February 2024 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

@Ainsty if your co-op and M&S SF are rubbish for YS, maybe try Too Good To Go App and look at local Morries - they are excellent here for F&V, occasional meat and bread if you ask - the staff near me are always happy to swap - so anything RM I ask if maybe I could have carrots or onions instead. For £3.09 I get roughly 10 items and just adapt my menu to fit what I get. About once every 3 weeks suits me, often coinciding with a few specific bits I need to buy.

@joedenise says the same so not just my store

LotsOfTea

@Ainsty I understand the point about meals getting a bit boring when you're cooking for one. My OH travels a lot for work so when I'm just cooking for me I tend to make one base thing and then add different flavours and extra ingredients to it to mix it up over a few days. So some mince cooked at the start of the week could have curry paste, peas & spinach added and served with naan, chappati or rice, another portion could have kidney beans & peppers & sweetcorn & chilli powder added & served with rice, tortillas or taco shells, another could have harissa, squash & carrots added and served with couscous, or pesto & tomatoes added and served with pasta. Obviously that's just examples and it depends what you've got available and what you like to eat but just adding something different to the meal so it's not exactly the same really helps.

I went to the local refill/eco store today to replenish my stocks of porridge and red lentils but got slightly sidetracked into buying some delicious chocolate orange brownies for the weekend and a pot of local honey (which at a cost of £12 took up most of my spend but it's a treat and tastes so different to supermarket honey). £18.90 in total.

£23.50/£250

Ainsty

Suffolk_lass said:

@Ainsty if your co-op and M&S SF are rubbish for YS, maybe try Too Good To Go App and look at local Morries - they are excellent here for F&V, occasional meat and bread if you ask - the staff near me are always happy to swap - so anything RM I ask if maybe I could have carrots or onions instead. For £3.09 I get roughly 10 items and just adapt my menu to fit what I get. About once every 3 weeks suits me, often coinciding with a few specific bits I need to buy.

@joedenise says the same so not just my store

Hi,

Thank you, there isn't a Morrisons near me, plus I prefer my own homegrown F&V because I know what chemicals have been used on them. I don't buy food at the Coop, I went in for something else but always check the YS chiller, just in case. I shop almost exclusively at ALDI with additional things at ASDA. At  ASDA I always check the reduced fridge and shelf but I rarely find anything of use to me. Last time I was in ASDA I think there were sandwich fillers and plastic containers of fancy olives. I make one weekly trip to ALDI by car for the main shop.  ASDA is in walking distance for things not available at ALDI.

Sorry, I don't know what SF or RM stand for.

@London_1 I would love a large freezer, but my tiny kitchen is just too small. You obviously put yours to good use and are very clever with the shopping and cooking. Do you use Nordpack butter for baking? At £2.09 it's too expensive for me, but I quite like Beautifully Buttery costing 95p.

London_1

@Ainsty  No, I use Stork soft margarine  for baking .
 I usually have a tub of Flora 'light' in the fridge as well, but only buy it when on special offer, as the Aldi butter as if I'm having cheese on toast or scrambled eggs or beans on toast it tases similar to butter and with stuff on top I don't notice the difference.

My nearest Morrisons is 6 miles away so its usually Aldi's to Tescos and if Tescos are 'price matching' Aldis then I get it in Tesco's and get the points. There is a Lidles about a mile and a half away opposite the Asda's but I've not really seen much in Asda's that strikes me as very worth buying and their reduced stuff seems not to have much of a reduction at all.I always check the prices on line at the big supermarkets and if its worth the petrol then I will drive there but its got to be worth the petrol and so far I've not seen much worth getting.

I'm only fussy when it comes to sausages or ground coffee as they are my two 'treats'. I've never tasted Beautifully Buttery is it really nice ? 

As for mince I don't buy the more expensive '5% fat' stuff as I always put the mince into a bit of water and bring to the boil and drain off any fat before cooking.. It's how my late Mum cooked it.Back then often mince was a lot more fatty and she would drain off the water into a jug then when the fat had set skim it off and use for roasting potatoes or frying, literally nothing went to waste back in the days of rationing. To this day if I have cooked a whole chicken in the slow cooker (you get all the meat off the bones) I drain the remaining liquid off into a jug and when set the jelly at the bottom makes great stock and the fat on the top is skimmed off and used for roasting.

