October 2024 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Hey folks. I seem to have lost the thread a bit with our spending the past week. Both Mr. Jings and I have spent £65.19 over the past week with various top up shops for fruit, cheese, milk, butter, etc. 

Today was a £33.64 Tesco in-store shop by me included in the total above. That covered 2 packs of strawberries, plums, blueberries, 2 bunches of bananas, 2 YS avocados (only 69p together!), chilies, various natural and Greek yoghurts, butter, sauerkraut, broccoli, a YS big turkey thigh, eggs, and several different packets of biscuits. A couple are going to a friend back in New York I’ll see next week. She lived in Scotland briefly last year and developed an affinity for Borders ginger biscuits covered in dark chocolate. I’m going to surprise her with a couple boxes. 🙂

£199.16 / £325.00 spent. £125.84 remaining

It feels like I’m missing a receipt because that £65 seems less than it should be compared to how many times we’ve been hitting the shops. I’ll check my pockets later for any stragglers. I meant to get tamari or soy sauce and some sesame oil at Tesco today but they were totally out of the latter. I’m planning to make chicken fried rice with some leftover chicken this week. I can stop by M & S or Iceland to see if they have any in stock. 

My quest for a bone-in ham hock continues. I checked in person at Tesco today and they’ve completely eliminated that from our store it seems. This is frustrating. I loved that piece of meat and bought it frequently. I’ll have to look in Morrisons, Lidl or at a push, visit a local butcher. Phooey. 

carboot_karaoke

Evening all, feels like ages since l posted or maybe its the embarrassment  of my multiple shops this month.

I've been to 10 shops in the last 10 days yikes !! each time there is a sort of valid reason, i.e. l needed a specific item for a recipe you cant get elsewhere, my Lidl freebie runs out today, id forgotten shower gel  etc... but it inevitably results in more additional spending 

l wont bore you with all the details the Grand Total is another £136.21. This does include a large fabric conditioner £6, £23 worth of chicken thighs a bottle of £8 wine as a gift (alcohol isn't normally part of the budget) and £9 for some delicious cakes, when we used our free MSE National Trust family day pass.

l'd like to say l don't need anything else for a while but we're entertaining on the weekend. l do have a food plan. So l will try and stick very closely to my list. 

New Total £391.56 / £650

Food £233.01 / £430
Petrol/Insurance £158.55 / £220

Suffolk_lass

Going OK here but both bank accounts are looking a bit thin this month. I need to top up milk, and buy some carrots and possibly a bit of blue cheese for our weekend away. Other than that, we might reach the end of the month with no more spends, and plenty in hand

otb666

480/550 So got 70 for petrol and fruit and veg so should be ok.  I go from 23rd to 23rd so just will be in budget.  I buy a lot of grains now red lentils buckwheat yellow split peas cous cous orzo and tins of mixed beans and various other beans.  including black and kidney.  I pre soak the buckwheat and yellow split peas for 12 hours in fridge before cooking.  I have less bread and spuds and feel better for it. also I feel fuller for longer I also have a lot of fish frozen and tinned.  It means my cupboards seem always full as well and the grains and tinned fish are cheap as well. I have been able to reduce my snacking and crisp addiction.

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, our food box was abit of a disaster so I have had to get some shopping for meals. I am now upto £202.48/350

JingsMyBucket

carboot_karaoke said:

Evening all, feels like ages since l posted or maybe its the embarrassment  of my multiple shops this month.

I've been to 10 shops in the last 10 days yikes !! each time there is a sort of valid reason, i.e. l needed a specific item for a recipe you cant get elsewhere, my Lidl freebie runs out today, id forgotten shower gel  etc... but it inevitably results in more additional spending 

@carboot_karaoke I felt the same way earlier this week. It's like we couldn't stop going to the stores but the runs were actually for useful items. We've both been under the weather so we've been going through fruit and yoghurt at a faster rate due to wanting easier healthy food to snack on when we can't be bother to make actual food. (And butter... just general comforting feelings.)

Suffolk_lass

otb666 said:

480/550 So got 70 for petrol and fruit and veg so should be ok.  I go from 23rd to 23rd so just will be in budget.  I buy a lot of grains now red lentils buckwheat yellow split peas cous cous orzo and tins of mixed beans and various other beans.  including black and kidney.  I pre soak the buckwheat and yellow split peas for 12 hours in fridge before cooking.  I have less bread and spuds and feel better for it. also I feel fuller for longer I also have a lot of fish frozen and tinned.  It means my cupboards seem always full as well and the grains and tinned fish are cheap as well. I have been able to reduce my snacking and crisp addiction.

