer most days to make room for an Xmas drawer and spend a bit less money this month. 

EssexHebridean

Small spend to declare here - we popped into the huge new BandM store in the town last night as we were next door collecting an item from a well known electrical retailer - they had the mint & yogurt sauce we are practically addicted to in stock at £1.09 a bottle so grabbed two for the storecupboard. That leaves me on £107.46/£200 - that's about as cheap as you find it these days - it's £0.99 days are gone I think!

atrixa

£5.82 shop in Mr M today so now over budget at £146.07/£145. Will try to avoid the shops until payday.

Got two yellow sticker bargains that I'm pleased with. Nowhere seems to have frozen broccoli at the moment. I've tried three shops, anyone know the reason why? Might just be my town.

Soontobeoap

I still get a surprise every time i go into Aldi. Today i bought
I jar sweet and sour sauce.    69
2 jars bolognaise sauce.   £1.30
1 bottle lemonade.                 23
2 x lacto free milk.             £2.10
1 X 4 pint semi sk milk.     £1.55
1tin mackeral fillets.               64
Potatoes.                                 99
15 free range eggs.           £2.05
veg cooking oil.                 £1.75

Total.              - - - - - -  £11.30

Very pleased with my little shopping hall. As you can tell i slipped out without OH. 🤣😂😅

mumtoomany

Shopping day again. My problem is that when i go shopping, if i see any real bargains, that i know won't be there again, I have to buy them! So across five different shops i spent £44.91. Not a lot really, but a bit chunk of the remaining for the year. For this i got, six lettuce, a beetroot, an apple, four kilos of margarine, four large cans of pilchards, two dented cans of soup, four kilos of grated cheese, almost two kilos of bacon, four loaves of granary bread, sixteen half pound good quality burgers, two x four pints of milk, twelve bread rolls, one kilo of onions and three kilos of carrots. That almost reads like the " Very Hungry Caterpillar" !
Total for the year now stands at, £2452.85/£2640. This leaves £187.15 for the remainder of the year. The three freezers are filled to capacity, the cupboards are all full, I have a turkey crown and Christmas pudding and OH had announced that he's going on a diet, so won't need as many crisps, biscuits, etc. I am, still,  however feeding seven or more people! Wish me luck.
Before anyone starts worrying we'll starve, this amount is what I'm aiming for. There are funds available if i go over.
Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

London_1

Good Afternoon chums well first shop of October as I had run my fresh stuff down, and have been away in Devon

Aldi's was   £19.04
Tesco's was 20.69
Dobbies was £6.53 ( snaffled some really good reductions in there for five main meals)

 2x Hunters Chicken also TTD (Taste the Difference )
1 x TTD Fish pie that's tonight dinner.
and two cooked chicken breasts, plus a big block of  Cathedral mature cheddar at £1.32 instead of £4.00cheese and a block of Wensleydale and Cranberry for 60p so it was worth having a quick look before coffee morning The concession in there is Sainsburys but they do their reductions first thing in the morning. Apart from the fish pie most of it has been portioned and wrapped and in the freezer
so in all I spent a total of  £46.29  out of my £60.00 October food budget.

I'm more than pleased, as I shan't need anything else at all this month, the fridge is full and I have enough fruit and veg to last me a good two weeks. So fingers crossed no more shopping until next month, its only 13 days away ,where has this month vanished to.

JackieO xx



                                                                       17/18 NSD this month
                                      £46.29 spent £13.71 left from October food budget and nothing more to buy 

goldfinches

@atrixa - I share your frustration over the dearth of frozen vegetables. None of the supermarkets around here seem to have them reliably in stock and I notice M*rks resorting to odd combinations to fill up that space in their freezers so it seems to be a widespread problem.

@mumtoomany - I also have the "snap it up in case it's not there the next time you come shopping" impulse and find that the shortages on shelves tend to exacerbate this tendency.

My evening class was cancelled this evening as the tutor had an emergency at home so I treated myself to a ready made sandwich and a packet of crisps with a bottle of beer (I'm really living my best life aren't I!). I also spent £12.17 at Sainsbos on vegetable oil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, parsley, coriander, chives, a bag of peppers and paneer cheese. Then I spent £3.30 at M*rks on yoghurt and bananas. 
That makes my new GC monthly total £60.81/£133.30 and my average daily spend £3.37.

I also stumbled across some reduced to clear gin in M*rks which I snapped up as Sains were completely out of their cheapest sort which I'd planned to buy to make sloe gin but I'm taking that out of the treat budget. Interestingly the rapeseed oil in Sains cost more per litre than the extra virgin olive oil but the own brand vegetable oil says on the label that it is rapeseed oil and costs a lot less.