June 2024 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Morning all. @Soontobeoap I'm so glad your husband has started eating again. Soon you'll be on track to getting him proper nutrients as well. Maybe some Ensure drinks may help in the meantime to get the vitamins in him? 

Our Tesco order arrived last night and yesterday I went to M & S beforehand to pick some items I forgot or Tesco wouldn’t have. 

£15.85 at M & S for a garlic bulb, 2 red bell peppers, a can of coconut milk, 2 bags of coffee beans, and Italian sausage

£61.06 for yesterday evening’s Tesco order which was primarily staples such as yoghurt, milk, cheese, fruit, avocados, mushrooms, tomatoes, toilet paper, etc. We’ve got enough vegetables and meat to last us the week I think. 

Here’s a rough cooking plan for the week, using up items from the freezer and cupboards. It’s going to rain and we’ll have a temperature drop so I’m planning some warm dishes this week. 

• Keralan fish curry (yesterday/Sunday) — used the Jamie Oliver Keralan curry paste which is excellent 
• Angel hair pasta with tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, Italian sausage, and fresh basil mixed in. Homegrown spinach and lettuce salad on the side
• Puy lentil and bacon/pancetta soup 
• Mexican black beans — I eat them in a bowl with trimmings like onions, cheese, crumbled bacon, cilantro etc. Mr. Jings likes a base of quinoa. I also use them as black bean burritos, sometimes with scrambled eggs as breakfast burritos
• Sumac chicken and roasted vegetables with garlic yoghurt 
• Almond flour chocolate banana bread (low sugar/carb; I’ll skip the chocolate chips and swap in chopped nuts instead. I have all the ingredients for this in the house) 

The lentil soup and black beans will make enough servings for the freezer so I can pull some out as needed. 

£94.23 / £400.00 spent. £305.77 remaining. £5.77 to last until Friday. 

Pennypincin

I came in £15 under budget for normal shopping, and have put it into the bulk fund.
It's the treats out of normal money that is shocking me, plus has blown the healthy eating this past week completely of course.
I'm aiming at try and get back on track this week somehow.

Daywon

Setting my budget at £100 for the month. 
£14.88 already spent on 1st. 

SP2024

Ended up going to Tesco tonight as I had forgotten to buy milk yesterday. Ended up spending £13.01! I got a big pack of Pepsi that was on offer, dome limescale remover that I did actually need and a load of yellow sticker paninis and bread rolls to put in the freezer. I need to stay out of any shop for the rest of the week. 

Ainsty

PipneyJane said:

Ainsty said:

Hi, thank you I do use my phone for a range of internet actions using a cheap sim. Unfortunately, I find it both uncomfortable and difficult to read/write on the small screen. It's just not my thing.

Apologies, if I wasn’t clear @Ainsty. I wasn’t expecting you to use your phone to read/post on MSE.  Do you have a tablet or computer at home that you could link to your phone with WiFi?  Then your phone will provide your internet access via the “personal hotspot” feature and you’ll use the data purchased in your phone contract.  Does that make sense?

HTH

- Pip

Hi, yes it does. I didn't realise that was a thing, I'll give it a go. In the meantime, my next door neighbour has given me the password to her internet. She is happy for me to use it in return for feeding her cat when she is away, take parcels in etc. So I should be able to use that, of course, I won't abuse it and will probably only go online when she is out. 

goldfinches

I'm claiming a NSD for today and for tomorrow's bake will be giving this recipe for vegan millionaires shortbread a try as I have almost all the ingredients sitting in the larder so that should keep costs down.

I meant to say that I'd made some elderflower cordial yesterday evening and this is what it looked like before I sliced the limes and the lemon and added them to the pot.



I've just strained and bottled it so my kitchen is all over sticky at the moment but I got just over 2 litres of lovely pale yellow cordial for not very much effort, which is worth it I think, because it costs a fortune if you buy it ready made.

