November 2023 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

 DH drives me mad with gc but he has learnt new habits too. He saved £72.00 on 2 ferry bookings last week. He has seen how careful I am and has stopped paying for his games too.  Once you start with food, i have found that other things follow. We are looking forward to spending our savings on decorating our living room. Last one to go in house renovation. It has taken 10 yrs but looks better than we could have ever hoped and more to the point we have no debts. 🙂

LotsOfTea

Can I be put down for £250 please?

I'm feeling quite proud of myself as I'd set up a delivery for next week on autopilot, just buying all the stuff I usually buy, but I stopped and looked at how much food I already had in the house and cancelled the order. I might need a few things over the next week but not much and I can buy just those things as and when I need them. It's a total change of mindset. 

I've got lots of veg which I'm going to toss in various flavours and roast so I've got some easy to assemble meals over the coming week and I'll definitely make some soup since we're into soup weather now. I've got about two thirds of a squash left to use up so it'll likely be spicy pumpkin soup for lunch all week! 

[Deleted User]

Hi @elsiepac, I'm back trying to get my sh*t together so up for the GC again.  Thank you for running the thread, it really is appreciated.

Please put me down for £250 for November.

Month runs from 25th to 25th so started already.  I've started using weekly envelopes to try and stay on top of spending and week 1 gone already.  I've got into extremely lazy habits with food planning and shopping that in many ways are 'hangovers' from lockdowns when OH did most of the shopping - he still is and most of the cooking too, bless him.  I need to get my butt in gear and get involved too as he is great at what he does but he doesn't think budget or frugal, he just wants dinner on the table.  There is also a bit of food-planning-fatigue as I've been doing it for so long that I feel I'm out of ideas and we're eating the same things over and over.  Looking at the recipe index I've gotten a few ideas tonight so I'm making a mince and onion pie tomorrow when I get home from work that should be really tasty and do us over 2 nights.  

Ellie79

Thanks @Soontobeoap I've already downshifted everything bar tea bags and loo roll! We use basics and I cook mostly from scratch. We both have some dietary things that cost us more but on track for this week. Gaps are appearing in the food stores so it must be working 😀

Suffolk_lass

I shall shop on Wednesday but we are down to one carrot! Tonight I will add it to a casserole with homegrown onion, potato, courgette and a butternut, and some red lentils and a small piece of beef. We will have Jacket potatoes of fish fingers tomorrow, so I won't need to pop out for anything

[Deleted User]

I'm hoping to not have to shop properly until Friday.  I know we will need to shop for a couple of ingredients for the Tuna Crunch OH is making on Wednesday for dinner.  However, I am going to do an inventory of parnty/fridges/freezer toinght and see if there is something else we can make instead from food we have in already.

wishus

Hello @elsiepac - please can you add me to the November thread?

My budget is going to be £200 for 2 adults, 1 cat.

SausageDogSandwich

£350 for November please and thankyou @elsiepac

Blackcats

I'm endeavouring to have a sharp focus on grocery spends in November as I've slipped a bit for the last couple of months, both in the amount I'm spending and in diligently recording spending.  Therefore I've created a vicious circle of spending more because I think I have more to spend - hope that makes sense.
the freezer is full but not very organised.  I was attacked by a flying frozen loaf yesterday and the contents are stacked precariously so removing one item is like a game of high risk jenga or kerplunk.

thank you for running the thread and to everyone who participates with such wisdom, honesty and humour.

£300 for November please

CRANKY40

£320 for November please

Another one here who has taken their eye of the ball. I can't fit anything else in the freezer now so it's fairly important that we eat what we have in. When my dh was alive he worked away so I always had enough food in so that if I was ill or my son was ill then I could still feed us if I wasn't able to leave the house. 

The House Troll is now almost 19 and he has helpfully pointed out that he could walk to the shop if he had to. It's become a sort of edible security blanket for me now though so my mindset has to change as well as my spending. We have a cat who stays mostly indoors so £15 a week of grocery spends is for cat food and litter (she does go for an occasional waddle down the garden but she's getting old now and prefers to be indoors, especially when it's cold out). The cat part of the budget is not negotiable.

I've also started reading ingredients labels and I'm not happy about some of the additives - when did all this junk creep/slither into the food chain? I'd like to get back to eating food with fewer additives which is another reason why some of the freezer stash needs to go (and won't be replaced like for like).  I have a decent supply of baking ingredients too so it will be interesting to see if I can spend less than the allocated £80 per week.