March 2023 Grocery Challenge

atrixa

Declaring at £148/£148.50

Just squeaked in there, but pleased with that. 

gill5blue

hi All,

week 4 spend £42.29 (had a few days away and used a different budget)

total so far.  £229.31/£300

on target and happy
gill5blue

Suffolk_lass

I still have a week to go here on my March budget. I might have to do a pre-emptive April big shop to use a birthday £5 off voucher. It's a good job I have the luxury of a CC to push it into April or even May, and an annual budget I am smoothing across the year. My running total this month is OK for SM and top ups at £97.92, but there is also store cupboard £25.84 and DD (milk) and subs (big river) at £80.76. It included a £6 increase on 6 jars of coffee and 4 boxes of teabags that I could have skipped. Ah well, 700 teabags... I must skip next time (September).

Running total is £739.21 for the year to date, but milk (£7.40) still to come this week. I will just about sneak under £25% of my £3000 if we buy nothing else.

SausageDogSandwich

A small spend on mushrooms, peppers, tortillas and rice yesterday £4.29. Still need to get some fruit and then that should be it. 

£266.11/250 

joedenise

Mid week top up done today rather than the usual Tuesday as needed to go out elsewhere anyway.  Spent just over £14 and now standing at £146.20/£200 leaving £56.80 for shopping at the end of the week.  Anything left after that will go into the Bulk Fund as that is already a bit overspent!

mumtoomany

Another bottle of milk, £1.70, from local shop. Total to date now £591.52/£2640. Hoping to finish the month still under £600. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

diminua

Went up to Cheshire to see my brother last weekend and what with snacks for the train, coffee out and a couple of lunchtime drinks I'm already £11.80 over. I definitely need more milk and coffee in the next few days too.  

happydenial

Finished the month on £479.75/£500 which I’m fairly pleased with. The surplus has been squirrelled away into my Tilly tidy account for a rainy day. 

£500 budget again for April, although will be trickier this month as have two weeks of Easter school holidays and DS1’s birthday meal to fund. 

Thevalueofless

Giving myself a pat on my the back today for making soup for lunch and not going to Sainsbos. I'm calling it Goodness from the Garden soup as everything in it bar water and seasoning from the allotment, either picked at the weekend or from the freezer. It is a bit 'earthy' and very green with purple sprouting broccoli stalks, parsnip, leeks, chard, garlic, courgette and basil. It has made enough for five large portions too. 🙂

JingsMyBucket

A couple spends to declare towards the end of this month. On Friday we had a £64.25 Tesco delivery which contained toilet paper, milk, butter, mozzarella, Greek yoghurt, herbs, bananas, strawberries, baby tomatoes, asparagus (only 99p!), arugula, ginger and chilies, mushrooms, scallions, cooking salt (to use on the mossy walkways), chia seeds, frozen Swedish meatballs, and some 3 for £10 meat/fish (salmon tails, breaded haddock, and 2kg of chicken drumsticks). Some basics like brown sugar, canned beans, and a few other items were included too. 

Yesterday I had a sunny walk over to M & S to get 2 jars of crunchy peanut butter, bananas, turkey breast steaks, oatcakes, and some really seedy bread. That cost £10.89. 

£465.09 / £450.00 spent. -£15.09 over 

We should be done for the month and will hold off on any other purchases until Saturday the 1st. I'll poach a couple of the turkey breast steaks in homemade chicken stock to use on sandwiches and salads this week. Half the drumsticks have been put into the freezer in two separate bags to be used later. The other half are marinating in a Thai/satay style seasoning now for dinner tonight or tomorrow. I've used a combination of recipes for dinner tonight. Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce for the marinating and then using Chopped Thai Satay Salad with Peanut-Ginger Dressing as the salad inspiration. We'll likely have it with some basmati rice otherwise Mr. Jings will overeat on the drumsticks. I'm deliberately going to put some chicken aside for tomorrow as soon as they come out of the oven so he doesn't gobble them all.

We've been eating pretty well this week and have been using up a lot of old stuff in fridge and the pantry. Here's what we've had / will have: 

SUNDAY: Vegetable & beef sausage tart — a jar of eggplant caponata given to us for Xmas, some elderly kale sautéed with garlic, old  cheddar which I sheared the mold off, red onion, parsley, on a rolled out shortcrust pastry. Arugula, pea shoots and alfalfa sprouts salad on the side. 

MONDAY: Roasted vegetable and couscous salad & Swedish meatballs - carrots and broccolini roasted, and some frozen peas all mixed into the couscous. I'm trying to evict those peas from the freezer to make room. 

TUESDAY: The satay chicken and salad as mentioned above for tonight's dinner 

WEDNESDAY: I'll make a simple turkey/chicken soup with homemade bone broth/stock and two of the turkey breast steaks. Again, will use some frozen peas to bulk it up along with vermicelli and some carrots. 

THURSDAY: Any leftovers or stragglers are getting eaten. 

FRIDAY: French lentil soup which is so authentic and delicious.  

On Saturday I'll make some low sugar peanut butter cookies as a treat. 


Mr. Jings has also been cultivating alfalfa sprouts and we've been delighting in those as well. That's why I bought the seedy bread. I'm making hippy/health food store sandwiches this week out of pure nostalgia. For breakfast this morning I had a sandwich stuffed with alfalfa sprouts, extra mature cheddar, sliced green apple, red onion, dijon mustard, and a vinaigrette drizzled over the sprouts then squished together. Delicious! Tomorrow the turkey breasts will feature in a sprouty hippy sandwich. We're packing in the vegetables this week. Have a lovely evening all!