That sounds good @otb666 - it sounds as though you have found a system that works for you. I do some of that but I soak for a shorter time then I pressure cook dried beans and pulses a pack at a time, and stash them in the small takeaway boxes that fit in the bottom drawer of the freezer. My equivalent of the more expensive tins! Very good for your digestive system too.

I have recently bought some tomatoey lentils that are pre-cooked and in a packet, just for the odd CBA moment too, but at £2 a pack they are for emergency use only

zafiro1984

Yesterday spent 22.36 mainly on perishables. Quite pleased as my last trip to the supermarket was 10 days ago. 

We've been trying to live out of the freezers as far as possible so there's been quite a lot of lateral thinking in planning meals. However, I made a loose plan for next week which resulted in the list for yesterday. Started with Li... and stuck to the last. Unfortunately they hadn't everything I needed so today I'm going in the opposite direction to Sa... for the remainder of items. estimate £9 approx. Interestingly some of Li.. items were more expensive than Sa.. mainly vegetables.

Total spend for the month 108.84/225

Nelliegrace

The chickens have given DH their egg money to go shopping for a sack of their favourite wild bird seed from the farm feeds merchant. They like a handful in the afternoon. It used to cost £8 for 20kg but is £14 now. 

PipneyJane

LadyWithAPlan said:

Hope all are doing well and squeezing their grocery budgets ... 
Sadly my local Lid* closed down  + the Aldi is a 15 mins in the wrong direction to where I normally am.

£12.10 spent   so £106/£200  + 0 bulk
Finally popped into Morries on way back from gym. looking largely for dried beans and some greens, walnuts.
The brilliant suggestion to presoak then freeze beans before cooking to help break down the cell walls and thus make beans easier to digest   by @PipneyJane has been super useful.

I love pinto beans to make Mexican refried beans and had been told they are in Morries by a fellow mse-er but sadly not my local  (only found pinto so far in Waitr** at £1.95 for 500g.)
However I did pick up 1kg  dried blackeyed beans at Morries for £2, will pick up more but had loads frozen veg to carry 

I will have to start batch cooking/prepping  the  beans though as its taking up loads of time. Given I have now been on this slow carb plan for 6 weeks (and lost 7-8lbs and kept it off) I am loving it as feel healthy, always full and tasty foods with no insulin spikes i am staying on it. (I have one day a week as a eat whatever you want day)
So I do need to start making bean recipes up and freeze ready to heat up for time..Plus my kitchen is trashed. Luckily I have a pressure cooker 6 in 1 so that does help.

Anyone got any great bean recipes apart from dal and Mexican refried beans ? I need some inspiration!

@LadyWithAPlan glad I could help.  

Don’t worry about being disorganised, I’m just as bad. I have the gift of being able to put a pen on an empty desk, turn around and it’ll look like a bomb has hit it.  Despite my best efforts, my kitchen table is always buried in something.  However, small steps make a big difference.  Remember “it ain’t what you do; it’s the way that you do it. That’s what gets results!”.

I can’t remember if you’re a meat eater.  If you are, the BBC’s Southern-Style Pork And Beans is delicious and it’d work just as well with black-eyed beans or pinto beans, instead of the cannellini beans specified. (I’d use 400g-500g cooked weight of beans.).  I’ve also thrown all the ingredients into the slow cooker, without pre-cooking, and it has turned out perfectly.  Incidentally, I use the equivalent weight of cooking bacon instead of gammon, to cut the cost.

Has anyone else been watching Nadiya’s Cook Once Eat Twice?  What do you think of her suggestions for banana-peel curry and potato-peel dauphinois?  I’ve added the book to my Christmas Wish List.  Hopefully, it’ll include all the little money-saving tips she throws in, like adding potato-peel to sauces to thicken them.

Talking about my disorganisation, I am very behind in declaring my shops for October.   £89.37 spent over the last two weeks.  This includes two big shops in L!dl (£26.20 and £14.47), and two shops in Sainsbug's (£9.09 and £15, mainly on yoghurts and fresh veg).  We also scored three £2 coins plus multiple copper coins, which have all gone to the money boxes.  We also stocked up on small brown lentils at MrT’s (4 x £1.30 Clubcard price for 500g), and raided the GC purse for a large portion of chips to accompany a steak dinner (£6.60).

Note:  the second L!dl shop included spending our voucher for “free fruit”.  I bought a 1.3kg hand of bananas (£1.15 original price) and discovered that the voucher has either a maximum weight of 1kg or price of 90p.  Not sure which, yet.

The above brings our total GC spend to £167.50/£180, leaving £12.50 for the rest of the month.

- Pip