January 2025 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Good evening All. Welcome to the new starters!

I have a small shop to declare from today:  £11.37 spent in L!dl.  I went in looking for a hot water bottle and came out with 2x200g tubs of Options white hot chocolate mix (£1.99), some chorizo, a YS salami (50p), 1.4kg loose bananas (£1.27), 2 jars of pasta sauce (69p each), but no hot water bottle….

Tried another L!dl, but they didn’t have any hot water bottles either.

The above brings our total GC spend to £102.37/£160 leaving £57.63 for the rest of the month.

ManiacalRed said:

Hi everyone newbie here, I know I'm a week in and just starting this but not doing a full shop this month. Running down the freezer and cupboards. Done an inventory earlier today, filled 4 pages of my notebook.
Have enough carbs to last the month, then some.
Might have enough meat, will see how it goes, I the freezer I have gammon steaks, minced beef, chicken and some smoked haddock that i dont really know what to do with its been in there for well over a year but is all sealed and looks edible.
Only hoping to spend on veg once the frozen veg is run down, Bread, milk, butter and eggs. 
Setting myself a budget of £50 for the rest of the month. Starting today £4.14 on milk, butter and toothpaste. £45.86 left.

@ManiacalRed - how about making a kedgeree with the smoked haddock?

Soontobeoap said:

Just a quick post.I am so excited that I needed to tell people who would understand. Decided on a new strategy to start this year so before Christmas I bought up as much quality meat on half price offers that I could afford in my yearly budget. 

Then the family descended and I lost all track of what I had used, grabbing what I could to cobble a meal together and freezing large amounts of food because plans were constantly changing.

Just done a freezer inventory and nothing has been thrown away or wasted.  4 whole shelves are full of meat, fish etc that will see us through into March I think with just a few supplements.Everything can be broken down into smaller amounts for meals for 2. Some of the beefburgers may need to be made into meatballs or even used as mince for lasagna or shepherds pie as we do have rather a lot. I am now excited to see how inventive I can be with using it all.

Well done @Soontobeoap !  That’s very well organised of you.

- Pip

time2change_2

So far this month I've spent £25 on groceries last week 5/1, £19 on groceries so far this week and £9 from the bulk fund on dishwasher salt, soap, toothpaste, paracetamol/aspirin. 

Spent so far is £44 out of £80 and £9 out of £20. Budget is £40 a week on groceries and £10 into bulk buy (which covers anything not bought regularly - washing powder/dishwasher tablets/ toilet rolls/ cleaning stuff etc etc.)

BudgetingBelinda

308/550 that should cover me for the week upcoming and the freezer is full so I may just stay in budget yet?! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

t14cy_t

determined_new_ms said:

t14cy_t said:

determined_new_ms said:

t14cy_t said:

no spends to report but collected from olio the last twom evenings, most people dont want to traipse out after dark so only 2 takers to collect from me. leaves me lots of bits to use up! nothing wasted here. xx

how did you get into this and what is the work that's involved? Super curious! Only discovered it in the last week and already have had £20 worth of food! Last night we had roasted caulflower (Olio) soup (enough for another 3 or 4 bowls so dinner tonight and lunch for 1 or two of us), with paninis (again Olio). Loving it so much! Do you have a lot of waste? 

hi, go onto the olio app and apply to be a fwh, food waste hero, you just answer a few questiuons and off you go. if i can do it anyone can!

Do you have to go and collect? How big a time commitment is it and what do you see as the benefits? Thanks! 

hi, yes you collect from the shop and put up for collection on app. you get to keep 10% of collection and anything not collected. very easy to do. i get to try lots of things i wouldnt normally buy and get to know the collectees. win win!

wishus

Bigger shop done. £46.43 leading to £109/149 spent, but that's the toiletries and cat food all sorted, too.

I have got some cash to add if needs be, but will try to stick to this as best as I can. The freezer is very full, so no excuse. 

Meal plan for the week:

Breakfast - porridge 
Lunch - chicken and spinach sandwich, nuts, hummus, carrots. 

Lots of yellow stickers enhancing the choices this week!
Dinner:
Mon: peppered steak burger and wedges. 
Tue: pizza with posh artichokes!
Wednesday: chicken sausage stew. 
Thursday: sweet cured mackerel 

On my own at the weekend so will look again then at what I have, but I generally eat veggie meals when by myself. I have some leftover pumpkin puree in the freezer that would be good in ravioli or a risotto. 

zafiro1984

Over the last few days, when a needed to sit down due to a bad back I spent time on the supermarket websites sorting out   a) what I needed and  b) what I use but was on special offer. So yesterday armed with a list I split my shopping between two supermarkets. I spent a total of £47.63 but saved £44.29. Apart from the bits I need for this coming week it was either put in the cupboards or frozen. The best buys were items left over from Christmas and still in their Christmas wrappings. I actually managed to stick to my list which pleased me as much as the savings I made. 

Total so far £128.46/£150

TravelCrystal

Afternoon everyone

I put the rest of the guinea fowl from the freezer in the slow cooker with lots of veggies for our tea tonight.
It is smelling lovely while I am typing this.
Will use the last of the 8p sprouts to go with it later.

So today I decided to do two weeks worth of shopping, trying to keep petrol costs down.
Just to Lidl's, first shop during January

Just managed to secure a free cake and a bag of potatoes c/o the ap. Bought cat food, which is on a separate budget to just go over the £50 spend

Also took advantage of the 40p off their laundry liquid even though I won't start it until next month.

I should have bought most of the things we need for the month.
Will have a small top up from Asda later in the month to which I can walk.
One thing I will need is Haggis and swede as we always have this on Burn's night as an excuse to have a tot of whiskey.

Both of us have Scottish heritage in the distant past 

Mostly spent the money on lots of fruit and veg, butter, cheese, milk, yoghurt, sausages, corned beef and bacon.
I also needed pasta and macaroni and cashew nuts for my muesli mix.



Bargain total cost of £46.08
Total spend so far this month £144.76/£200

Enjoy your week folk's

T.C

Soontobeoap

No more spends today but I took all of the left over meat off of the leg of lamb that I cooked yesterday for lunch.There is enough for the 2 of us to have 3 hotpots out of it. So 4 lamb meals for £16.00. DH loves lamb so I am happy with that. Portioned up and put in the freezer. Tonight I cooked up the mash to top a shepherds pie but made too much. We have so much bubble and squeak etc so I opened 2 tins of tuna from store cupboard and made it into fish cakes with a few herbs and an egg. This is where I have done a little experiment. The mixture was very sloppy so I threw in a few oats! I just hope that they don't go to solid when cooked!🤣. Hopefully they will be OK.

The cake I made yesterday has stopped DH popping to the shop for chocolate today. Long may it last.

AnotherNewDay

I've now done my first grocery shop of the year, but managed to keep it just to the cats' food = £17.56. I also had spend at the end of |Dec which falls under this budget, so my total is now £76.42. All being well, this will also be the last spend for the month - fingers crossed!!

t14cy_t

 olio collection last night so plenty for fruit and veg around.