November 2022 Grocery Challenge

Doom_and_Gloom

Greying_Pilgrim said:

I would normally make my own pasta sauce, pizza toppings etc, but I bought the jar of pasta sauce (only the auld Mother Hubbard's brand) for the store cupboard.  It's the same price as passata but has the seasonings already in it.  It's a back up/emergency helper.  

Greying X

I thought about buying them also as a quick fix but honestly after seeing the ingredients list I decided against it and bought passata sauce instead and more tomato puree.
The basic one I looked at was listed as water, tomato 13%, tomato puree 6% and then starch, sugar etc. So not even 20% tomato product.
It's likely the jar is at least 50% (if not 70% or higher) water, which is around 20p for 220g of water, and I'm not paying that much for water when I'm after a tomato product.
We rarely ever run out of herbs and spices so it was the clear winner for us.

sweetpea26

Went to big town today and got what should keep me going until start of week.
Mr tees for cereals, breads, 3 kilo rice, butter, fruits and washing up liquid £16.21.
Happy with that.
Called at local shop on way home spent 5£ on soft drinks for Christmas and thankfully spotted yellow stickers ! a stuffed loin of pork and 4 very big chicken fillets..prepacked from a neighbouring market town butcher. £7.46 for both. All in freezer now.
The pork will do a family get together some Sunday and enough for us the following day.

Total spend so far is
 £97.43 / £300

£84.94 food
£12.49 household

Over first 11 days of November equates to

Food             £7.72 per day
Household   £1.13 per day

I've quite a bit of stock up gone into larder and freezer from this.

This thread really helping me to think before I buy.

pinkypig

Hello 😀. Weekly shop fines for £28.93 which included a sack of dog food, 24 loo rolls, milk, coffee and not much food!
We are still eating from the freezer and cupboards and all our fresh veg and salad this week came from Olio.  Pasta bake (with roasted Olio veg) and hm garlic bread using my free Lidl bakery item sourdough and Olio salad for dinner tonight.  I had lo cheese sauce and some hm pasta sauce lurking at the back of the freezer so zero effort and practically free 🥳🥳
£53.33/£150

Happy Friday 😀
PP x

Blackcats

We've been fortunate with olio this week - some brown rolls and a pack of bacon which we are looking forward to having for a Saturday morning breakfast with some posh coffee that we were gifted from a friend.  We also got sticky Thai rice, Thai green curry and fire cracker vegetables from olio which was a fakeaway treat for tea tonight.  Also got lots of lemons, a cucumber, a swede, broccoli and new potatoes.  

We were sorely tempted to get fish and chips tonight but I stuck to the meal plan and made a very tasty kedgeree.  Candles lit to try to offset the smell of fish 😋

EssexHebridean

Well we’ve acquired our first food of the month albeit without any spending happening! My Mum has just had her kitchen refitted and I was over there this afternoon helping her sorting out things back into the new cupboards - inevitably somethings were found which were no longer required as they were things Dad used to use and she doesn’t, thinks that we’re bought when he was alive and aren’t the right size for her on her own, and things she had duplicates of that she didn’t want to store - so a bag full of odds and ends made their way home with me - all donations gratefully received!

First actual spend of our month will be tomorrow - I have my meal plan in place and  shopping list written. Mental note to buy additional bocks of butter (thanks to the person who mentioned that it looks like prices could be on the increase again). We need loo rolls so it’s not going to be a cheap trip, although I am tempted to head to Farmf00ds first as they sometimes have some decent offers. 

ps86edi

Popped in yesterday to pick up some freebies from Waitrose and get the free coffee as well. spent 1.70 for two bags of easy peelers. Hello Fresh box should be here tomorrow so no need to buy anything for the next week or so.
We picked up some more milk from the school and I'l pick up some more on Sunday using my coupon at Waitrose. I'm beginning to believe we might actually manage without spending too much this month. I usually cook from scratch and with my pantry, we should manage not to spend too much for Christmas. We don't celebrate, but we partake in all aspects except the religious. Most of the meat that'll come with Hello Fresh will go in the freezer unless the meat-eaters decide they want to cook something. The four-year-old isn't going to cook, so it's on the husband.
We haven't switched the heating on and I am worried about the bills once we need to. It's been unseasonably warm, but chilly weather can't be too far. This challenge has helped a lot, and I'm hoping to join in next month as well.

