February 2023 Grocery Challenge

Gettingmyshiztogether

MissRikkiC said:

Does anyone have the seeded or malted bloomer from Mr Lidddl? It’s the Rowans bakery loaf. I’ve thrown out the wrapper (brown bag type) and curious as to if the ingredients contain milk or soya and wondered if someone could tell me? I’ll check otherwise then I’m next there but figured someone might have it too! 

 Here is the first one

Gettingmyshiztogether

Gettingmyshiztogether said:

MissRikkiC said:

Does anyone have the seeded or malted bloomer from Mr Lidddl? It’s the Rowans bakery loaf. I’ve thrown out the wrapper (brown bag type) and curious as to if the ingredients contain milk or soya and wondered if someone could tell me? I’ll check otherwise then I’m next there but figured someone might have it too! 

No but I am going there today, so if they have any ill check the label for you 

And here is the malted one 😊 hth

Suffolk_lass

Blimey, my bread is flour, wheatgerm, yeast, salt, water and if available, a splodge of sourdough discard. Sometimes I add an egg and a dob of butter.

It was me I think @PipneyJane. I have that coffee on subscription from big river. I have also bought two jars when shopping at Costco (with my friend who pays for an account there) that were double the size of the large jars. I keep basmati rice in one and gave the other to my cousin as a storage jar

Gettingmyshiztogether

Hello all, 

I am back, shopping put away, some of the veggies chopped and popped in the freezer with the 20p bread and I am now sat down with a hot drink! 

L!dl shop done with 10% of voucher... total a whopping £117.81 🤯🤯 but that mean I got £13 worth of free food. 

I did made full use of the 10% off voucher, and ended up buying a lot of items that will last us next month also. Items like Oat milk, flour, oats, chocolate, lentils, spaghetti, tinned items... some I bought quadruple.

I am still trying to find my feet with what works for our family and how I can s-t-r-e-t-c-h  our budget as much as possible. I am currently  tracking the food spends per calendar month, however neither of us get paid on the last or first day so I need to consider whether I will continue to track our food spends per calendar month OR per pay check month... 🤔 or there is the option of switching to an annual amount also. Hmmm... 

So although according to the figures when taken at face value we are over budget by £3.01, actually I have two full shelving units, full cupboards and two full freezers going into March. There are also just four days left of this month.

So I am taking that as a win 🏆 and will declare us on budget for February and charge us £3.20 from the March Budget for all if the extras I got today! 

£420 spent on Food in February! On target! Yippppeeeee!!!! 

Soontobeoap

Declaring at £258.70/£250. I am already £32.00 over the average of £200 a month that I would like to stick to and the summer goes potty here for guests.

Radical reductions need to happen in March. I started a store cupboard/reverse meal planning challenge last week and am logging it on revere meal planning forum. Day 5 today.

Over to March and hopefully a frugal month. 🙂

PipneyJane

@patientgirl, so sorry to hear about your MIL.  My condolences to you and your family.

@Nelliegrace I am looking forward to hearing about your ration book cooking.  Please do tell us how you get on.  We have an active, 1940’s inspired Fashion On the Ration Challenge if you’d like to talk more about Wartime topics.  (You don’t have to count clothing coupons to join us.)

I was listening to Martin’s latest podcast while putting away my shopping.  Too late for me but if you type the code “Feelgood” into the L!dl app, you’ll get a £5k-off-a-£25-shop voucher that expires on Tuesday.  

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!  I could have done with that, since I’d just managed to spend £40.73 there and still failed to get our total February L!dl spend over the £100 threshold for £2 off.  There was no skimmed milk, limited eggs, and I forgot to restock on cream cheese.  My shop did include £5.49 on a large block of their extra mature cheddar, £4.79 on a frozen salmon en croute, two of their YS pies (£2.79 each) and a YS chicken crown for £1.50 (which had been marked down and then had the label torn, so got rung up at a veg box.  Originally £4.99).  Since I had so much cash in the purse, I also stocked up on two Camembert (£1.99 each), an extra vegetable oil (£1.99) and another 1kg packet of rolled oats (70p).  Oh and I got my free sough-dough bloomer.

I am now trying to work our what I can purchase tomorrow that a) will take us over the £25 limit, b) can be shoehorned into the freezer*, and c) qualify for the voucher (no alcohol).   I suspect that I may go mad (again) on tinned, chopped tomatoes, since they had plenty in, another lump of cheddar and (possibly) some meat or fish.  (Can’t shop on Monday after work, because of choir, and they never have any stock in on Monday.  I’m away Tuesday-Thursday with work.)

The above spend takes me to £123.10/£142 leaving £18.90 to spend by Tuesday.

- Pip


* The only available space in the freezer is rather precarious, since it still holds a goose, balanced on one end (purchased at Christmas), which means I had to remove one of the shelves.  Everything has to be carefully packed around the goose, with the hope that nothing will leap for freedom the moment the freezer door opens. Today’s Salmon en Croute is in one of the door shelves.  I’m still trying to figure out how to freeze one of the two pies.  (DH will have the other on Tuesday, when I’m away for work.)

MissRikkiC

Thanks so much @Gettingmyshiztogether you’re a superstar! 

Ginmonster

I have 2 more spends to declare from yesterday : £9.48 in the greengrocers on some fruit and tomatoes (they had some!) and 86p in the zero waste shop on porridge oats. 

That takes me up to £191.74/£200

diminua

Another two pints of milk as I want to make vegetarian shepherds pie and lasagne tomorrow as a batch cook, and tonic waters as I was gifted a bottle of gin. I have £12.51 left. 

Nelliegrace

We did enjoy a free mug of coffee each at Waitrose on our way home yesterday. 

I bought 500g dried red kidney beans and pinto beans, and 1Kg of red lentils, at a good price. I shall soak and cook extra beans and freeze some. That would be our 8 ration points for the week.

We bought a 1.5Kg bag of Waitrose malted, seeded flour, for £2 just for a treat, ingredients; (fortified wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seed, millet seeds, malted barley flour.) With a little white bread flour added, rapeseed oil, dried yeast, salt, and water, it will make four good 400g loaves in the bread maker. Our usual flour is Sainsbury’s stoneground whole meal at £1.50 for 1.5Kg. Good bread can be frugal. 

We bought a pack of their sensitive soap to make the next four batches of laundry liquid at about £1.20 a batch which lasts for three months.