I used to have  two earthen ware jars that one was beef dripping (fat) and one was pork dripping .handy for roasting stuff in and meant the lard you used to make pastry wasn't wasted on roasting  

  JackieO xx

Ainsty

This is my menu for the first three days of February

Thursday 1st

Breakfast - Porridge, milk and defrosted raspberries 5p

Lunch - Egg on toast 28p

Dinner - Lentil bolognese with wholewheat pasta 

(1 tin of lentils 45p, tin of tomatoes 49p, 2 large carrots from 1.5kg wonky 68p, 2 HG onions, garlic, chilli flakes, salt and pepper from cupboard. Three portions 37p 50g pasta from 500g wholewheat fusilli 75p.) 8p total 45p

Pudding - Banana custard  (Natures Pick Mimi pack 13p, custard - Birds Custard powder 10g from 350g £2, 150ml milk from 4pt £1.45, 10g sugar from Demerara 500g 99p) 1 portion 30p

Tea, biscuits & milk 29p

Friday 2nd

Breakfast Toast - 2x slices with HM strawberry jam 5p

Lunch - Roast squash soup (HG squash, HG Onion, Veg stock from a cube 5p, ginger, 2x slice bread) 10p

Tea - Chickpea and veg curry, cauliflower 99p, chickpea 50g from 500g packet £1.90, HG potatoes, tinned tomatoes 49p, 1 carrot, herbs, spices, stock cube.  4 portions @ 47p each Rice 50g from 1kg Essential White Rice 52p 3p Total 50p

Pudding - Custard & defrosted raspberries = 17p

Tea, biscuits & milk 29p

Saturday 3rd

Breakfast - Porrage & HG raspberries 5p

Lunch - HG Jacket potatoes with lentil bolognese 37p

Dinner - At a friend's house

Tea, biscuits & milk 29p

boultdj

First shop of the month, £48.43 spent.

LadyWithAPlan

Loving those  GCers whose budget is £15 PWA or £60 pm! Very inspirational as it’s easy to  assume we need to spend hundreds per month on food
i am single so I don’t have much excuse on my budget … I do live in central london and have to be GF and also  DF  though so YS lots of HM cooking but sadly no home grown veg - hoping to buy a place with a garden this year a bit further out and a growing veg space will be the first on the list 

love @London_1 mum quote 

But I grew up with my late Mums mantra in my ears " Feed the bin lassie, and your feeding the devil " a bit extreme, … 


Food  - Grocery  £16.95/£155 + Bulk £3.0/£50 + junk £1.95 /£0
Hello popped to Tesco’s by my college yesterday, as had an hour in between classes spent mainly some box things and also bought some items which also had competition on  inc some hot choc my mum likes so I will give that to her

Junk - crisps - I did take a small coffee flask to college  for the first time so saved spending £4 on a coffee  -RESULT- as was there for 7+ hours +travel  with enforced breaks... However I did not take any food snacks .. so £1.95 ... on crisps - that also had a competition on - 
Next week I will take food or even fruit in as not eating from 12 - 9 ... the coffee helped but I am just asking for quick and not nutritious food choices in this scenario - I am g so cant just pick up a sandwich

I got home at 9pm from college,  wasn't hungry by then but had bought some YS GF fruit loaf.... so had with butter and some peanut butter ...and 2 more packs crisps... such bad nutrition for my body  - and ended up eating late  I will sort  a take with me dinner  for next week  -  have to be in my heated food flask a stew of some type.

Today I cooked the boneless YS chicken crown and served with brown rice made in the steamer with lots of spices. I also roasted in the halogen at the same time a small sweet potato, garlic cloves  in their skin (so sweet) and a pink onion .. plus found some scraps of organic frozen spinach, peas and mixed veg in freezer - I desperately need some kale but didnt pick it up last night as too much to carry. I made a spicy mayo with mayo, colmans mustard and some paprika etc - I need to buy limes. 

