October 2022 Grocery Challenge

LadyWithAPlan

Happy October all  

Grocery Oct  22 GC £20.02/£145   +    0/£55.30 for bulk

I needed to get alcohol for a house party Sat - I can recommend the £8.99 Cremant from MR L. so of course ended up spending £24.61  Sat after my Friday spend £27+ - Mr L have red onions cheaper so bought 2 x bags of that - main spend was veg, DF organic almond milk 85p each, brown rice, frozen blueberries (I eat as a treat) and frozen peas.

Sunday I was hungover so saw a friend for a walk in the lovely sunshine -  I had coffee whilst she drank prosecco - I did pop to Waitr**  £8.21 spent but included some crisps etc that are part of my treat budget as is some H+B pineapple and papaya as I needed the sugar!
I did see I have some Wait offers but I was already at till 

I am having fun with my new electric monitor. All costs include 5% vat & my Oct 22 prices. Trying to not get obsessed but just trying all my gadgets before then lending it to my parents and wider family
Suddenly NSD are not that as I can see I am spending daily on electricity - not sure why I had not twigged that before.

Kettle 3/4 full - cost 4.6p (I then poured the excess into a large flask so I have hot water on tap) I am not restricting my coffee/tea drinking but why let the water cool unnecessarily when it takes two seconds to pour into a flask ? - hot water on tap plus its better for my Aeropress coffee as ground coffee  does not like boiling water

Halogen oven - 70 mins cost 39.5p - cooked a crown of chicken (YS) plus jacket potato and roasted onions yesterday in the halogen  with peas (wonderful for my hangover) - probably cooked for a bit too long but I like my chicken cooked and crispy and was slow to get my veg going
Not much of a bone to make stock but I will add some veg as well.

My fridge freezer costs
At summer 22 rates the fridge freezer costs  annually £88.35  + after vat £92.76
Autumn 22 £104.66 (+ vat) so £109.89 a year to run it. so £9.16 /month as my baseline
My fridge is over 5 years old and a tall fridge freezer. It is definitely costing more than when I googled its energy usage, however its not too bad and I have a further fridge freezer that I emptied in spring and not switched back on.


NSD Oct 0/17 -
Spent both days. aiming for a nsd today

I am eyeing up the faux fur £120 heated throws vs the £60 ones as they look much nicer. I will pop to J lew** to see if I can feel them

Meal planning this week
I have realised when I skip meals I eat more crisps and sweets so I am trying to get at least 2 decent proper meals in me a day.

LO roast chicken with leeks, peas, carrots and rice - will try brown rice in pressure cooker  and time it (I have a rice cooker so I want to see the difference)
YS gammon joint with veg
Chicken soup with LO chicken and leeks 
Beetroot soup (beetroot cooks brilliantly in pressure cooker) with frozen Chicken stock
Smoked salmon crustless quiche as some LO - needs to be GF so
Bean soup with LO gammon
Something involving red cabbage as bought one last week and its looking at me Maybe a red cabbage pork type dish - any suggestions?

joedenise

I usually do red cabbage in the SC with some sliced red onions and sliced red eating apple and then portion up to use as a side with main meals.

I layer it all up in the SC and season each layer and then cook for 8 hours on Low.

Ginmonster

I had a big Asda shop delivered today coming to £96.80. Luckily I looked at the mushrooms they'd given me while I was loading everything into my bags as they were way past their best. Even the delivery driver said "they've seen better days". They were the just essentials range and I had been really pleased to get a punnet for 50p but it's not worth it if they're going manky already. I don't think you should get given rubbish just because you've ordered the cheap range.

Anyway, I'm fully stocked up now and had done some batch cooking this morning to use up the old veg before the new stuff arrived. I made a big pot of cauli & broccoli cheese soup (some of which I had for lunch) and a pot of very spicy beetroot, black bean and kimchi stew. I got a bit gung ho with the hot sauce when I was cooking and although I love spicy food it might be a touch too hot even for me so I might need to grab a pot of yoghurt from the shops tomorrow but other than that I should be sorted until next week.

£96.80/£200

mumtoomany

Been into town for a visit to the optician. Called in at Aldi for  a few bits. Spent £26.40 on, crisps, veg (fresh and frozen), cereal, tea, coffee cheese, margarine and toilet rolls. Should do us for a while. Still emptying the freezers. Racing now to see if we will have enough space for all the pork! If not the third freezer will have to be lugged in. Trying to avoid that if at all possible. Total spend for the year so far is £2233.01/£2640. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

katkin

~~TJN~~ said:

How does anyone else work out what’s for their dogs when they have more than one? (Or several animals for that matter?) I’m treating my 3 dogs as I extra adult, since one Is big and two are medium/small in size. 

@"~~TJN~~

It's cats and chickens here  - I monitored how much they were eating over a month then worked out how much that costed against the food which is bought in bulk. One cat is on a prescription diet so it's measured out and I'm now measuring out the quantity given to the other folk. The kitten's food is bought within the grocery budget but the bigger he gets the more is eaten so it will be shifted soon into the "Pets & Vets" budget line. 

