February 2023 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

Another one here with the really bad cold/cough that seems to be doing the rounds (caught mine off my friends kids when looking after them for a day) - mine's been nearly 2 weeks and the cold part is all but gone, but the cough is still lingering and I've pulled all my ribs on the right from coughing so that's making life enjoyable... not!

March GC Now Live!

Nelliegrace

Hello, I have been reading the grocery challenge since January and would like to add my two penny worth.
Lent starts today so it is a good time to consider food spending for the next six weeks to get into better shopping habits.

We are doing the WW2 ration book challenge this year with Carolyn from The1940’s Experiment, which means using the frugal and healthy recipes from my childhood. We have estimated the meat ration which was one shilling and two pence (6p), as £2.50 each a week. 

We shop at Asda mainly because they have 10% off still with a Blue Light Card. Our grocery budget is £30 a week for two adults. I check prices with Trolley, and we stop at Aldi on the way home if something is cheaper there. We do a yellow sticker check at Asda, Sainsbury’s or Tesco in the evening quite regularly as they are all local. The freezer is so useful for making sure nothing is wasted, though we do not buy more than we can use. 

We have just discovered TGTG, and had a bag full of bread, fruit, and vegetables from Morrisons for £3.09. The prepared mediterranean vegetables went straight to a pot of soup with some red lentils and a bit of tomato purée from our stores, and the rather soft raspberries were a quick jar of jam before I had a pot of tea and a sit down. 

We had a good look round Morrisons after checking what was in the TGTG. I bought wonky blueberries and pears, and the milk. I would get the 6 pint milk as it is slightly cheaper per pint, but it is too heavy. My best buy was a 4 pint bottle of whipping cream for £1, well in date, left over from the in-store bakery. First thing the next day I made it into butter, a third at a time in my old food mixer, using YouTube instructions. It made 1lb 12oz, (800g) of lovely butter, which I have frozen in weekly 4oz portions. The last bit of the cream in the bottle and leftover buttermilk made custard. 

We have three chickens, so we have plenty of fresh eggs, plus some frozen in case they go off-lay. Their feed has gone up from just over £11 to £14 for 20Kg, but we sell a few eggs to cover their costs. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Final total for Feb of £108.31 - annual total now running at £208.31/£3000

Off to March GC now! 😁

Soontobeoap

@Nelliegrace this is my third day of trying to live from freezer and storecupboards for as long as I can. Not sure I can manage 6 weeks but if I could manage on £30 a week for 2 of us for a month I would be over the moon. Well done you. Recipes and tips would be very useful. 🙂

Gettingmyshiztogether

Another £10.47 to add. I had to make up thr Total to £250 in L!dl so I get 10% off of my last shop for this month. So I bought Store cupboard items, flour, pasta, chopped toms, chickpeas and Oat milk.

Total sat at £298.70 /£420

elsiepac

@Nelliegrace please come and join us on the March thread - I'll be looking forward to your ration style cooking - I am fascinated with that type of thing

otb666

590/600 came in under for second month out of last 10 months, i have been going to fruit+veg shop weekly and even though this seems quite expensive it works out cheaper in the end as we eat more fruit and veg which is cheaper than processed foods on average at the moment.

Caroby

Did our last shop of this month today. First we nipped into Morrisons for a few bits, £11.92 inc 3 boxes of their tissues (36p a box cheaper than Lidl now), and 2 packs of 6 wonky apples 75p each. Then across the road to Aldi, spent £40.61 there inc 5 bananas 59p, also managed to get the last pack of cherry tomatoes and 3 sweet peppers. There were no eggs at all, looked odd such a big empty space on the shelves, but we don't buy eggs anyway, I use Aldi milled flaxseed as egg substitute in cooking and a bag of that lasts ages. A short drive next towards home to Tesco, £15.00 there (rounded up at till by 16p for charity), receipt says £23.30 less £8.30 savings and vouchers, included 7 items for food bank and a swap from our usual bath foam (which has gone up from 85p to £1.50) to the 75p Essentials brand. Hope they don't start putting that up. Halfway home we went in Lidl, £10.54 for a few things, treated ourselves to some vegan feta £1.99 and hot cross buns 99p. The whole shop came to £78.07. We didn't buy any alcohol again, just one bottle of beer at home but DH not bothered about getting more so we left it. I like wine but not had a glass for ages, feels like we're slowly turning teetotal to try and keep in budget. Speaking of which, I'm over yet again, this time by £6.13.
Won't buy anything else till March so declaring at £186.13 / £180.00.

LunaCatty

I've not been very good at updating here! We've had another 3 lots of milk since I last posted - so £25.20 for that - and I also picked up some steak for our wedding anniversary and some bacon from the butchers which was another £16.70. Nipped into Lidl and grabbed one of their £1.50 boxes and some snacks and fruit for hubby & kiddo which was another £22.60. Then a complete splurge buying some local oysters and mussels for £16.60.

We should be good until the end of the month as I've barely dented the freezer and store cupboards, plenty of fresh fruit and veg in the fridge, and still some veg growing on the smallholding plus over 5kg apples left in our cool stores too (I may turn into pie filling and bottle soon as the apples are starting to wrinkle a bit).

£105.40/£125

I'm hoping to stick to the same budget next month since we will only need the milk/fresh fruit again then as I carry on trying to get one freezer turned off by April , plus space in the budget for the odd splurge too  

Suffolk_lass

No sign of broccoli rationing at my local Morries (thank goodness, as I am cooking lunch (with others) for sixty on Sunday) my order included 7! The only missing item was iceberg lettuce and I managed to pick up two romaine hearts instead