September 2023 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Good morning All.  

Thank you for the new thread, @elsiepac.  Your efforts managing the Grocery Challenge are much appreciated.

Please put me down for £178 for September.

The £178 is for all supermarket shopping, including toiletries and cleaning products, for two adults.   We’re not increasing our regular budget, but we had £38 left from August, so I’ve rolled it over.  That’s probably due to multiple trips to Proms, when the Date Night Fund bought meal deals, instead of me cooking.

- Pip

selloptape

Started off September with an NSD - mainly due to being super tired after work so ended up with an interesting dinner of toaster waffles and stale chocolate cereal     

This weekend will be spendy as I'll be meal planning and buying for the week ahead but hopefully the organisation will reduce spends in the week. I've fallen into the pattern of going to Mr T's when I'm tired after work and buying whatever is easiest to make which doesn't tend to be either budget friendly or diet friendly.

JingsMyBucket

Happy September everyone. I can’t believe we’re already this far into the year. Thank you @elsiepac for herding all of us food shopping cats into the threads each month. 🙂

I’m going to run about £70 per week plus some £50 for a bit of bulk buffer. 

Could you please put us down for £350 Sept 1 — 30. 

I have a birthday early in the month and have already received a very generous food gift basket from Mr. Jings’ sisters and one of their husbands. Smoked salmon, pâté, jam, oatcakes, coffee, oh my! We’ll use that for a nice brunch later in the month. I’m also going to buy myself a food gift of authentic Italian sausage but that’ll come out of my personal spends not GC. 

Pennypincin

£2.99 spent on fry light and wraps.
I've around £10.80 left of the food budget.
I was debating going back to the food pantry, but the decision was taken out of my hands as I'm starting a course that is on the same time as the pantry.
Edited to add, I had a 50p off coupon for the fry light, plus was able to pick up the fry light on offer for £1.99 instead of £2.75.
jingsmybucket, that is a great birthday present.

Florenceem

Spent £24.58 today but should be a low spend next week.

lilly81

I would like to join this month with a budget of £264

Sorry I went missing during last month's challenge, I have been waiting for an operation for a year and they offered me a cancellation so all budgets went out the window, and then they cancelled my operation!
Rescheduled for 26th September, I hopefully have everything I need for this.

lianne1984

£5 spend on groceries today

£47 / £300

goldfinches

@Pennypincin - how annoying that your course is on at the same time as the food pantry. I've often noticed that if you have a regular weekly commitment somehow everything else worthwhile that you might like to do happens at precisely that time too. I'm sure there's some great cosmic theory to explain this but for the meantime I call it the law of 'oh, I'm busy at that time already'. Congratulations on your offer spotting combined with the money off coupon, that's the sort of personal organisation i really envy.

@JingsMyBucket - Happy Birthday in advance and lucky you to have such lovely in laws.

@lilly81 - sorry to hear of the timetabling shenanigans you have endured and wishing you good luck with your new date.

I went to S*vers this morning and spent what seemed like a rather small amount of money on a large bottle of Dettol, washing powder, hob cleaner and soda crystals and then ruined it by going into the chinese supermarket across the road and buying dried mushrooms and golden beancurd sticks. I'm beginning to think I should have one of those collars that gives you an electric shock and programme it to deter me from entering anywhere that sells food.  
Anyway that makes my new total £37.97/£120 and my average daily spend £18.98! 

Cocobeans

Sounds like a lovely early birthday pressie @JingsMyBucket!

Spent £10 today in Sains. Bought some Halloumi, peppers and wraps to make an easy dinner for me and DD as OH went out with work today. Also bought some Heinz Vegan sausages and beans as all the Heinz stuff is half price this weekend. Popped into Wilko and bought some dog food too.  Had to work this afternoon and when I picked DD and the dog up from my mum she gave me money to buy a Chinese on the way home as I'd had a long day so still have all of today's shopping for another day! 

£32.50 / £250 spent so far

Suffolk_lass

@Pennypincin I just wanted to add to the excellent advice from @joedenise over on the August thread.

I use seasonal veg, (or wonky) either from the SM or the use-up bowls from the market and I know lots on here take advantage of the Leedl £1.50 veg boxes if they see them. Where I am we also have gate sellers, selling surplus garden fruit and veg for pennies. If it is out of season, look at frozen as the immediate alternative. My cooking is mostly using this stuff, whatever it is.

For example I make slow cooked ragu and the veg one is excellent -

• I sprinkle red lentils in as a meat sub for my DH (because they are cheap, nutritious and require no pre-soaking). I cook it as a batch and then we have it with pasta but you could make the Hairy men's leek lasagne (they open up the outer layers as a sub for lasagne pasta) with just a sprinkle of strong cheese on top (more flavour for your calories). 
• Then I make some into chilli and use chick peas and baked beans instead of kidney beans, with Lazy chilli (Morries sell £1.89 for a jar I top up with oil as it empties and it lasts ages) or added chillies I have bought or grown and frozen (Asda do the open boxes of birdseye chillies much cheaper, or if you have an asian shop that is better still).
• Then I make some into curry, either by adding a good curry powder or a spoonful of paste. We do make curry with the right spices but not for this ragu batch thing. It works well with a pitta or just another curry 
• My favourite curry is an onion cut into strips, fried with chopped up butternut squash, a tin of chick peas, a sort of garam marsala mix and water, in the oven until it all sort of caramelises and dries up, then slackened with water, add three or four balls of frozen spinach and put a lid over it until that can be stirred through.

Long slow cooking will make sure you don't have to worry about contamination and old take away boxes (my friend gives me hers!) are great for storing pre-cooked food in the freezer. I use a slow cooker but you might have a multi cooker (if not, try FB Marketplace or freecycle as I think people got rid when they bought posh multi cooker things.

Although I reference chick peas in tins I buy dried ones and batch cook in my pressure cooker and then freeze them in the afore-mentioned take-away boxes. MUCH cheaper if you have the space.

And soup - my go to soup is two onions, two carrots, two courgettes, all chopped and fried in a tiny amount of oil (keep stirring), a stock cube/jelly, a sprinkle of herbs, half a teaspoon of lazy chilli and water. Cooked for 45 minutes on a bare simmer (I put it in the oven) and then I liquidise it when cooled. It makes 10 portions (8 for DH) and is great for lunches. Cheap, filling and deliciously creamy (more so if you could stretch to a swirl of cream or natural yogurt.

I hope these budget veggie ideas help