May 2024 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

otb666 said:

@goldfinches After years of trying various cleaning methods for a positively horrendous limescale I now empty the toilet of water using a big sponge and then i have found the pummy stones on a string are soft enough to remove limescale and not damage or mark toilet.  Dont use the normal hard pummy stones they will mark the toilet and remember to remove the limescale otherwise it will just settle on bottom again.  @Suffolk_lass what citrus acid do you use?  I now only have to do this once a fortnight now.  

@otb666 initially I bought a little pot from Wilkinsons, along with Campden tablets ( I was making cordial as per Mary Berry's elderflower cordial recipe), then a bag from my local health food shop when I realised they sold it cheaper. For cleaning though, I buy a kilo pack from the big river company as a six monthly subscription (15% off!) - I always buy the slightly more expensive food grade, as I use it for both and can't be doing with having two lots.

I'm only showing all three as I'm guessing someone trying it for cleaning won't want to pay around a fiver to try something out, so maybe a bag from your health food shop to try it out.

I also de-fur my kettle with a tablespoonful in the bottom of a hot kettle with maybe a centimetre of just boiled water (don't inhale the fumes) swill it up the sides and it just fizzes away the limescale in less than a minute, then I pour the residue over a plughole in the washbasin in the downstairs loo, so the plunger and rim style plug lose their limescale/soap-scum coating too. Then I rinse thoroughly. Kettle and washbasin. Be aware that in strong concentrations it is mildly corrosive to stainless steel but I don't let it sit and soak like you do with vinegar.

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass said:

Bought half a lamb, that was reared here in our village, and had a good life. Paid a little more than normal, but it is once a year

I wish I had the space in the freezer, so that I could do this.  Mind you, I used to fantasise about the expression on our old butcher’s face if I put in an order for a forequarter of beef. I never did it because we don’t have the space for a chest freezer, but he’d have been shocked!

As it is, when driving back from Scotland on Sunday, we indulged the Meat Fund in the purchase of a boned, whole leg of mutton from the farmshop at Tebay Services.  £49.71 spent on 3kg of mutton, which they kindly cut in half for us, so that a) we now have two roasts, and b) it would fit in our freezer.  It will make at least 6 meals for us, 2 roast dinners plus 4 curries/stir-fries/stews, all designed to produce at least 4 portions.  Oh, and they kindly gave us a load of ice-packs - for free - to help us transport the meat safely home.

If I lived closer, they’d be my butcher.

I have two spends to declare from yesterday. £31.57 in L!dl and £5.39 on loose, fresh veg in Sainsbugs.  

The L!dl spend was on 1kg Porridge oats 90p (up from 75p last year), corn dogs 2x£4.99, spring onions 59p, Salmon En Croute £4.49, lactose free skimmed milk 1L 4x99p, butter 3x£1.69, Garlic & herb cream cheese 2x£85, Oaties 2x77p, baking powder 170g 65p and 12 large FR eggs £2.69.  We really didn’t need the corn dogs but, despite several trips to the US, I’ve never had them and they’re a bucket-list item from my teenage years reading Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew.

The above brings our total May spend to £134.76/£160 leaving £25.24 for the rest of the month.

For us, that should be do-able.  We will have to purchase more fresh veg - especially onions, which I forgot to add to the shopping list - but that’ll be it.  The pantry is full of dried goods. We’ve restocked the fridge on a few items (cream cheese, butter, eggs, lactose-free milk) and the freezer is full to overflowing.  While not cheap at 99p/litre, lactose-free milk tastes fresh and keeps for ages; yesterday’s purchases are dated 25th June! 

I still have to work out a meal plan for the next few days.  There’s a tub of plain yoghurt that needs to be used, so a fish curry is on the horizon, and to fit everything into the freezer yesterday, I had to take out a haggis to defrost.  Plus we have a couple of ropey carrots, so I was thinking of doing a Carrot & Cashew Nut Roast, which will also use up some of the disastrous loaf of bread I made earlier this month.  Hmmm….

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

Blimey! Done my monthly big shop for May and GC is sitting at £80.16 with stores at £188.61 thanks to that half a lamb. Subscriptions so far is running at £15 which is all milkman, but I have one or two things being delivered next week too, as part of my big river subscriptions. It should be £4.64 Groceries and £31.69 store-cupboard, including several months of water filter supplies AND, with 15% discount applied (blue shrieky thing emoji [I do miss it!])

I'm with you on quality meat @PipneyJane, with my £100 including eight roasting joints (including a French trim mini rack), with shoulders and legs cut in half, the shanks are big enough to roast as small leg joints (I'm sure he was a hogget) and the rest as pairs of chops, a bag of bones and three bags of offal (I said it was my sharers' turn for the heart this time)

goldfinches

@Suffolk_lass thankyou for the information about how to use the citric acid, I have bought a small packet at an Asian supermarket this morning with the aim of trying it to see if it was better than vinegar or those expensive plastic sachets so your post is very timely.
I also bought some very low fat and low priced yoghurt to try, some tinned spinach for the store cupboard, dried soya chunks again for the store cupboard, a packet of fenugreek rotis, a huge bunch of coriander and some lovely ripe tomatoes which all came to £10.48.
Considering how many interesting and delicious looking things there were on the shelves I think I managed to get off quite lightly, I could easily have spent 4 times as much especially on the huge bags of nuts on special offer but I firmly told myself that "there is no space in the freezer and they'd go off before I could finish the bag so don't buy them".

