November 2022 Grocery Challenge

Ginmonster

First spend of the month for me yesterday £8.04 on bananas and tomatoes for home and biscuits and milk for work. I'm clearly healthier at home! 😂

I shouldn't need anything before next week now so I'm keeping the purse strings shut and using up what I've got.

It's definitely into porridge season now so my favourite thing at the moment is working out things to put in my porridge to make it more interesting. This morning I had it with grated apple and cinnamon which is lovely but I've also found grated carrot, mixed spice and a few walnuts is good - all the flavours of carrot cake but not too sweet. Chopped up pear and a little bit of the syrup from a jar of stem ginger is amazing as well but I haven't got either of those things at the moment so I'll have to wait for that. 

After a bad October I'm feeling positive for this month and I hope everyone else is too. Good luck everyone!

£8.04/£200

London_1

First tiny bit of shopping this morning ,had to go to the bank to draw some cash and on the way back nipped into Savers and got a bag of granulated sugar to whizz in my blender to turn into caster sugar for my cakes and biscuits .Cost me 62p so I have £59.38. left in my November budget.Didn't need anything else as I have more than enough in stock at the moment 

JackieO xx


        1/2NSD,   62p spent on a bag of sugar   £59.38 left for November budget

Doom_and_Gloom

Spend of £28.23 so far.

We haven't been able to pick up basic tomatoes in our local Mr S for weeks now. OH went to L!do yesterday to pick us up an electric blanket and got a few other bits we needed while there. He spotted that they had the 28p tins of tomatoes in so he picked up 6. Very happy to finally be able to get those in.

£28.23/£240.
£212.77 left.

pinkypig

Thanks for running the thread @elsiepac, it’s such a help when trying to keep costs down.  It’s a normal month for us with nothing out of the ordinary to budget for so 

£150 for November please 😀

PP x

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning November GC'rs!

I have been shopping this morn, and have spent some of my £200 November budget.  I have spent - on Tuesday and today, a bit of money on food items for LG to donate to our local foodbank as part of a group activity that is coming up.  But for the time being, I am taking that from CHB monies, rather than our own grocery budget.  I must admit, shopping around (if you can), works, as I had set a mental budget of £5 for the FB donation, and with today's purchases, have spent £5.01.  I made sure I looked up what was 'most wanted' by our local branch before I shopped, so LG's donation is entirely made up of asked for items requiring the least possible cooking time if necessary.

I did go to MrAl to get the balance of the FB donation (I got the rest from MrA), but made all our grocery purchases in MrL today.  I spent £34.29.  I noted that milk has gone up 10p (again) since last week.  4 pints was £1.65 today.  I'm pretty sure that the MrL version of 'st0rk' baking margarine has gone up 10p too - it was 99p for a 500g punnet.  I didn't buy any last week, but I'm pretty sure it was 89p last time I purchased (having leapt up from mid-70p's before).  I think Doom_and_Gloom mentioned about re-availability of the 28p tins of chopped tomatoes, they were back in our store too today, so I bought 4 tins.  Wholemeal bread was still SEL at 69p but goes through the till at 72p 🙁Of the couple of items that I bought today that weren't on my list, one was a pack of 12 wArburt0ns white bread baps YS'd to  20p.  For choice, we normally stick to wholemeal bread, but I do like white bread/baps with soup - particularly tomato, and this was a bargain that we will use.  Also i picked up a punnet of the XXL version of MrL cream cheese, it was £1.19.  

Not a bad start to the month, but I think/know it's going to be super tight on a £200 budget, and I know I'm in the lucky position of having - for example - picked up non-food grocery items last month, that will last into this month, things like loo paper, toothpaste, WUL and hand soap etc.  There weren't any £1.50 boxes in MrL today, and I no longer go to the waste diversion scheme as it was getting far too much of a lottery as to what would usefully be available that wouldn't go off within 5 minutes of getting it home.  

£34.29/200

Greying X

ps86edi

The money hasn't been spent, but it's been promised. I've booked a meal kit for the next week. It'll cost us £5 for the delivery of three meals for two. I'm vegetarian, so the two meat-based meals are for the other two members of the household while I sip on my soup. (I do love soup)
I'll get some milk today with a Waitrose coupon so it should be about 1.05 unless the prices have gone up again since last week or so. Whatever else is bought will be with cashback apps and not be out of pocket. But then I am getting ahead of myself. 
Until now, our expenses are
£5/100

FrugalThymes

First shop £45.75

@Doom_and_Gloom I was wondering about picking up one of those electric blankets - have you tried it yet? 

Doom_and_Gloom

FrugalThymes said:

@Doom_and_Gloom I was wondering about picking up one of those electric blankets - have you tried it yet? 

No we haven't as it is warm here. We had the bedroom window on latch all night as it was that warm. 4.5 tog on and still had to stick my leg out the bed to not over heat 🤣. I'm very sure our neighbours on both sides are heating our place as even OH comments it is warm, so it isn't just me and my broken body not understanding the temperature which happens with my disability at times.


£21.50 spent in Mr S. We have skipped the A&C delivery for next week already.

OH is having shepherd pie for dinner and is also making bread and butter pudding as his bread went stale and doesn't want to waste it.
I'm having shepherdless pie for dinner.

£49.73/£240.
£190.27 left.

thriftwizard

£53.62 spent today between the butcher & the supermarket; hoping I can keep tomorrow's market/bakery spend down to below £40 for fish, cheese, fresh fruit & veg. I will need to pop down to L!dls next week for coffee, halloumi, loo roll etc. and a few festive extras, but hopefully we don't need very much. It's going to be a quieter Christmas for us this year & I'm not overly dismayed at that; ten adults, a baby & 3 dogs in our tiny living room was just too many last year!  I love them all dearly, and have rearranged the living room to "make" more space & seating, but I can live with it all being a bit more spread out this year.

PipneyJane

Good morning All

Small shop to declare from Wednesday. I had to go fill up my car, so popped to the L!dl next door, to see if I could pick up any bargains.  Two YS pizzas for a lazy dinner tonight, 2L YS milk (now frozen in 1L bottles), 2 YS rolls of shortcrust pastry (69p each), a YS stuffed pork shoulder roast (£5.17), and some fresh mushrooms.  The pastry didn’t have a date on it but I know from previous experience that it’ll keep for months in the fridge.

ETA:  £14.50 spent, so we're now at £14.50/£146.90 leaving £132.40 for the rest of the month.

I’m not criticising @Greying_Pilgrim and @Doom_and_Gloom, but my thought re the 28p tins of L!dl chopped tomatoes is that 4 tins isn’t enough.  Since they are unlikely to remain at that price and supplies are intermittent, why not buy a tray of 12? FWIW, that’s what I did last month and I know that it’ll take me 2.5-3 months to get through them.    At a minimum, they are 5p a can cheaper than MrT’s best offer (now 3-for-£1), but we can’t hope they will stay at 28p for much longer. 

What I am trying to say is don’t just think of your next week’s meals when shopping.  If it’s something you regularly use, buy a couple of months’ worth.  Stock up when there’s a good deal.  (This is why I have a Bulk Fund.)

- Pip