July 2018 Grocery Challenge

After a slightly non- keeping track of things May and June I'm back on track (hopefully) for July.

Started the month with a freezer thawing disaster but on the plus side, now that I've had to clear it out, it can be properly organised, and I actually know what's in it for a change

Target for July is £250 x

Clocked up a whopping £6.29 yesterday on ingredients for a chocolate cake for my sister's birthday :eek: - a luxury Mary Berry chocolate cake, what she requested, but hopefully it won't melt!

She definitely deserves it, but it put a dent in my new, smaller budget!

Some of it was store cupboard, as I had to buy a whole new tin of cocoa powder, which will last me for years, and a pack of self raising, but the dark chocolate and double cream were a one-off expense :rotfl:

Hey, I'd like to join if I may.

My budget for the month is £200 for myself, plus my other half 3 evenings and one day a week (so 4 meals + 1 breakfast a week.) I've already spent £84.60 on a big home delivery - but that's got me a very well stocked cupboard, plus enough alcohol to last the entire month. (Yay, 25% off 6 bottles of wine at Tesco again!). I tend to do my weekly shop online, at just over £40 a week, plus one 'double' week, when I buy all the booze for the month and top up basics. I find it difficult to get to the shops and the minimum order for most deliveries is £40, so going beneath that isn't an option. I'd ideally like to get it to £160 for the month, without cutting out too much alcohol!

I only have a small chest freezer, so batch cooking or stocking up on fresh meat bargains etc is difficult. To top it all off, I'm a vegetarian and my partner is a meat eater, so I tend to find myself cooking properly for him and bunging in a quorn fillet or similar for myself about once a week, which works out quite expensive!

I'd love to hear any easy meals that can be made meaty or vegetarian. I tend to do stir fry (I cook his meat separate) and fajitas (meat for him, beans for me) a lot, as they're easy to do both ways. He also quite likes veggie tortellini/raviolis, though I sometimes fry off some pancetta to top his off.

This week, my goal is to make a whole bunch of fajita/taco seasoning, instead of buying packets. I've been putting it off as spending £4-5 on spices seems more expensive than 50p for a packet - but I know I can make a large batch so it'll be cheaper overall, and we do eat them a lot. Hopefully I can work that into my budget!

NSD for me today grocery wise. The garden kindly gave me a courgette, some rhubarb which I stewed and froze in "add to yogurt" sized lumps and a handful of peas.

K80 what about home made pizza? Jack Monroe's basic pizza dough is so easy to make (and freezes really well incidentally). The recipe if you search for it is for penny pizzas but I make the same dough and use it to make individual pizzas for myself and the House Troll. I like spicy tomato puree and plenty of veg on mine and he doesn't. Special fried rice is another one - add veg, beansprouts etc and just put his meat in at the end like you do for stir fries.

£33 today mainly on F&V, fresh stuff and some bits for son staying & bbq at the weekend. Total so far £48/£150