December 2022 Grocery Challenge

EssexHebridean

Spendy day here today - as well as the Farmers market first thing (£50 there in between the lamb stall where we got sausages, a small bag of sausagemeat and a whole lamb shoulder), and the other meat stall - sliced haslet for lunches, 2 x beef mince, pork mince and two of her beer & horseradish sausage rolls for lunch today, plus a nice sourdough loaf) we also went into Lil’s for bread flour - and also got shallots (on the 19p offer) 2 jars of mayo, (1 straight into use and one for the storecupboard) 2 bars of their surprisingly good cheapo dark chocolate  and a bar of a rather posher one as a present - £7.18 spend there. Then the weekly shop at T’s - £34.14 - but £8 of that was washing liquid, £3 on razor blades for MrEH, and some oddments of stocking up too. 

That leaves me on £107.31/£250 but I knew this would be an expensive week so I’m fine with that. 

There will probably be a bit of treaty spending over Christmas too as we’ve had to cancel the short break we had planned - we’ve made a fairly snap decision that we intend to move house so decided that both the money and the time was better saved. 

diminua

Chip shop pie and chips on Thursday evening as I was going out. Otherwise I've bought roasting veg, broccoli, pestos, bread, milk and self-raising flour. Made a teabread yesterday as the oven was already on. 
I'm not running out but will want marmite, eggs and tea soon. 
Quite tempted to get a lump of stilton, but will probably wait until after Christmas and see if there's any reduced. 

mumtoomany

Two spends to declare. Milk, two bottles, £3.40 and passata, 16 bottles, £4.64. Total spend for the year now £2654.39/£2640. Not long to go now. Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

Its_time

My weekly shop is coming Monday (tomorrow) at the moment it is around £94.00, I am hoping that because it is in the middle of two weeks we wont go over the £100 which is £50 a week and bang on budget.  I will update tomorrow when it arrives.
Initially it was £133 odd, but then I thought what am I doing?? I had lots of nice things on there, two of this, two of that etc. I have cut it back hard, I was buying a £5 shortbread tin because I liked the stag on the front, I am now buying a pack of shortbread which is on offer for £1, have taken off all the nice things other than cheaper bits and bobs such as swopping a Tesco chocolate log for a swiss roll which I will ice with buttericing which will be a much bigger log, Tesco log on offer was £1.50 my swiss roll is £1.07, I know I have to ice it but....it is almost double the size.  I have swopped Philadelphia for Mascarpone doubling up on the amount I have for less money and the cheesecake will appreciate it.  The whole shop has been checked, checked, and double checked.  I've checked the cupboards, DH has raided the freezer and over all we have saved around £40, so very, very happy with that.  I am working until Thursday so with Christmas Day being on the Sunday I will have plenty of time to clean up and prep before going to DS and his fiances on Christmas Day and then everyone back with us for Boxing Day.  It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

PipneyJane

Good evening All

I have several shops to declare:  £19.80 in L!dl and £12.24 in Sainsbugs on Thursday; followed by another £11.30 in L!dl yesterday and another £5.31 in Sainsbugs.   The L!dl shops were driven by the need for veg and chocolate for baking.  The Sainsbugs ones because they’re selling 450ml Yeo Valley Yoghurts for £1.50 at the moment, down from £2.25.

The above spend brings our December total to £122.60/£142.20, leaving £19.60 for the rest of the month.

- Pip



PS:  The goose was delivered on Friday. 5.6kg of goose, with over 500g of extra fat, packed inside it.  Since we’re spending Christmas at my SIL’s, I’ve just shoehorned it into the freezer for later on.  This is the only time of the year that you can get one and, because of bird flu, I’ve paid an absolute fortune for this one, £180.  Thank God for budgeting and having a “Christmas Fund” to raid.  We save £20/month towards food and treats at Christmas.  This year, there will be nothing to roll forward to Christmas 2023.

EssexHebridean

A small additional shop for us today as I had to pop in to T’s to get an additional pack of apples. Checked the YS’d stuff while I was there and came away with three packs of cooked sliced chicken for lunchtime rolls - 1 posh finest one and 2 ordinary barbecue flavour ones. Total spend including the apples £3.51 but we’ll get 8 days lunches for the two of us from the chicken. 

My total now £110.82/£250.00 

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

Nopt gonna lie, my budgets started out so well this month and I've managed to get all my Christmas presents, and various shopping bits and so on, but I've kind of lost track of what I've spent where so I'm going to do the same as @leftatthetrafficlights and start over in Jan.