That makes my new total £94.64/£150 which is an average daily spend of £5.91 which is a bit better but not much, I shall have to try harder to use up what I already have and not buy more unless it is really necessary.

Pennypincin

I spent around £10/12in Tesco yesterday.
Mainly on salad, some veg and vegetarian protein.

Soontobeoap

Did an Aldi dash yesterday looking for treats to get DH eating again. He has no wish for food so no ideas. Nothing I bring home seems to tempt him. He is trying a bit harder now but it is hard when he has no appetite and  his smell and taste seem to have gone wonky. Anyway apart from some salad, bin bags and bread, it was all drinks and treats to tempt him. £33.00 spent. I am keeping  these spends within gc as sometimes life takes over for all of us but I do want to try to spend under last years total whatever comes our way. It is all spent on food whatever the reason and it helps me to see where money goes. Thanks again for keeping me accountable @elsiepac. I know it doesnt look like it sometimes but this is the one thing that I have control over at the moment.  

PipneyJane

Soontobeoap said:

Did an Aldi dash yesterday looking for treats to get DH eating again. He has no wish for food so no ideas. Nothing I bring home seems to tempt him. He is trying a bit harder now but it is hard when he has no appetite and  his smell and taste seem to have gone wonky. Anyway apart from some salad, bin bags and bread, it was all drinks and treats to tempt him. £33.00 spent. I am keeping  these spends within gc as sometimes life takes over for all of us but I do want to try to spend under last years total whatever comes our way. It is all spent on food whatever the reason and it helps me to see where money goes. Thanks again for keeping me accountable @elsiepac. I know it doesnt look like it sometimes but this is the one thing that I have control over at the moment.  

@Soontobeoap, I feel your husband’s pain at not being able to taste things.  Even when you start off feeling hungry, there’s nothing worse than having to wade though a meal which is either tasteless or only tastes of one of the herbs/spices, instead of the usual spice blend. It puts you off eating. While I originally blamed the chemo, with me, the cause turned out to be oral thrush.  I’ve kept it at bay for the last couple of cycles by swishing vinegar around with my tongue, regularly gargling with Peroxyl and drinking a daily dose of effervescent vitamin C. (Thrush doesn’t like acidic environments.). I had my final round of chemo on Monday, so Pip vs Thrush is in full fight.

I have a small spend to declare from Friday.  £2.97 spent in L!dl on 2kg of onions (at 99p/kg) and a tube of the aforementioned vitamin C.  DH also picked up our free L!dl+ “bread product”.  This time he chose a large sourdough loaf, normally sold for £1.99.  Since this shop pushed us over the L!dl+ £100 reward barrier, DH went back into the shop and picked up a “free” 1kg sack of their Fruit & Nut Muesli, saving £1.99.  (Crossing the £100 barrier puzzled me, until I remembered that he’d bought beer and chocolate from L!dl earlier in the month, out of his own pocket.)

The above brings our total spend to £137.73/£160 leaving £22.27 for the remainder of the month.

One of my biggest conundrums this week has been what to do with a litre of milk, which was fresh-before-freezing but sour when I defrosted it.  (Yes, it’s the freezer’s fault.  I was planning to replace it when I got sick.). So far, I’ve made scones, some oatmeal muffins and today, for brunch, I’ll do pancakes with cooking bacon and maple syrup.  That will use it up.

Dinner tonight will be Sophie Dahl’s Dhal, made with red split lentils, a large sweet potato that needs to be used, and an ancient tub of perpetual spinach that I found when re-arranging the freezer.   

Dinner tomorrow will be Middle-Eastern Chicken Livers, since that will use the other half of the 500ml tub of plain yoghurt from last night’s fish curry. 

Beyond the above, I’m struggling to meal plan.

- Pip

scandimore

£87.25 to declare for the weekly shop, a whole chicken which should do a few meals, hopefully stretching to chicken with sweet potato wedges salad and aioli, Thai curry with rice and spring rolls, flatbreads with chicken halloumi and salad, the other meals will be veggie (a pasta and spanakopita) also got lunchbox stuff and bagels / rolls for lunches. 

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all I'm over budget already. Lack of meal planning and 2 birthdays this month have definitely had an effect. Other than a small amount of veg, we shouldn't need anything else until we go away on saturday. 

Plan for this week
Sunday - Crispy duck, chinese pancakes, hoisin sauce will served with vegetable rice 
Monday -chicken slices with  sweet potato/butternut squash mash and veg
Tuesday -chicken curry with rice and indian snacks
Wednesday - cooked breakfast - cocktail sausages, bacon, eggs, beans and hash browns
Thursday -minced beef quesadilla with fries/alphabites
Friday - he!!o fresh meal 

Just done a freezer inventory and I can make all of the above using the freezer and stores other than buying some peppers, carrots and some baby corn. 
I've got 2 freezer drawers full of homemade ready meals for lunches at work (I've not been using them due to rushing in the mornings) so I've already got a carrot soup out for tomorrow's lunch. Will work my way through some of them this week so it creates some more space in the freezer. 

SausageDogSandwich

Hello all, I’m upto £229.95. I haven’t ordered shopping for tonight as there’s a lot in the freezer and cupboard, I’ve just got some milk and fruit a few days ago, I’ll get some more grapes tomorrow and a few cucumbers, then I’ll either go shopping to ald1 on Friday or get a tesc0 delivery Saturday. I’ve fell out with sains for now as the fresh stuff has been terrible the last couple of times.

£229.95/385