March 2023 Grocery Challenge

nat21luv

Morning all.

Sadly, I had a huge error in judgement and agreed to "pop to A's" with DH. I only needed a few essentials, milk/ cat food etc. DH? Needed one of everything on the shelves. 

£195.80/ £250

Ouch. This will be tight. 

But here's an update on the £1 whipping cream from M's - 2x 4pt bottles produced 6x 250g of butter and 2L of buttermilk! 
Thats a saving of £10 on the butter alone. We use a block of butter per week depending on how much I bake so this is potentially 6 weeks of butter. I salted it all, wrapped up in greaseproof paper and stacked in the freezer. The cats are having a field day with the buttermilk, I've never known them to be so affectionate! It particularly delicious in porridge and coffee so Im happy too. I did a quick count and I have 10 blocks of butter in the freezer as Im still using up Christmas double cream butter from when I stumbled on a mass of 20p cartons at L's.

Anyone with cats, Whiskas are £13 in A's for 40 pouches and the rewards app are offering £3 back, so £10 per box. Thats the cheapest I've seen for some time so DH is going tonight to stock up (with his own money!)

Nelliegrace

Well done @nat21luv Not unicorn cream then? I am so glad someone else benefitted. 

Nelliegrace

It is worth checking who can join The Company Shop too. DD visits there nearest one and gets some very good bargains, but it is a bit hit and miss with what they have in stock. I can join but there is not one locally.

stay_at_home_mum

How do you make tbe butter nat21luv?

nat21luv

Nelliegrace said:

Well done @nat21luv Not unicorn cream then? I am so glad someone else benefitted. 

Ha no, but in my opinion, even better! 

nat21luv

stay_at_home_mum said:

How do you make tbe butter nat21luv?

Either double cream or whipping cream:

Use a mixer (I have a handheld) and mix the cream. It’ll go through stages: really thick, grainy, scrambled egg and then it’ll suddenly split and milk will be visible with butter. Whisk a little more so it clumps together. Pour buttermilk into a sieve over a jug and it’s ready to use. Squeeze the butter and again pour out the buttermilk. 

Wash the butter in ice cold water, just needs squeezing a few times until the waters clear. Drain the water and squeeze as much of the water out as you can. This is the time to salt if you want it, usually a level teaspoon should do it if it’s roughly the size of store bought butter (250g) Squidge it again to mix in. Plop it on some greaseproof and pat dry with kitchen roll or towel. Weigh if you want. Wrap loosely with greaseproof and use wooden spoons over the paper to shape. Wrap and chuck in the freezer…or use liberally on fresh toast right there and then! 😆

Ginmonster

MissRikkiC said:

I love falafel @Ginmonster and youre the second person in a week to mention it so I think I really must make some 

I love felafel too but I'm a bit dubious about the packet mix. It might not be the tastiest! 

zafiro1984

So far this month I've spent 178.40/220.72p over 4 shopping and it includes a delivery coming tomorrow evening from Morris. I've only been to the supermarket once this month (lidl) the remainder of the shopping has been online using offers as far as possible.

So far this month I've stocked up on stock cubes at half price, I've bought enough yogurt to last a fortnight, also half price - I made a mistake and should have bought more as I now realise yogurt can be frozen. Also at half price I bought some UHT plant based milk and cartons of chopped tomatoes with either chilli or garlic. 
I tend to buy food offers to last about six months and non food offers to last up to a year.

It's taken over a year of shopping like this, building up stocks in both the freezers and  pantry but It seems to be working. My grocery spends so far this year have been a welcome £387.75p less than for the same period last year and the pantry and freezers are relatively full. 

Ginmonster

The 'big shop' was delivered yesterday and came to £97.33. We're fully stocked up on everything now so I'm hoping to only need small top ups of fruit and veg until the end of the month now. 

£142.95/£250

2Scratters

@zafiro1984 re the yoghurts being able to be frozen that's new to me thanks. However I have eaten yoghurts 6 months OOD and I'm still here to tell the tale  Well done on the shopping for stock items and you being in control. 
Last week we purchased 2 excellent TGTG bags from our local(in the next town)  Morrisons. I don't normally buy 2 at the same time but am so glad as the contents were sensible - stuff for the freezer including 4 x 2 ltr bottles of milk and some nice treats too. Need to get some 2ltr bottles of cream to make some butter next.

2 Scratters xx