January 2023 Grocery Challenge

otb666

have made chicken pie and stew from stash of chicken from relative who does not cook anymore and has pre-made meals instead. also made spag with mince.  I wanted to use this up as not sure how long its been lurking in their freezer.  Once defrosted gave it the sniff test and blasted in pressure cooker. This means i am still sitting on 151/600 and have enough food for next 7 days So doing really well this month. First time ever

sarahj1986

sarahj1986 said:

sarahj1986 said:

Hello all

kicking off my first spend of the year so far!

went into town today and popped into Lidl. I got some skinny crunch, energy drinks and finally managed to get a £1.50 fruit n veg box. It had a mango, 7/8 apples, a pear, 5/6 oranges, 2 bunches of spring onions”, orange pepper, lettuce, loads of baby potatoes, 3 red potatoes, aubergine, a lemon, a lime and a grape fruit. 4 bananas although I think only 1 of those can be saved. Apart from 3 of the bananas the rest of it is absolutely fine, 1 apple has a bruise but I can cut that off. I won’t need much fruit n veg this week now. Tesco is delivering on Thursday. I’m trying to keep that under £70

£246.67 left 

£84.33 spent today 

my shopping is due this afternoon and I’ve just got my receipt from Tesco. It would have been a bit higher but there’s 3 subs I don’t want. 

It is slightly bigger than I was planning on but I’ve done a mini stock up on things we use like crisps, cereal bars, biscuits and I’ve also got my husband a selection of tinned soup for his lunch when he wants it. I’ve only got chicken and a big pack of mince on it for dinners. I’ve taken out leftover lamb for dinner tonight, I’ll do a tikka curry, got naans coming for that. The mince I’m batch making a chilli adding in lentils and kidney beans, that will easily do 3 dinners. I’ll freeze 2 lots. Chicken, which I’m going tomorrow will do is 2 meals so freeze the rest for a curry or sweet and sour. I’ve still got 2 joints of pork, 2 joints of beef plus bacon and other bits in my freezer. Next week won’t need to be as high as I continue to use what I’ve got. 

£162.34 left 

£4.60 spent today

£1.60 in Poundland. We visited my sisters and her children. My daughter wanted a drink plus I got some skinny crunch bars as I’ve not tried the rocky road yet

£3 was a Too good to go bag from Costa. I’ve done them in the past when I’ve been up my sisters way. They are lucky to have a few Costas nearby. The one today I’ve never been lucky enough to get. I ended up with a croissant, chocolate twist, 1 chocolate muffin, 1 lemon muffin and a ham n cheese toastie. Maybe not massively money saving but a nice treat. 

£157.64 left 

LadyWithAPlan

@peb I am with you on tinned soup, generally not tasty and v salty . 

Occasionally I will buy a posh soup if YS but I am a soup maker .. it’s even quicker now I use my pressure cooker to make the stock - 20 odd mins only fit chicken stock 

@thriftwizard lucky chickens and I love a good tomato soup 

@FoxFace you bean burgers sound great - do you use a particular recipe ? 

£52/ £145 + £6.69/ 30 spent Grocery Challenge 

Did some food shopping as wanted to get a FR corn fed chicken from Lidl but I ended up in there at 5.30pm after a late start in the gym and most the chicken had gone.. guess the world is on a Lean Diet as there were loads of sausages still in store ! I did buy some more DF butter as it’s only £1.49 for bulk plus some gherkins, 
plus potatoes as want to try my new mandolin for making crisps (I cook in microwave as less oil) and a Tin of tomatoes £3 the lot 

I bought some onion powder, Kashmir chilli powder (my new fav spice of 2022) 
From local ethnic  shop £2.18 
coop had Ys chicken tikka plus that Alpri I can’t believe it’s not milk (best DF milk ever) reduced and a £1 voucher off so total bill £1.58

I have started a 3 month fitness campaign today .. having not drank since NYE  - so my fridge is about to get even healthier! 

snowbird20

Elisheba said:

Hi, could you put me down for

£1200 for the year, please?

That's just for me and includes food, toiletries and cleaning products.

So far I've spent £29.50/£1200.

i'm going to say 'WOW!' just at the thought of eating for that amount.  here in the US one dozen eggs is now $5 and bread is $3 a loaf.  

snowbird20

otb666 said:also made spag with mince.  I

i read this as 'spag with MICE'.  and thought 'times ARE hard...' 

FoxFace

LadyWithAPlan said:

@FoxFace you bean burgers sound great - do you use a particular recipe ? 

Not really, I just worked with what I had in… I’ll try to summarise though.

1 Tin Kidney beans
3 carrots
1 onion
gram flour (reg flour would be fine)
Ground coriander, cumin, paprika and oregano
panko breadcrumbs (optional)

- finely dice onion, fry in oil until softened.
- grate the carrots, add to the pan and mix until carrot softens
- add about 1/2tsp of each spice and herb (start here but add more to taste)
- Drain, rinse and finely chop kidney beans in a food processor (or by hand)
- add the beans to the pan and mix everything together, take off the heat
- mix in 2tbl gram flour and mix until it is a firm paste

Divide into 4 patties. I also pressed them into some panko breadcrumbs that I had lying around.
popped into the oven on gas 6 for about 20 minutes, but they could easily be fried or grilled.

patentgirl

First week completed slightly over but nothing to worry about yet £71.35 aiming to keep to about £250 a month for my £3000 annual budget good thing meal planned for this week probably won't need to go shopping till Wednesday for top up milk bread etc so hoping lot lower for week ahead had 5 NSDs too.

oceandreamer

First shop of the year yesterday and spent £28.51. Did stock up on spices and store cupboard stuff that I needed to be able to eat out of the freezer.  I've done an inventory of the freezer and store cupboard and am going to try and plan meals from that.
£28.51/£100 

Ginmonster

I’m already buying value-brand yogurts, but the price of cheese is extortionate - £4 for 500g of grated mozzarella at Te$c0 (if it’s on offer, otherwise it’s £5). I would scrap the mozzarella and just use cheap cheddar, except that I make a lot of pizzas and cheesy flatbreads.

If you have a food processor with a grater blade you can grate a massive block of cheese in seconds and keep it in a tub in the fridge. That's what I tend to do but I appreciate that's only useful if you have the food processor!

2Scratters

@SecondStar perhaps look for your fromage frais when it is reduced (hopefully you do not worry about the dates and can use your senses of smell and taste) and select your cheese in a block instead of ready grated (is usually cheaper), it will also possibly make you more aware of the amount of cheese you are using. HTH.

2 Scratters xx