September 2023 Grocery Challenge

lilly81

I've done a few shops so far this month, some of the ingredients are for batch cooking and some are for store cupboard.
Spent £49.57/264

joedenise

@goldfinches - it seems a lot of faff to make apricot jam when you only need 2 Tbs of it for the recipe so think I'd make do with the strawberry jam you already have open but think you may need to sieve it as it sounds like you need a smooth jam in order to spread over the apple slices after baking.  Looks amazing once made!

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, thank you for the new thread @elsiepac
Have decided to reduce our budget this month, will see how we get on.

can I please be put down for £350 for September.

Have already done the big shop, rounded up to £62 with a small donation at the card machine. Then Monday got a few things from Asda and ice cream and a few other things from farmfoods, took the extra from august off this shop which made it £27.76. We now have plenty of fruit and everything for meals for the week, so I won’t be shopping again til the fruit runs out. 

£89.76/350 spent

thriftwizard

Eeek! It's only the 6th and I'm already nearly halfway through the month's budget, at £223.73. This has included the big non-perishables run down to the city, though, plus a bit of extra expenditure as we had guests last weekend. Household numbers are generally 5 or 6 for most of this month. I'll need to work hard on meal plans and using up stuff in the freezer; it's chock-full now with beans, raspberries & blackberries and it seems there's plenty more to come, which I need to be able to store, so using older stuff up is a necessity as well as a good idea anyway.

I'm working on other ways of storing the goodies too; the dehydrator's been working overtime and I'm running out of fermentation jars! Not to mention jam & chutney...

selloptape

Thanks for the Nectar offer tip - that's reminded me to download all the grocery store loyalty apps onto my phone so I can stop missing out on offers  

x

JingsMyBucket

Morning y'all. I have a few spends to declare from the weekend. A visit to the monthly farmers market kicked off our spending on Sunday. £53.26 spent with various vendors yielded us minced mutton, diced casserole mutton, lamb hearts, a pack of venison mixed grill, venison shoulder, various cheeses, micro greens, and a tiramisu cheesecake. 

Afterwards I headed to M & S and spent £13.65 on Greek yoghurt, kefir, a ginger shot, sliced salamis, strawberries, our annual purchase of 1 bottle of mayo, and a bag of what turned out to be really ripe bananas for 25p. I've bought that ripe bag before and have had edible bananas but this time they were *really* ripe. I eventually made banana bread with some of them last night and mashed the others in a Ziplock bag then put them in freezer for later baking. We now have nice banana bread for snacking on the next few days. 

On Monday I hit Lidl because it's Italian week and it was my birthday. £39.01 got me cooking bacon, chicken thighs, little lamb chops, goat cheese, sandwich thins, a couple bottles of pesto, 2 different kinds of sun-dried tomatoes, cherry tomato sauce, Italian cheese, and a few other bits.

We ate the lamb chops for my birthday dinner that night and they were delicious. Bones are in the freezer to make stock with later and use with the casserole mutton.   The tiramisu cheesecake for dessert was also a tasty bonus.

£105.92 / £350 spent. £244.08 remaining. 

Seems like the market stock up on meat took up my £50 buffer for the month. I'll likely venture out at lunchtime today to pick up some fruit and salad to last Mr. Jings the weekend and some train snacks for me. I'm heading to the Scottish Yarn Festival in Perth this weekend because a girlfriend asked me to accompany her. I'm not a knitter so I'm just going along to stare at pretty coloured yarn! 

Florenceem

Spent of £5 today at the community shop - got 2 large Ginster. sausage rolls, 4 nectarines, a bag of self raising flour, a pack of butter and a tub of Anchor.

joedenise

A small shop this morning for fruit and some mushrooms and spent £8.15 so now have £229.98 left; shouldn't need to get anything over the weekend.

thriftwizard

Oh dear, another £69.08 has vanished between the butcher, baker & supermarket! It's looking a bit scary, as I still have to get some fresh fruit & veg tomorrow at the market & then there are two more weekend shops until payday on 29th. October may be slightly easier in that, although for us it's a 5-week month, we'll probably have one less to cater for as DS3 should be elsewhere; not a given though, it depends how much they're paying him & whether he can afford to live there! Terrifying when someone who has studied hard for 10 years & achieved so much may not actually earn enough to support themself...

I was gutted today when I discovered that some little nasties had hatched in a big tub of raspberries & blackberries in the fridge that I'd be going to make into jam; what a waste! They'd only been there a day. Never mind, the chickens were very happy to see them, both fruit & pests... the really annoying thing is that the pests didn't come in on foraged stuff; the blackberries (no. 1 suspects) were from the end of our own garden. The rasps were from the allotment, where there are plenty still to come (we've picked them well into November before now) so I'm hoping like mad that they're not infested too, but they had far fewer inhabitants. Probably shouldn't have mixed them in the same container, but the fridge was full...

goldfinches

Hello to everyone and I hope it's not quite as hot where you are, I'm absolutely dripping with sweat these days! 

Anyway back to the results for the gluten free puff pastry which came out of the oven looking rather flat and tasted as if I was eating apples and jam spread on a thin piece of cardboard! Grrr. Interestingly, the tray that was on the lower shelf in the oven puffed more than the higher one so I am considering having another try at a lower temperature but really wonder if it's worth the effort and expense. What do you think? Here's a photo of the better result once it had cooled on the side for a while.



I thought the strawberry jam made the apple slices look rather pretty and they definitely tasted nice together just not with cardboard underneath!

Back to the topic of giving way to impulse in food shops after that little diversion and I went shopping with a list yesterday and almost managed to stick to it so I hope I'm improving a little. 

I spent £13.75 at the Turkish supermarket on fine bulgur, red lentils, yellow split peas, round aubergines, romano peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, 2x parsley and mint. Then I spent £11.50 at M*rks on frozen beans, spray cleaner, milk, spring onions, lettuce, plums, frozen sweetcorn, avocado and 2x radishes. This evening I spent £3.61 at Mr T's on almonds and YS brussels sprouts.

That brings my new total to £71.63/£120 and my average daily spend is now £10.23. Eek! I think the changeable weather is partly responsible for this as the high temperature this week has completely changed my meal plan and so I ended up buying a lot more salad ingredients for instance but that really isn't much of an excuse.