February 2023 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Afternoon All

I have 3 shops to declare from this week:  £3.50 in MrT’s and £7.40 in L!dl on Wednesday, followed by £3.62 in Sainsbugs yesterday. 

The visit to MrT’s was for tissues.  We’d hoped to get peppers but they didn’t have any and, yet again, their fresh produce section was looking pretty bare.  Fortunately, we could walk across their car park to a branch of L!dl…. In L!dl, we got a family pack of peppers for £1.20  (3 red, 2 small green), 8 packets of penne pasta (41p each) and a small whiteboard+pens (£3 for the two).

DH went to Sainsbugs yesterday, since he had a double points offer to use at their petrol station.  He bought 0.8kg of loose broccoli and a 600ml tub of crème fraiche.

Our total spend is now £60.69/£142, leaving £81.31 for the rest of the month.

We have plenty of food in, so I’m beginning to think that we might end the month with a surplus. Am I tempting fate?

- Pip

thriftwizard

Well, this has all got a bit complicated! Turns out that between us we'd spent over £40 on Valentines bits and my mother's birthday in the supermarket, so that needed to be removed from the grocery total. But I've spent just under £60 at the market this morning, rather more than anticipated, because the olive man was there - he isn't in winter, more often than not. As olives, brine pickles & hummous have been identified as some of the best foods for my poor long-suffering insides, I stocked up, as he may not reappear until the end of March! So anyway, I've added £20 - it's a bit of a fudge, but a pretty accurate one. Shouldn't need too much else this week, until next Thursday, with a bit of luck, a following wind and no unexpected guests...

diminua

£1.20 on a pastry and £1.10 for crisps to go with my lunch sandwich - I need to squirrel a large bar of chocolate in the office fridge again instead, so I eat a few squares of that with some nuts in the afternoon rather than buying extra snacks. 

Grocery shop today was many of the usual things - coffee, bread, tomatoes, tinned tomatoes, margarine, orange juice, eggs, potatoes, pesto and a grapefruit. I bought milk in the week and still have over a pint. 

I had quite a lot of veg beginning to look sad in the fridge so made a green soup which turned out rather nice:

One courgette, two leeks, four spring onions and half a green pepper all washed and chopped quite small, in a large saucepan with about a third of a normal sized block of butter cut in small squares, and about a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of oregano and pinch of pepper. Cooked with the lid on and occasional stirring until soft (about five minutes) then add boiling water (I used most of a pint, but it will depend on the veg. Basically enough to cover the veg and a little extra) and a stock cube and a teaspoon of soy sauce. 

Simmer for about ten minutes, taste and add extra seasoning if wanted, then whizz in the blender until desired consistency. I left mine still with dark green flecks in and was prepared to add cornflour for thickening or parmesan for extra flavour, but it didn't need it.

Makes two generous servings. 

Soontobeoap

£6.00 spent at Aldi today. Bought a very large swede, 2 cartons lactose free milk, 1 carton apple juice, wraps, and eggs.

Not much left in budget but pleased not to have overspent in school hols with GSs here. Some food is still in freezer for Easter hols and I am planning to create a whole shelf for gluten, dairy and soya free food that I can build up over the next 6 weeks. 

Nearly bought a takeaway tonight which comes from another budget. When DH rang up he discovered that they were closed until end of Feb! So we saved a bit there.😅. 

atrixa

I'm over budget. £160.74/£150.
I wouldn't have made it last month without a £25 voucher I didn't include in the budget, and even with me getting quite a few YS bargains, I'm not beating all the price hikes which still seem to be coming. I'll increase by 50p per day from next month and see how I get on.

Saver-upper

Spent £30.72 in Aldi this afternoon. It is mine and OH's 24th "anniversary" today, so bought some ingredients for a special meal, and a few bits and pieces. Really need to reign in the grocery spending now- we have plenty of food in the house!

£233.51/£300 

JingsMyBucket

Dang it. I remembered late last night that OH bought a box of Kind Bars off Amazon earlier in the month for about £12. That shrinks our remaining amount even more. 

£247.78 / £330.00 spent so far. £82.22 remaining 

I'm going to head out in a bit to pick up some essentials like milk and butter along with a few items to make meals for the rest of the week. Maybe I'll limit myself to £30 – £40 for the day. I'm also trying to locate Woolite locally in the shops and haven't seen it whatsoever at Tesco or M & S. Today I'll try Savers, Poundland and Lidl to see if they have it. The budget for the day will also cover the Woolite which seems to be about £5 after checking Tesco online. If nobody has it, I'll add it to the next Tesco online order. 

Have a beautiful day folks!

PipneyJane

JingsMyBucket said:

I'm going to head out in a bit to pick up some essentials like milk and butter along with a few items to make meals for the rest of the week. Maybe I'll limit myself to £30 – £40 for the day. I'm also trying to locate Woolite locally in the shops and haven't seen it whatsoever at Tesco or M & S. Today I'll try Savers, Poundland and Lidl to see if they have it. The budget for the day will also cover the Woolite which seems to be about £5 after checking Tesco online. If nobody has it, I'll add it to the next Tesco online order. 

Have a beautiful day folks!

@JingsMyBucket the only place I’ve seen Woolite in years is W8tflower.  They’re also the only shop I know that does an own-brand version.  

I use their own brand, Wool & Cashmere wash.  It’s good but even that can be hard to obtain at times.  The last two times I made the trek to W8flower, they didn’t have either in stock. (That was November and early December.)

HTH

- Pip

Soontobeoap

Going to start a store cupboard challenge /reverse meal planning early and see how far into March I can get. Have done a stock take of baking cupboard today. Looks pretty well stocked. Very pleased that only one item was out of date. Will stock take tins tomorrow. Chicken and ham pies from freezer with some spuds and frozen veg for dinner tonight. 

otb666

590/600 had to buy new hand blender as old one broke. Missing pork chops from iceland delivery To replace we have to ring local shop So put a resolver claim in as not prepared to ring and then collect (costing me petrol and phone call) When pork chops costs £4.  I had the same problem with Aldi and might have to go back to going in shop myself as getting quite expensive.as lat 2 shops something been missing.  Dont know if its bad luck or what it is really.  Update Resolver worked money been refunded to me