November 2023 Grocery Challenge

CRANKY40

Thanks @bluebadger6, I've already changed it before reading to the end of the new posts. 

Today will be grocery NSD number 6. Last night the HT had a cheeseburger for dinner and I had celery soup with toast. The soup was really good considering that I don't like raw celery and the cream cheese that I used was vegan. The toast was a homemade sourdough sandwich loaf that I made last week. I needed something more actually sandwich friendly this week so made a half and half small loaf in the breadmaker yesterday. I need to slice that up in a bit and I'll put most of it in the freezer apart from what I use for lunch today. 

The HT had a dentist appointment this morning so we cheered him up by coming home via the coffee place that "costs a packet" to get his free cake for his birthday (the birthday doughnuts are long gone). 

PipneyJane

bluebadger6 said:

I also wanted to ask, do people have a separate budget for Christmas food? Atm I just have one food budget for everything but I think participating in Christmas is going to blow my grocery budget out of the water. Everything seems so much more expensive this year and the "deals" are basically as high or higher than some of last years full prices.

Yes, we do @bluebadger6.  We set aside £20/month, so £240/year.  It covers all the "special" Christmas foods as well as the tree.

Even if I'm not hosting Christmas, there are some things that I buy because it's the only time you can get them.  For example, I always buy the largest goose* I can get.  We ordered ours last Friday and expect to pay £140 for a 6kg goose.  Officially, that'll feed 6-8 people, but on top it will supply 3 or 4 bags of leftover lumps for stir-fries, leftover goose-flavoured chestnut stuffing for spreading on toast, a large pot of goose stock (for use in risottos, stews, anything that calls for chicken stock), plus 2-3 litres of goose fat (to be purified and used as a cooking medium later in the year). 

HTH

- Pip



* When I had a better freezer, I've been known to buy a turkey AND a goose, serve the former for Christmas dinner and freeze the latter for later in the year.

Mamaofmanybudgets

£35.11 / £200 

 

I went to the corner shop this morning instead of lidl, due to the weather. So spent more than intended.
The weather's calmed down now and I could've saved a few quid by going to lidl. 
Anyways...  £19.51 spent today! Oh dear.

Edit: add another £2.99 for a small block of cheddar. 🧀🐀 

(£22.50 for today) 

kayannie

PipneyJane said:

bluebadger6 said:

I also wanted to ask, do people have a separate budget for Christmas food? Atm I just have one food budget for everything but I think participating in Christmas is going to blow my grocery budget out of the water. Everything seems so much more expensive this year and the "deals" are basically as high or higher than some of last years full prices.

Yes, we do @bluebadger6.  We set aside £20/month, so £240/year.  It covers all the "special" Christmas foods as well as the tree.

Even if I'm not hosting Christmas, there are some things that I buy because it's the only time you can get them.  For example, I always buy the largest goose* I can get.  We ordered ours last Friday and expect to pay £140 for a 6kg goose.  Officially, that'll feed 6-8 people, but on top it will supply 3 or 4 bags of leftover lumps for stir-fries, leftover goose-flavoured chestnut stuffing for spreading on toast, a large pot of goose stock (for use in risottos, stews, anything that calls for chicken stock), plus 2-3 litres of goose fat (to be purified and used as a cooking medium later in the year). 

HTH

- Pip



* When I had a better freezer, I've been known to buy a turkey AND a goose, serve the former for Christmas dinner and freeze the latter for later in the year.

These prices make me glad to be vegetarian! KA

goldfinches

2Scratters said:

Hi @elsiepac I am in again for November at £250 please.

My monies are on a roll over for most of the following month as I run mine till the money runs out. I am now pondering if I should do a yearly amount and carry on this way. I still need to be accountable. Our money goes into a purse with a small ledger to record the spends we are already £5 light. DH thinks it may be him  he is a pain for not recording when nipping for milk and the other bits he picks up. He is very good at keeping receipts but the shop is a pain in not giving them. (I think they too are saving pennies)



2 Scratters xx

I've noticed this happening in the Mr T's just up the road from me at the self-checkouts and, like you, think it may be a cost cutting measure so what I do now is to snap a quick photo of the total on the screen. I delete it once I've checked the amount tallies with my online banking.

I spent £21.82 at M*rks and got bread rolls, soup mix, sundried tomatoes, stilton, rocket, YS crispy mushrooms, YS jalapeno poppers, 2x YS onion bhajis, poppadoms and 2x dips.

That makes my new total £38.16/£170 and my average daily spend is £4.77.

I made the anzac biscuits recipe for my Wednesday group bake today as I wanted to try reducing the size of the individual biscuits as well as use up ingredients from stores and they were a success made with Doves Farm Freee plain flour. I used a tablespoon to scoop the mixture and weighed the resulting balls at 25g and baked them for 12 minutes in a 200C conventional oven. This is definitely going into my successful vegan and gluten free recipes folder and I think I might try using lemon infused olive oil and substituting some of the water with lemon juice as well as adding some lemon zest to the sugars next time.

joedenise

I think most shops are stopping automatically giving you your receipts.  On the self service tills it always comes up asking and I just press Yes.  In shops that ask you I also yes or if they don't ask I ask them for my receipt - how else am I going to update my own records!

Another small shop in Tesco this morning with a spend of £4.69 which means I've now spent £38.34/£200 leaving me with £161.66.

mumtoomany

Hello all. First shops of the month to declare. Went shopping on tuesday. Spent £61.81, across four shops. Also need to add £1.70 for milk son in law picked up for me. So total £63.51. Total to date now stands at, £1673.59/£1860, for the year. Nothing other than margarine on the list for next week. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

Mamaofmanybudgets

£42.07/£200 

Failed a nospend day here. Had to get some tea, butter and flour at the corner shop. £6.96

I did spend another few quid on random snacks for the kiddos and myself today but didn't take it out of the grocery budget. Something I'm keeping an eye on separately as we need to cut down. 

Planning on making 4 loaves for the freezer so that'll save me money on the grocery challenge  

LotsOfTea

I had a shop delivered today which came to £105.86. I'm going to leave the rest of the month's budget for the end of the month as it's DS's birthday and we'll be making a fancy birthday cake and having a party tea. 

£133.01/£250

weenancyinAmerica

If they don't give you a receipt: you can't ask for refunds, remember what the price was before they put in the sale price, or question how much you are charged. Helps them, hurts you.