Also now soaking mung beans for 2 hrs or so  before making dal... I will follow the dishoom recipe roughly    apart from the double cream and I have mung beans not black lentils -   just the thought of how I will not be able to breathe and the excema  after eating loads dairy is finally stopping me indulging..
I use my pressure cooker but I may do a first hour on the stovepot to get rid of the bean scum stuff (not sure what to call this) as it boils off 
I may try to add  this sweet potato dal extra as necessary

PipneyJane

@elsiepac

Apologies but we had £25 left from January.  Therefore please change my budget to

£165.00

Many thanks,

Pip

London_1

Excellent Ainsty You are doing very well indeed as LadyWithAPlan says you really don't need to spend 100 to eat ,especially when you cost the food out Hears mine for yesterday

Thursday 1st

 Breakfast: small bowl of bran flakes with some milk and two cups of tea Total around 45p

      Lunch: HM soup from freezer 20p grated cheese 20p some crackers left over from a box one of my DDs gave me to finish off Nil Total 40p

Dinner: from freezer a portion of mixed veg from a bag 20p,a portion of cheesy mashed potato made from spuds before Christmas and frozen in an ice cream scoop ball 25p A piece of breaded haddock from freezer was a reduced pack £1.20p Total £1.45
                                        Total for day £2.30 plus several cups of tea and mid afternoon with a slice of HM cake around 20p so yesterdays total was £2.50  for food 

Friday 2nd
 Today 
Breakfast scrambled eggs on two slices of toast, cup of tea.
 (I had a cooked breakfast as I had to go to a friends husbands funeral and wasn't sure how long I would be there)
cost 50p

Lunchtime Nil was at the wake so didn't get home until .3.30 ate somethings there and drank quite a lot of tea 

Dinner tonight. Still quite full, so dug a portion of chicken provencal from the freezer that I made a couple of weeks ago and will microwave it around 6.30 tonight.Total for portion 45p
                                         Total for today including perhaps a hot chocolate later in the evening plus maybe another slice of HM cake  About £1.30p

Saturday 3rd
Breakfast:   Porridge made with water and a cuppa 20p

Lunch:        Half a tin of beans on toast ,portion of sliced peaches from a tin with some custard 45p

Dinner:        From freezer two sausages ,a portion of mash, the other half of the tin of beans £1.35p 

                                       Total for day.  £2.00 included are several cups of tea

            Three days comes to around £5.60.

Sunday 4th: Will be a low cost day as I usually have just a couple of cups of tea and maybe a couple of ginger nuts at breakfast and lunch is usually a cheese sandwich, and a coffee and perhaps a piece of fruit so at most less than a £1.00. I go to my DDs around 3.30pm as we like a game of card or scrabble on Sunday afternoons, and always eat dinner at theirs on a Sunday. I'll probably take some HM biscuit or cake with me So the total for Sundays is always low
For four days this month it will roughly have costed out at around  £6.60

As yet I have no need to go to the shops and it stands at 2 NSDs today. I have checked my freezer and cupboards and I probably won't need anything until next Friday fingers crossed I have nothing on my 'Shopping List Board' needed in the kitchen at the moment. So far February's budget is intact  

I find costing out what's needed every week keeps me focussed on keeping to the budget. Everyone has different ways of budgeting and what ever works for you personally is good. I don't buy of eat snacky type things and I am quite happy to bake weekly for the cake or biscuit tins .  

It would be different if I had a family to feed as my two DDs have had, but living alone I can please myself what I eat and I'm quite happy to eat almost anything really.
I can just as likely, if I see some veg at a good price or reduced get it, and cook a veggie lasagne or chilli or even curry but if I do its always cooked so there are portions for my freezer for day like today when I really don't feel like cooking.

Onwards and upwards everyone we are all counting our pennies at the moment ,roll on the spring and the lighter days, which cheers everyone up I think  

   JackieO xxx

thriftwizard

I spent £35 at the market today, all of it (apart from a £5 hunk of Jarlsberg for OH & DD2) on fresh fruit & veg. Shouldn't need anything else until next Thursday; there are leeks and leaves at the allotment (even some in tubs in the garden) to ring the changes with if needed, bread etc. in the freezer & main meals are planned & all ingredients acquired or checked. If we run out of anything, it'll be sliced bread, and I may just read him a riot act & insist he eats breadmaker bread!