Total expense £64.71/100

hazeldreams

£249.38/£580 spent here so far, with 2 weeks left to go. Things going really well. Work has been ridiculously busy so I've not been on top of getting Olio or TGTG boxes - I do need to get back to that! We've been getting absolutely everything from Aldi and still managing to come in on budget, so pleased about that. We've been scaling back on the recipes we're doing and just doing really really low cost meals, like rumbledethumps, baked potatoes, meat free sausage and mash etc and lots of soups! It's definitely helping. I'd love to come in around the £500 mark this month so I can chuck the extra at the debt, which has to be gone by 31/12!!

Soontobeoap

@hazeldreams rumbledethumps? I am not sure what this is? Sounds like a lovely dish. Have i missed this recipe? ☺️.

Have just looked it up. You learm so much on this forum. ☺️

PipneyJane

Good morning All

Soontobeoap said:

Already over £100 this month. I have got some serious work to do to stay in budget. Guy came with new part for hob today. He confidently fitted it and it went bang again so now awaiting new hob. What with that and the colder  weather the temptation to buy something easy or get a takeaway are getting ever stronger. Is anyone else finding that or is it just me? Stopped by at Sainsbirys today and the gluten free pasta that was 80p last week has gone up to £1.00 a bag. So glad that I got it when i saw it. 20p here and 20p there doesnt seem much but it soon adds up. It is hard to budget when things change from one week to the next. Still I musnt get disheartened. There are people much worse off than us in the World. 

Onwards and upwards. 

Having lived without a hob for 3 months, when we were getting the kitchen done, I feel your pain @Soontobeoap.  Do you have a microwave?  I learned that I could make tomato based sauces  in the microwave using a soufflé dish as my “saucepan”. Start by tossing chopped onions in oil in the dish then zap for 1-2 minutes.  Drain the juice from a tin of chopped tomatoes - save it, if you need to thin things down - and add to the onions with your herbs or spices.  Zap for another minute.  Add tinned tuna or diced cooked meat, zap for a further minute or two.  Cover and leave to sit for a few minutes to meld.

(My biggest regret from those days is that I didn’t have an electric frying pan to cook in, but I couldn’t buy one anywhere.  We got by with the microwave-combi oven - often as an electric oven - the kettle and the slow cooker.  That was it.)

I have six shops to declare, from this week and last weekend, so let’s start with last Saturday when we raided L!dl on our way home from a day trip to Somerset to visit my MIL. £13.09 spent on a YS roast-in-the-bag chicken, YS mini cheesecakes, a sticky toffee pudding (on offer), Potato Gratins and a Steak Pie.  The gratin and the pie were shoved into the oven immediately after we got home, for dinner.  (We got back after 8pm.)

We were out for most of Sunday, so I put the chicken in the slow cooker in the morning with a splash of stock and some chunks of veg in the bottom (onions, sweet potato, carrots).  I also par-boiled some potatoes before heading out, which I roasted when we got home at 6.30pm.  That chicken formed 3 meals:  “roast” chicken dinner, a stir fry on Monday, and chicken risotto on Wednesday.

Other shops were in Sainsbugs £1.75 (cookies), £6.21 (Yeo valley yogurts at £1.25 plus some broccoli), 40p (spring onions) and £1.24 (YS milk and a YS quiche for 40p), mainly purchased by DH on his way home from work.  He also went to L!dl one night to do a “proper shop”, spending £22.67 on ground coffee, instant coffee, fresh veg, cheddar, cooking bacon and 2 packs of YS fish cakes (90p each). 

So far this month, we’ve spent £59.86/£146.90 leaving £87.04 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Soontobeoap

Thanks @PipneyJane. My micrawave did come into its own over the last week. I barely use it normally! I have new hpb now so wasnt too long without it. 😊