Ainsty

Here's a list of the items I bought this week:

- Milk: 4 pints £1.45

- Cucumber: 89p

- Baby plum tomatoes (250g): 75p

- Chicken drumsticks (1kg): £1.99

- Beef mince 3% (600g): £3.79

- Wonky carrots (1.5kg): 75p

- Mushrooms (400g): 79p

- Cauliflower: 75p

- 5 Bananas: 78p

- 5 Oranges: £1.29

- Medium sliced wholemeal bread: 45p

- Frozen mixed veg (1 kg): 99p

- Custard Creams (300g): 45p

Total £15.12

I exchanged 6 eggs for a bunch of homegrown rhubarb. This was a good deal because the rhubarb has thrived this year, and I have lots. The 3% mince is a treat; I usually buy 10% or 12%. I will get 8 main meals from it using 75g per meal, costing 47p each. If I bought 500g of the 10%, I would have just over 70g per meal at 44p each.

It's still too early in the year for much homegrown produce. As well as rhubarb, I'm harvesting asparagus which is almost over, spinach and lettuce. In the freezer, there are:
- The very last of the summer fruit
- Chopped leeks that were lifted, cleaned and sliced
- A few beans 
- Mash made from last year's main crop potatoes
- Stewed rhubarb 

There are a couple of jars of blackcurrant jam in the cupboard. 

thriftwizard

A mildly horrifying £96.28 spent at L!dls this morning, on filter coffee, loo roll, butter, halloumi, cleaning stuff, one of their £1.50 veg boxes (pears, cherries, avocados, spuds, lettuce, celery, peppers, and a couple of oranges) tinned toms, tinned beans, flour, sugar, raisins, Marmite, mustard & horseradish, etc. etc. and of course sliced bread for OH. (He actually did eat some sourdough at DD1's at the weekend and went back for more, without mentioning his teeth once. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel...) Anyway, done. So 264.57 left, allowing £88 per week, barring the unanticipated...

Mamaofmanybudgets

After being out of it for a couple months (as if I was ever really in it 🤣) 

I'm back this month with £450 please 

so far £238.21/£400. 
1 adult and a 16, 11, 10, 8 year old. 

This includes a big farm shop which I was absolutely rinsed with delivery (£24!!!!!😒😒)... I'll include the delivery in the budget but will probably unlikely order with them again... 
Other few little bits from the corner shop and a tesco whoosh this morning to get stuff for dinner. 
£210.79 left. 

PipneyJane

Good afternoon All

I have 4 shops to declare:  two from Sunday and two from this morning.  

On Sunday, we spent £6.88 in MrT’s for items for lunch at the RPG club we attend. Now that I’ve finished chemo, it’s the first time I’ve been able to attend in months and, while I remembered to make cold drinks to take with us and to pack the wraps we already owned, I forgot to defrost the sliced meat that was in the freezer.  We took advantage of a 2 for £3.50 offer on sliced meats and purchased Pastrami (£2.06),Turkey slices (£1.44, now in the freezer), cookies (£1.25), humous (£1.20) and mixed Salad (90p).

After the Club, we dropped in on one of my best friends, so that I could give her a present that I’d knitted for her.  Naturally, that took much longer than anticipated - we can talk for hours - so on the way home DH and I stopped at the C0-0p, buying a quiche (£3), YS stuffed mushrooms (£1.50) and a tub of olives (£2.90) to have for dinner instead of what I’d originally planned.  £7.30 spent, after offers were taken into account.

Today, we went to L!dl and Sainsbugs.  £14.39 was spent in L!dl on YS 12 slices prosciutto (£2.44), Gold instant coffee 200g (£2.29), 1kg porridge oats (90p), 1kg soft dark sugar (£2.15), 4-pack garlic (95p), 12 FR large eggs (£2.69), and 3x1L lactose-free skimmed milk (99p each).  We also collected free ice creams, free sweet peppers and a free avocado from various vouchers.

In Sainsbugs, we spent £11.36 on 0.7kg bananas (63p), 0.5kg broccoli (35p), 3-pack sweet peppers (£1.79), mushrooms (95p) and 4x450g Yeo Valley Greek Yoghurt with Honey (£1.62 each with offer).

Once I take into account a £2 coin and 7p of coppers, which have gone into the money boxes, this brings our June GC spend to £42/£160 leaving £118 for the rest of the month.

- Pip