September 2023 Grocery Challenge

selloptape

£44.45 / £440 spent. 

My meal plan for the week is already helping I go to a fitness class on Monday after work, and then normally head to Liddelle on the way home to buy dinner which ends up as Supermarket Sweep due to me being tired and hungry. Today went home for left overs instead. Will see if my 19yo notices the lack of Monday snack haul in the kitchen

Spends so far include a Head & Shoulders shampoo bar. I've tried a few different shampoo bars whilst trying to reduce waste but my hair ends up greasy and horrible so I'm really hoping I get on with this one as the shampoo works for my hair

kayannie

goldfinches said:

@kayannie - thankyou for the brilliant suggestion, I will have a trawl through my cookbooks for something suitable.

I have managed a NSD so am feeling quietly proud of myself especially as that immediately brings my average daily spend down to 'only' £10.69! 

I'm planning to go foraging for some apples early tomorrow morning so, hopefully, that will satisfy my acquisitive tendencies without going anywhere near a food shop.

If you find some apples, you could always make an apple strudel with your puff pastry. I've made it with cooking and/or eating apples. It's not as difficult as it sounds, & the other ingredients are sugar, spices & sultanas as far as I can remember without checking. 
KA

Soontobeoap

Just back home from a long weekend away. Had a brilliant time and means grocery shop hasnt taken too much of a hit yet. We did do 2 small shops that came to £16.50 all together. Must try to stop popping in for one thing (usually a loaf or milk) or if I do, i must try to go alone as DH does love a biscuit or 2!😂

Suffolk_lass

Apple Strudel! My DH remembers his brother's m-i-l who was Austrian, making traditional strudel pastry where she used to stretch it over the kitchen table. His brother was very impressed - he was a master baker himself! I think using shop bought puff is a great idea!

Here I had to go local for a lettuce, and picked up milk and cream at the same time so £4.59 on top of the £7.25 weekly milk bill. Milk is delivered on Thursday and Saturday and so I tp up once. Normally I am tempted by other things but yesterday it was just the three. It would have been four had they stocked tinned butter beans but I do have dried so not a game changer.

I'm making a runner bean pasta salad for supper, using free beans from the garden, dried instead of tinned beans, and penne instead of conchiglie pasta, and a small onion instead of a shallot - I have the oil, lemon, fennel seeds, and can use a frond of fennel instead of dill. It all helps to keep the cost down a bit

joedenise

First shop of September done this morning.  A reasonable sized shop but a lot of it is from the Bulk Fund for freezer filling/pantry stores.  Actual GC spend was £14.87 leaving £238.13.

As usual anything left at the end of the month will be moved to other pots, probably to one of the holiday pots as have a couple of holidays booked over the next 6 months both of which are paid for but a bit more spending money wouldn't come amiss!

Soontobeoap

Shopped in Sainsburys today. £36.64 spent. In my defence £9.00 of that was on dishwasher tablets. We find that in our dishwasher the branded tablets work best so when I saw nectar price for 42 was £9.00 as opposed to £12.00, I couldnt resist. I was caught on the hop, had not done my research, and will probably discover that I made a big boo boo but I have missed offers so often so  grabbed them there and then. The rest was just strawberrys, carrots, spring onions, bread, tissues (Mr Soon2B suffers with hay fever) and ice cream! 🤯. It is getting to be such an expensive treat! Mind you the vegan almond magnums are delicious!

So I am giving myself a slap and shopping from the freezer in ernest again this week.

On another note. As we pop into Sainsburys occasionally whilst we are in town I signed up on nectar app for 250 extra points if to buy 30 fruit/veg items before some date in October. Seriously didnt think I would make it as we usually shop cheaper. Anyway todays shop got us 12/30 for 3 items. ( just discovered it 30 portions not items so worth signing up for if you shop there anyway.) Maybe I will get there after all. Good luck all. I swear things are still getting more expensive. 

joedenise

I've signed up for the Nectar fruit and veg challenge too but only bought a couple of things in there today but got 6/50 (it's 50 portions not 30 unfortunately)!  I don't shop in Sainsbury very often either but thought it's worth signing up for in the hopes of some extra points.

Soontobeoap

Just checked. My offer is 30 portions. We dont shop there much but DH does try to get his petrol there when we are passing. It is usually a competetive price and helps boost points for our February shop. We shop at tescos mainly for our branded stuff and I have, about £25.00 in Tesco points. No where near as many as last year though. I used to get a few double points vouchers but havnt had any for ages. Still January is always cheaper after the Christmas stock up and so I use all vouchers in Feb to keep that one cheaper too. It gives a good start to the year. I also like to look out for the cheap veg and gammon offers in December to freeze to keep us going through the winter months. Just stepped into gatden. The rogue tomato that planted oitself has done better than any i planted. Will be stewing up toms for sauces tommorrow. The raspberry bush provided our pud and I found a few runners too. Hapoy days. 😊

otb666

230/600 So on target i have changed my fruit and veg shop as think i was being overcharged and that has helped this month.  At our local co op they had a basket of free fruit for the children of shoppers to eat going around shop What a good idea.

goldfinches

@Soontobeoap and @joedenise thankyou for the tip off about the nectar app, I will also be signing up just in case.

I'm reporting another NSD and am quite pleased with myself for resisting popping to the Mr T's on the corner to buy mint for the sorbet mixture I've made this afternoon; what I've done instead is to include 1/8 tsp peppermint extract and will taste and possibly add more tomorrow after blending. 

I'm pretty much decided on this recipe for the puff pastry as it says the leftovers can be frozen so all I need to do now is to make some apricot jam from the dried ones in the cupboard or maybe I'll use up the strawberry jam sitting in the fridge. Either way I'm determined not to spend more money!