Update on my experience Earth and Wheat (wonky veg and bread boxes)

• Thu 1 Dec: Order placed for bread box and veg box
• Fri 2 Dec: Bread box shipped, veg should have shipped
• Sat 3 Dec: Bread box received - no comms re where veg box is - emailed support
• Sun 4 Dec: Support replied to my email advising veg boxes are being sent out on Tuesdays at the moment (no mention anywhere on website or in email confirmations or anywhere at all
• Tue 6 Dec: Veg box confirmed will be sent today
  
• Wed 7 Dec: No veg box received also changed bread box to fortnightly as I don't need it weekly
  
• Thu 8 Dec: Charged for this week's bread box (incorrectly as should now be fortnightly and website shows fortnightly) and also next week's veg box (still not received first veg box). Emailed support asking about both! Support apologised as veg box seemed to have been lost in transit (in fairness this is on Evri rather than Earth and Wheat) so they put a credit on my account for a future veg box.  They also said I had been charged for my bread box.  Replied advising I know that, hence my emails but as per my previous email, it should be fortnightly.
• Fri 9 Dec: Support replied advising my bread box would be delivered tomorrow (felt despair!). I replied asking if it would be fortnightly from now on
  
• Mon 12 Dec: Support replied advising my next veg and bread boxes are due for dispatch on 20 Dec. Emailed support advising for the 3rd time I had changed bread box to a fortnightly delivery which showed correctly on the website in my account.  Then got frustrated and cancelled the bread box as clearly their system isn't updating and support don't seem to understand what the issue is or read my emails as the responses are very generic.  If I start the bread box again I will do it 4 weekly from the start which I'm hoping will work.  The products themselves are really lovely!
• Tue 13 Dec: Veg box confirmed will be sent today (still the first one - let's try again!)
• Wed 14 Dec: Veg box received! Very pleased with contents - nice variety and amount, and all very fresh.
• Mon 19 Dec: Order of £0 (i.e. credit from missing first veg box) confirmed to be dispatched tomorrow for delivery Wednesday.  Fingers crossed!

In Summary

Positives: Both bread and vegetable produce is fresh, great quality and decent value. For every box ordered they donate a meal's worth of bread to food charities/banks around the UK. Everything is "wonky" so helping combat food waste. Delivered so very convenient. Veg box includes a list of WHY things are wonky which was very interesting.

Negatives: Customer support is well below par.  Systems don't seem to work properly if subscription edited. Lack of order transparency in Account area on website (the dispatch day being different - still nothing on the website or in emails!)

Overall, I will absolutely keep using them for the veg box unless things go wrong.  I don't think it works out any cheaper than the supermarket BUT I like the veg they sent and the cause and the convenience.

My first veg box (check out the size of those carrots!!!)


Why things are "wonky":


Caulishoots! Loved these!

EssexHebridean

Love the "caulishoots" - those are ace! Their general premise seems to be pretty much the same as oddbox on the veg front - we've been having one of those boxes fortnightly for a while now and have been extremely pleased.  I'm still quite tempted to try E&W for the bread box option although slightly hesitant about the fact that they use Evri - their service near us is atrocious! 

happydenial

@elsiepac - I had a very similar situation with E&W. Have been getting their bread box from the beginning and loved it, and was interested in their veg boxes (having previously used Oddbox, A&C and Riverford) so ordered one using a generous discount as an ongoing customer. 

The first one was great, so I subscribed for a monthly box. All was well until I changed the delivery dates for holidays. Was contacted by customer services asking if I was sure I wanted two veg boxes this week. I didn’t, and hadn’t said I did! They went to fix it, somehow managed to delete my delivery entirely. So no veg box that week. I contacted them to ask what was going on, they again tried to fix it and I ended up getting two veg boxes and being charged for both 🤦‍♀️ This took them two weeks to sort out, I did eventually get a refund for both, but I cancelled my standing order for both the bread and veg in the end, it was too much hassle, particularly as their emails all arrived around 1-2am, it took ages to get to the bottom of it. 

goldfinches

@elsiepac - thankyou for all the information in your above post. Like you I was very interested in the reasons why things were "wonky".
@happydenial - thanks for the warning about E&W, most useful to know that both you and @elsiepac found their ordering systems to be as "wonky" as their veg.

I haven't been out and about much mainly due to the atrocious weather here but have managed a trip to Sainsby's where I spent £7.26 on milk, yoghurt, lemons, rocket, sweetcorn and bananas and £1.80 from the Baking Budget on some vegan butter. That makes my totals so far this month £39.16/£133 for the GC and £1.80/£40 for the BB. 

I've resorted to making my own bread for the second time a couple of days ago and wonder if anyone else finds that golden linseed tastes of fish? I thought I was imagining it at first because of the omega 3s, but now I'm sure I'm not, so think I'll have to give the rest of the packet away as I find the flavour very offputting. I'm sure there'll be someone in my walking group who'll snap them up.