November 2024 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Hi folks, here are my tallies for the first part of the month. I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree and need to calm the hell down. 

Mr. Jings spent £56.20 at Morrisons on October 31st stocking the fridge for my return from New York. I’m counting it towards the November budget. 

£27.55 spent at the monthly farmers market on Sunday on sausages, scones, salad greens, meat pies. 

£4.74 at Savers for dishwashing salt crystals and rinse aid. 

£33.95 at M & S on berries, bananas, apples, various sausages, mozzarella, butter, yoghurt, and other bits. 

£2.99 at Savers this afternoon for a bottle of Listerine 

£125.43 / £375.00 spent. £249.57 remaining. 

I’ve put in a Tesco order that’s arriving on Saturday morning. That should be around £125. It’s full of comfort food to alleviate results of the US election. FEH. Have a good day y’all. 

weenancyinAmerica

I may have to buy only comfort food for the next four years. Lots of pain du chocolat from Aldi's. Bacon and cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, chicken salad sandwiches. Lots of it.

LotsOfTea

First spend of the month today is £78.48 on a shopping delivery. I've restocked fruit and veg, cheese and ham, butter and peanut butter and most crucially dishwasher tablets!

I made the mistake of reading Ultra Processed People this week and my what an eye-opener it was! It did inspire me to look at how I can reduce the amount of UPF in my diet but the main problem is that every swap is either more labour intensive or more expensive. Today's example was the coconut milk I ordered. Most brands were UPF and the cheapest one that was all natural was £2 a can.  Oh well, let's see how it goes.

£78.48/£300

thriftwizard

You won't look back once you've "hacked" the substitutions, @LotsOfTea; you will feel lots better. My neighbour's been doing this for a while now & found it frustrating at first, probably because she was trying to stick to their old "style" of eating, but has worked out various ways & means now.

A very moderate spend of £33.36 to report today, between the butcher & the supermarket; more was spent at the Grape Tree and the local health food shop, but they were festive supplies. Ooops, just realised that I should add another £8.70 for a tray of FR eggs from the farm shop whilst picking up poultry supplies, which I know really are free-range; you can see the chickens from the car park! Oh, and 30p for some somewhat soft plum tomatoes at the greengrocer, whilst picking up carrot leaves for the chickens. They were added to some "feral" tomatoes from the allotment that have been ripening in the conservatory since the parent plants went down with blight, plus a few tiny home-grown shallots, and made a splendid Mediterranean Tomato & Spinach side this evening, eaten with baked potatoes & leftover Chicken & Butterbean Jalfrezi. So I'm up to £176.62 before running riot for fish, fruit & veg at the market tomorrow; I was away in Wales last weekend and the fruit bowl, veg rack & salad drawer are virtually empty! 

LadyWithAPlan

Mrs_Cheshire said:

Does anyone have any good meal ideas for chicken drumsticks - either uncooked or already cooked ones. I've got loads of packs

I think marinate in spices (you can add yogurt as well too if you want - then roast in oven, served with rice and peas. and my fav Cholula hot sauce.
Or roast plain and then strip meat for fajita night .

@Nelliegrace that baking makes me want to run into the kitchen and get my GF flour out and start!!

All this LIDL box talk is making me sad as my local Lidl closed down earlier this year .... and the aldi is not that near.

Grocery spend £18.71 this month (£0 bulk) and  £10.90 junk crisps /sweets
I have been eating down the freezer/fridge as was meant to go on a work trip this week that I then decided not to and the ice in my freezer would be best in the Antartic..Had lots of YS meats, frozen veg and frozen uncooked beans in there plus some odd bits of batch cooking left overs.  So hopefully will be empty this weekend for a proper defrost.

 I had to get toilet rolls and w/up liquid today  so grabbed frozen spinach, some fresh herbs, more dried beans.. bought a couple of YS J Oliver curry sauce pots - I normally make my own sauces but they were reduced and also I am needing to get ,maximum taste and a changeup  in my food as all the beans and stews are getting a bit dull given I am on this slow carb 6 days/week.

My 6 in 1 pressure cooker has been on every day this last few weeks - saute-ing and then bean/ meat stews etc and making stocks. I definitely generally eat according to the weather, salads in the summer now its all warm foods.

SausageDogSandwich

Thanks @elsiepac for the new challenge, late to join again.

£350 for November please 

Thanks 

Suffolk_lass

weenancyinAmerica said:

I may have to buy only comfort food for the next four years. Lots of pain du chocolat from Aldi's. Bacon and cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, chicken salad sandwiches. Lots of it.

You poor thing @weenancyinAmerica. Heartfelt best wishes. Chocolate oranges too maybe? to remind you how useful chocolate teapots are.

diminua

£109.76 spent - including some mince pies and a bottle of English red which is drinkable if I chill it and think of it as rosé- I don't know why we try to do red wine in this country, it very rarely comes off. 

weenancyinAmerica

@Suffolk_lass - Added chocolate oranges to my supply list. May have to rethink being a non-drinker. One roommate is already hitting the vodka. I may have to lay in a supply of strong tea.

carboot_karaoke

Evening all, 

Just returned from a twilight visit to Lidl. Predictably,  the place had been ran sacked but still got most of my list.

Spent £60.34 including a free twinpack of mango's and a belgian bun which I've just enjoyed washed down with a gin and tonic 😄.

I also brought a large pork joint for Sunday roast, 1kg chicken breast, 2x mince beef, large block of cheese, 15 FR eggs, lots of fruit and veg . 

New totals £308.36 / £600

Food £257.36 / £420

Petrol £51 / £180