February 2024 Grocery Challenge

Finstickle

I got paid on 26 Jan so tracking form there for February so quite a few shows already:

£103.93 @ Lidl      (this included a joint of beef as a treat at £19.01, although it did quite a few                          meals/sandwiches across the week)
£86.66 @ Lidl
£24.72 @ Tesco
£16.65 @ Sainsbury
£5.95 @ Beer52     (Paid postage only for 8 craft ales for DH, he has said he wants to drastically cut his       alcohol so hopefully this plus the 8 currently downstairs should last quite a while)  
£5.99 @ Amazon    (Hair detangler for DD which I normally end up paying for but classing as Shopping as all other toiletries come from joint account so DH can contribute  )
£26.50 @ CostCo   Just coffee and cheese and my mum went rather than me so a quick top up.

A higher budget this month as have already spent £264 and it's only the 6th.  Need to focus on shopping my freezer/cupboards to see if i can bring the total down, but have just done all budgeting stuff etc and allowed the £500.

Currently £264/£500

LadyWithAPlan

@elsiepac sorry to hear re your teeth, hope you heal quickly.
Lidl do a decent DF yogurt - plain soya, blueberry soy and a vanilla  soy one - all about £1 so much better than Alpro etc. I also dont buy much DF cheese as its expensive - whats your favourite one?

@debtfreewannabe321 do you have a recipe for your famous Dal please - my last one was good - largely the dishoom recipe one without cream etc but always good to try a new version 


Groceries £59.62/£155 +  £7.80 bulk
My local Lidl is v near the gym and closing down this month which is annoying - so picking up some bits today after the gym as I needed sugar to bake bread and also washing up powder- completely ran out. I didnt need any food but as I was there .... Hopefully I can now keep out of food shops til the weekend.

£3.95 washing powder - prefer it to liquid as lasts longer
Bulk herbs, dijon mustard and garam masala   etc £2.50 -  grabbing some easy carries 
£17.25 Grocery including a FR chicken I really wanted one +  some veg inc organic beetroot to make borscht with my chicken stock once cooked the chicken. I do have 3 HFresh meals left as well but they all very samy as in white rice, a protein, a sauce and minimum veg so...

Food 
Brunch was a mix of stirfried veg - red onion, red pepper, celery, broccoli, mushroom, spinach, tamari soy and sesame oil with chermoula spice  and I also heated up the remaining pork chop , some dal  and brown rice with peas from Sunday  - served with aioli and a chopped in balsamic vine tomato

Made some cashew cream that going nicely in my coffee - no additives... and will make into a DF sour cream

Currently trying to make GF fruit seeded bread for the first time  - mix of brown and white GF flour that may /may not work 1/3. 2/3 plus raisins, mixed peel that was reduced and some seeds/nuts mix from Ald* - I will report back .. as the brown bread recipe is v different from the white - it may need more liquid...
Nothing ventured /nothing gained.

Mamaofmanybudgets

£109.84/£400 

tommorow will have to be a sit down and meal plan day i think. 🤷‍♀️

Thevalueofless

Our month started on 25th and already at £127.20 from our £300 budget. I was so shocked on my recent trip to have only two small and not even full  bags of shopping but spent almost £50. Sill plenty of squash and potatoes stored from the allotment and green beans in the freezer so have challenged myself to use these three ingredients three times every week. Tonight is Moroccan style butter bean stew with roasted squash and potato with steamed green beans.

TVOL

thriftwizard

£1 added for a loaf of sliced bread from w8rose! I'm still battling transport issues - teething problems, it seems, luckily covered under the warranty - so we'll have to make do with what's available locally. Actually, just remembered I nipped into the greengrocers too & bought some kiwis (no riper or cheaper than W8rose's TBH) & apples, as well as scrounging some "pet leaves" for the chickens. Total cost £2.52, which I will add on right now!

ETA: I'm away dancing this weekend, & was kind of expecting it all to go to pot then as the DDs have invited a young guest, but DD1, currently at the BF's, has just rung up & announced that they'll buy any supplies needed! Yippee! In other news, though, our boiler has just died... it's a biggish house with lots of rooms, & the quote for a direct replacement has knocked any idea of going on holiday this year on the head... ah well!

Wraithlady

Sorry to hear about your boiler - have you had a look at BOXT? https://www.boxt.co.uk/

It's a bit of a faff, but significantly cheaper than the other quotes we got when ours died, and they turned up quickly to fit it.

Herbyme

So far my ‘extreme thrift’ lol  has involved removing things from Abel and Cole order which are cheaper at Sa1nsbury’s 😂. I have a delivery pass because I shop for a family member, so at least the Sa1nsbury’s delivery is free.  

Can anyone recommend a podcast or similar about budgeting, reducing grocery spends etc?

SecondStar

Had to grab milk (and mini eggs, vital supplies), so current spend is at 

£34 / £120

PipneyJane

Good evening All

@elsiepac, sorry to hear about your dental issues.  Hope they get sorted quickly and don’t cost you the earth.

In my news, I was discharged from hospital on Monday.  Feel considerably better. Outpatients appointment tomorrow when, hopefully, I’ll get a schedule for treatments, etc.  

DH, poor thing, crashed out exhausted after all the worry and 2.5 weeks of 12 hour days in my hospital room.  He was still knackered yesterday, but managed a shopping trip to pick up some basics.  £7.21 spent in Sainsbugs on vegetables, mostly at Nectar prices, plus £21.51 in L!dl on eggs, milk, cheddar, etc.  Saturday, he spent £4.61 in L!dl on a YS pizza plus a tub of custard, for his dinner after leaving the hospital. 

The above brings our spend to £32.33/£165 leaving £132.67 for the rest of the month.

A word about DH. He didn’t live on takeaways or YS pizzas while I was in hospital.  Several friends dropped over meals for him to have in the evenings and there were leftovers in the fridge/freezer.  His worst-case-scenario was a tin of lentil soup with bread, which he had a couple of nights.

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

It's good to hear you are home @PipneyJane, we are all rooting for you. I think you and I have been on here for a similar time, so I always look out for your posts. It's a lovely thing when friends and neighbours rally round to support you. Your poor DH must be emotionally exhausted. The adrenaline plunge with you coming home will take a while to work through.

Over here, our spend for the month is up to £98.pp anticipating tomorrow's milk bill but going into week three we have most things we need, so no shop visits planned