May 2024 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

£22.93 spent in aldi. Store cupboard challenge this month but I did buy sausages and mince as well as vegetables, milk, bread etc🤦‍♀️. Now in my defence when I set budget I didnt know that DH was going to be in hospital for 5 days. I dont know what he will fancy when he comes out so I am making sure I have a variety. Knowing him it will be all puddings! 🤦‍♀️. I am still determined to try and stay in budget! To try and balance things out I used the gammon juices to fry up an onion and some mushrooms from the freezer, thickened with flour added a chicken stock cube along with some diced cooked chicken from the freezer and gammon from fridge and using home made shortcrust pastry made 6 pies for the freezer. Tommorrow after DH has had a beef sandwich the rest will be diced up for a casserole and I might be able to get 2 steak and mushroom pies out of it too. 😊

goldfinches

@Soontobeoap - your pies sound delicious.

£6.51 spent in M&S on milk, greek style yoghurt, baked beans and ys sliced wholemeal bread as I am spending the entire bank holiday head down and bum up weeding my allotment. The whole site is going to be included in a local open gardens afternoon next Sunday and so we're all panicking a bit and frantically tidying our plots up. Consequently I decided not to cook at all over the three days and just take a sandwich with me for lunch and then have beans on toast with an egg for dinner. 
I'm planning to have a crack at making these vegan meringues to take to my Wednesday walking group this week so I'll have to buy some more caster sugar tomorrow but that's all I'll need and then I only need 100ml of double cream for the recipe I've planned to make on Tuesday evening plus some more salady bits and that's it until Friday.

thriftwizard

£8.09 added for a mini-top-up at W8rose; milk, plums, carrots, a tub of peppercorns (bought about once a year) rolls for OH and a tub of ham knuckle, i.e. offcuts of deli ham. The knuckle's great value IF they have any (not a given!) as it's just that little bit to liven up an omelette (tonight's dinner, the Girls are laying like the clappers despite being 3 or 5 years old) a pizza or or a salad. We had been due to go over to DS3's for dinner, but he's not well, so that's been deferred; luckily we do have ridiculous numbers of eggs to use up!

scandimore

£98.39 spent at asda. Overall pleased with this however £9 totally wasted as I bought dog biscuits instead of cat biscuits - it's really easy to confuse the ones I get on that site as the products look so similar and it doesn't have "dog" or "cat" in the description. It's a 50 mile round trip to the nearest store so I'll give them to the neighbour.

wishus

First spend of the month: £47.58 in All day, and £2.50 in Hasta, as there was only flavoured couscous and no oyster sauce in the first shop.

Meal plan sorted for the week:
Monday - chicken cacciatore and potatoes https://cafedelites.com/chicken-cacciatore/
Tuesday - easy salmon curry https://hungryhealthyhappy.com/easy-salmon-curry/
Wednesday - someone else cooking
Thursday - couscous salad https://pinchofyum.com/couscous-salad-with-lime-basil-vinaigrette 
Friday - prawn and broccoli stir fry and rice https://damndelicious.net/2015/01/16/easy-shrimp-broccoli-stir-fry/
Saturday - cajun chicken pasta https://savvybites.co.uk/cajun-chicken-pasta/

Trying all online recipes as I've packed my recipe books into boxes to make space for home improvement stuff.

PipneyJane

Evening All

@scandimore - is there any possibility that your cat would like the taste of the dog biscuits?  (We had a dog who adored cat food.)

I’ve got small shops to declare from yesterday:  79p spent in L!dl on beansprouts and £2.19 in Sainsbugs on Bagels (£1.25 “Nectar price”) and mushrooms (94p).  That’s all the grocery shopping we’ll do this week - we’ll be heading to Scotland on Wednesday for a couple of family events, returning home on Sunday.   (All cleared with my doctors.)

- Pip

Pennypincin

£12.23 spent in Tesco yesterday.
I managed to get some reduced vegan/vegetarian bits too, although I only went in for milk for the toddler group tomorrow.
I had £5 left from the previous week, which was added into the bulk fund.

thriftwizard

@scandimore, you are not alone! I threw a bit of a wobbly when I saw that my usual cat biscuits had gone up by £20 for the 10Kg pack that we normally buy, having 3 cats; that gets emptied bit by bit into a smaller container & re-sealed & usually lasts about 4 months. (The garden hedgehogs also like it...) So I g00gled "JW grain-free cat biscuits" to see if I could find a cheaper source. One came up straight away, at the old price, so I clicked on that and it arrived the very next day. I didn't need to open it for a week, but when I did, my nose informed me instantaneously that it wasn't right; it smelt just like our son's dachshunds food... needless to say, it was dog food! Exactly the same colour & design of packet, just a different species in the pic... Did I feel a right royal idiot!

As I'd opened it, it was too late to return it. The cats weren't interested, and shouldn't be - it has all sorts of lovely vegetables & grains that cats quite simply do not eat. Luckily our neighbour's dog took a liking to it, though it's not her regular brand, and they insisted on giving me something towards the cost. The silver lining is that I had to buy some supermarket biscuits to tide us over until the new 10kg sack (now dropped a bit in price) arrived, and they liked that, which will work out cheaper for the future. Thinking about it, it was DD1's cat who really needed the grain-free variety (which is vastly more expensive) and she crossed the rainbow bridge a couple of years ago, so we're free to change brands now if it suits all concerned. So all's well that ends well...

goldfinches

Did the shopping this morning having made a careful list divided between Sainsby's and Marks and managed to leave the list in the Sainsby's trolley which meant I had to rely on my faulty memory in Marks; I am annoyed with myself for being so careless but did manage in the end I think.
Anyway I spent £16.35 on a sodastr**m gas cylinder and marmite in Sainsby's. The Baking Budget spent £5.25 on caster sugar and cashew nuts which were on offer so I bought them for a bake later in the month. Then I spent £11.61 in Marks on milk, lettuce, celery, lamb's lettuce, ys organic leeks, cucumber, ys organic cherry tomatoes, 2 x radishes and double cream and the Baking Budget spent £6 on made without chocolate which seems to be suitable for gluten free coeliacs so I bought one of each flavour to do a taste test with my walking group tomorrow.

All that makes my new totals £22.86/£150 for GC and £11.25/£25 for the Baking Budget.

PS I treated myself to a ready made tabbouleh in Sainsby's as it was on a nectar price offer and after trying it I am severely disappointed. It's mostly rather large and gloopy bulgur and almost no vegetables or herbs at all. A total waste of money and considering the usual price is £2.70 for 200g I'm feeling they saw me coming.    

K9sandFelines

Soontobeoap said:

@SausageDogSandwich you do really well for a family of 5!

We went to Sainsburys this morning mainly to get DH some pyjamas for his upcoming hospital stay. Whilst there i picked up a few bits we were running low on. When did bisto become £3.80 a tub! 🤯. Also bought flora buttery at full price (£4.80) for the first time in ages. Could kick myself that I didnt keep stocks up when offers were on. I can usually get it £1.00 cheaper but just havnt had time to search the websites this week. We came away with very little for £30.40. We have bread milk and juice, DH wont be here from next Wednesday for 5 days although DS is coming to stay on Saturday night. Hoping I can keep costs down for the next 12 days. Aldi is my best friend for the rest of the month 😊

If you've ran out since this post, Flora Buttery is £3 with a T clubcard.
Also, if you join the Trolley app and bookmark the product. It will inform you of a price drop.