When I stated measuring out the food (layers pellets) to the chickens it didn't seem enough but they are always starving to death! It's what is recommended on the pack and they're still producing eggs and look perfectly healthy so it's enough with the other titbits they're always on the beg for 

Chickens also have oyster shells, grit and a variety of bedding and other hygiene items so it was worthwhile monitoring that to work out how really expensive those eggs are - which they are! They are an absolute joy though, wouldn't be without them. 

PipneyJane

katkin said:

~~TJN~~ said:

How does anyone else work out what’s for their dogs when they have more than one? (Or several animals for that matter?) I’m treating my 3 dogs as I extra adult, since one Is big and two are medium/small in size. 

@"~~TJN~~

It's cats and chickens here  - I monitored how much they were eating over a month then worked out how much that costed against the food which is bought in bulk. One cat is on a prescription diet so it's measured out and I'm now measuring out the quantity given to the other folk. The kitten's food is bought within the grocery budget but the bigger he gets the more is eaten so it will be shifted soon into the "Pets & Vets" budget line. 

When I stated measuring out the food (layers pellets) to the chickens it didn't seem enough but they are always starving to death! It's what is recommended on the pack and they're still producing eggs and look perfectly healthy so it's enough with the other titbits they're always on the beg for 

Chickens also have oyster shells, grit and a variety of bedding and other hygiene items so it was worthwhile monitoring that to work out how really expensive those eggs are - which they are! They are an absolute joy though, wouldn't be without them. 

@katkin, if you have any garden space, grow giant sunflowers next year and dry/save the flowers.  Chickens love pecking at the seeds, straight off the flower head. (We had neighbours who did this when I was a kid.  More recently, I read somewhere that the seeds from one sunflower will feed a chicken for a week.  I think it was in one of those WW2 reprinted pamphlets.)

HTH

Pip

thriftwizard

£74.70 spent at Li!dls this morning - and they didn't have two of the items I needed, so I'll have to go back at some point - which has included a couple of festive items to stash away, but not much. And they did have loo roll, which they haven't had for the last couple of months when I was able to get down there, but we managed with what we had. Which will leave us a little over £50 per week for the rest of the month... hmm, maybe should have stuck to £380. But it's a challenge, just like it says on the tin, and challenges aren't meant to be easy! As long as not too many people invite themselves round for Sunday lunch, or the weekend (and there's already one, complete with dogs) it's do-able.

Soontobeoap

Oh dear. DH has gone off meatballs as I have changed the sauce!! Maybe i am cutting back on shop bought sauces too much, putting too much carrot in to bulk up the meatballs or its just ny home made meatballs! Whatever it is i will have to try and overcome the problem as I still have 32 left!!!!! 😅🤣.
I guess if this was straight forward it wouldnt be a challenge! 🤷‍♀️.
I have updated signature after Tesco shop arrived today. 

FrugalThymes

@Soontobeoap how about meatball subs with melted cheese over the top? Or break them up and mix them into a tin of taco mixed beans and have over rice? You've reminded me to make meatballs, by the way

No grocery spends yet, but some great Oil0 things - a big pack of chicken wings, some ham, bread, Moroccan couscous, yoghurt, and salad bits. Hoping to not have to  buy anything for a few more days.

I made the potato and bacon hotpot/pie thing in the recipes here yesterday and it was a success; made 8 portions so had it two nights in a row and the kiddos and DH would like me to make it again. Also made pizza dough for the first time in ages and baked some pizza rolls with mozzarella and bacon whilst the oven was on, plus the chicken, an oat bar thing, some jacket potatoes and some roast carrots and parsnips. I'm going to try to only use the main oven when I can fill every shelf all at the same time.

Tomorrow I want to do a 'stock' take of everything and plan meals, but I have a lot of work to do so we'll see if I get a chance.

JingsMyBucket

JingsMyBucket said:

£43.76 / £300.00 spent. £256.24 remaining. 

Because I'm budgeting roughly £55/week for 4.5 weeks and £50 for a bulk fund, I've got about £11.24 left to last us until this Friday. We'll need to buy more milk and yoghurt tomorrow or in the middle of the week. Let's see how this goes.

Morning y'all. Well, OH blew that remaining weekly amount yesterday. He spent £13.60 in M & S for a couple curries, milk, bananas. The curries have really shot up in price to £5 or £5.50 each and our local M & S doesn't seem to do meal deals for the curries at all. We'll definitely have to keep an eye on that. 


£57.36 / £300.00 spent. £242.64 remaining

We're officially over for the week but we have enough fruit and veg to last us until Friday when Mr. Jings leaves for his trip. On Sunday I spied a £15 off £60 Morrison's voucher in my email and I think I'll take advantage of that next week to get some variety from boring old Tesco. Morrison's also has offal and bones online which I'd like to buy.