January 2023 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

@zafiro1984, I am just as sad. I do one big shop a month online and then play chase the bargain on things that we regularly buy locally. Other than that its just bread, milk and eggs etc from Aldi as and when needed. Definitely save on petrol and my shopping bill will be at least £50 cheaper at the end of this month tban last January. This is my 13th month and it has taken me a while to find what works best for us.

Good luck everyone. Every liittle helps as soneone once said. 😂

SausageDogSandwich

£1.90 spend here this morning on a bag of potatoes and spicy crackers at the co op. Will need milk at the weekend as there hasn’t been any on olio this week. Need to start making a shopping list as running low on couple of things and find time to go shopping properly. 

£67.49/250 spent

Ginmonster

@zafiro1984 Getting a delivery mostly works better for me as well as it's a lot easier to be ruthless about what you need when you're not actually in the supermarket.  The downside is when things you've ordered don't arrive in the delivery as they're out of stock by the time they come to pack your order. I'm lucky in that I am only a mile away from 3 supermarkets so it's easily walkable to pick up anything that gets missed but I'm clearly also too easily influenced by the supermarkets' clever ways to get you to buy more! 

I also agree on the tinned custard, it works better for us as it's consistent. I can never quite guarantee how thick/sweet it's going to end up if we make it with the powder and then the small dictator will announce he doesn't like it and so it's much easier to use the ready made stuff. It does mean I have half a tub of custard powder doing nothing in the cupboard though. I'm wondering about chucking a spoonful in my morning porridge to use it up. Or maybe add some to cake mixture for a custard flavour cake? 

snowbird20

zafiro1984 said:

My current costing has been for Custard. I usually make it with Bird... powder and milk. Here's the problem, DH can drink cows milk but I'm intolerant to it so I make his with semi milk and mine with oat milk. Somehow or other the remainder of the semi milk never gets used 

could you not freeze the leftover milk until you need it again?  that's what I do.

Gettingmyshiztogether

DH went shopping today with a list... he mostly stuck to it 🤣 £45.03 spent today taking us waaayyyy over my own personal challenge of £250... coming in at...

£308.13/£250

£68.13 over... however we did still put £460 in the pot, I was just trying to be extra frugal this month. It's certainly been an eye opener that for sure and I ve learnt a lot. Still I think we have all we need now, but won't call it until month end. 

Please do keep sharing ideas, I ve noticed again a lot of items have gone up again by 10p each on last week! 

Just cooking a delicious butter bran stew with homemade dumplings now 😊

zafiro1984

snowbird20 said:

zafiro1984 said:

My current costing has been for Custard. I usually make it with Bird... powder and milk. Here's the problem, DH can drink cows milk but I'm intolerant to it so I make his with semi milk and mine with oat milk. Somehow or other the remainder of the semi milk never gets used 

could you not freeze the leftover milk until you need it again?  that's what I do.

Good idea, but when I buy milk online I always freeze it as soon as it arrives so I'm making the custard from thawed milk. I don't think I'd like to refreeze it.
Once, a long time ago I thought I'd leave the milk out defrosting until there was enough to use, and then put the frozen remainder back in the freezer - that didn't work. For some unknown reason, the milk that thawed first was lovely, but the stuff that went back in the freezer when thawed was so dilute it was like coloured water.

zafiro1984

Ginmonster said:

 I have half a tub of custard powder doing nothing in the cupboard though. I'm wondering about chucking a spoonful in my morning porridge to use it up. Or maybe add some to cake mixture for a custard flavour cake? 

I'm not 100% sure but I think custard powder is just coloured and flavoured cornflour.

PipneyJane

@Soontobeoap - hope the car problem is easily sorted out and that you get paid what your car is worth.

otb666 said:

managed to find some tins of pilchards in tomato sauce yesterday 90p Had that today with chips It was lovely and reminded me of my mums cooking 520/600

@otb666, if you combine a tin of pilchards in tomato sauce, mashed, with 500-ish grams of mashed potato, an egg and a teaspoon of baking powder, then bake for 50-ish minutes at 200C, you’ll get a soufflé like main course dish, which goes well with peas.  Serves four.

We’re away, so I don’t have a GC spend to declare but I was shopping in MrTs yesterday and the lady on the checkout gave me a very interesting tip.  If you have one of MrT’s  money off vouchers (e.g. get f£4 off if you spend £40) and your spend is borderline, don’t present your Clubcard until after you have handed over the money-off voucher and had it rung up. That way, the voucher is deducted from the full spend price first, before any Clubcard prices are applied.  

- Pip

LLM2018

Some spends on a few bits to declare £10.06 at morries

Total spent 92.36/100

snowbird20

zafiro1984 said:

snowbird20 said:

zafiro1984 said:

My current costing has been for Custard. I usually make it with Bird... powder and milk. Here's the problem, DH can drink cows milk but I'm intolerant to it so I make his with semi milk and mine with oat milk. Somehow or other the remainder of the semi milk never gets used 

could you not freeze the leftover milk until you need it again?  that's what I do.

Good idea, but when I buy milk online I always freeze it as soon as it arrives so I'm making the custard from thawed milk. I don't think I'd like to refreeze it.
Once, a long time ago I thought I'd leave the milk out defrosting until there was enough to use, and then put the frozen remainder back in the freezer - that didn't work. For some unknown reason, the milk that thawed first was lovely, but the stuff that went back in the freezer when thawed was so dilute it was like coloured water.

i know i won't use a whole buttermilk before it goes over...so I freeze it in 1 cup portions when I buy it.  That way I only thaw what i need.