A no spend January with limited grocery shopping spend

[MikeRafone]

Im needing a detox from spending for January

Ive cancelled my amazon prime account - for now as I rarely use it until easter so it saves £35

all my bills will go out by direct debit and standing order by 2nd of the month

Im going to set a limit of £4 per person per day for the grocery shopping so £28 per person per week. We have a lot of left overs, some of which im going to freeze for January.

Coffee at home rather than out in a coffee shop, no hitting the sales for stuff no-one else wanted!

Im wanting as many no spend days as possible for January

anyone want to join?

Just one week to go now.

I have managed ok on the whole. Grocery spend was up on my £250 limit, which was to be expected really. As it’s quite a lot of hard work and planning keeping it down.

I also bought my expensive shampoos and DD’s face cream this weekend which was a conscious decision. She was trying to get a cheap one to save money. But I don’t want her skin to suffer, so I support her getting the right one.

and my hair has been horrible for a week as I’ve been using odds and ends of shampoo and conditioner. Possibly should have pushed that spend to feb though.

cost of living crisis is so real though. I have a good salary, have done absolutely no socialising or shopping all month, my only treats have been making nutritious meals for the family, and trying to wash my hair! I even postponed my haircut to next month. And I’m completely at the end of my salary, even dipped into savings a little bit.

£59 at tesco yesterday but no "treats". Need to buy laundry liquid but can probably leave that until Feb. Nearly there!
Will probably relax a bit in Feb as it's a busy month for us, so will definitely have a few ready meals, but aim for 14 nsd.

Well done everyone- not long to go 👏

I know this is all a bit odd but my new year starts today. I've drawn up a budget and used various accounts to envelope stuff. I've used a budgeting app for the last few years but occasionally I 'accidentally' forget to put things on there (when I don't want DH to know about them!). This year is going to be tight though so I really do need to account for every penny.

You've all done so well this month. I hope to follow your success in the coming weeks. Off to do some batch cooking now

Made it to the last week but this is always when the wheels come off for me! Going to try REALLY hard to stay on track.

I’ve got £13 left in the grocery budget (I use YNAB to do a ‘zero dollar budget’ so I do actually have more than £13 in the bank, but that’s what’s left of that pot until 1st Feb). But hopefully I’ll just need bread, milk and some fresh fruit until then.

Baked a banana loaf and some mince pies this morning so we have treats for the next few days. Homemade pizzas for dinner tonight.

No spend day today and I’m aiming for another tomorrow.

I’ve had a no spend day!
and I worked! So £40 in the purse

I spent £1.60on parking yesterday
£6.90 on a step
£3.95 on a late night pub stop 🙈 I was on my way home from babysitting & it’s my local

339.45

10/15

Literally everything gets put on our credit card, which we pay off each month - normally comes in at £900+, this month £649 (and that includes a vet bill of £152) - hopefully we can get it down a bit more, but a good start. Only spent £44 on food for two last week - don't feel like we missed out on anything and we had three meals/snacks - so really pleased with that. Petrol usage is down - normally about £110pm, probably about £40 this month, but I'm the only one driving as DH can't drive for at least six months for health reasons.

I should be able to do my three exercise classes this week - £18 - it'd be cheaper to join a gym but two classes aren't available at gyms, and the other I've done for years and a really nice fun atmosphere. We've got coffee planned out with BIL, but that'll be cheaper than a pub lunch which is the sort of thing we'd normally do.

Im now planning for February meal plan, as I want to keep the grocery shopping low but still have delicious food.

I have so far

Lemon and herb ricotta lasagna one pot cost £6
Goulash cost £6
Char sui pork a one pot wonder really cost £5
Curry spiced hotpot - made with tinned green lentils cost £4

any ideas, with recipes please? I would like another 3 recipes that are easy to freeze

all these should do 6/7 portions as they have a 1kg of meat in some

I have in the freezer already

tarragon chicken, chicken broth soup, Shepards pie, home made pizza, spaghetti bolognaise - 16 portions in total

so don't want to repeat what I already have in as want a variety.

Hunters chicken is a good one to prep and freeze.

Sorry, forgot the link to the recipe! https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/hunters-chicken-0

AlexFurbison

thanks, looks good

Taming twins sausage casserole is a good one

WhitegreeNcandle

thanks

I like taming twins

I use some of her recipes, along with jadebites

Fuming with myself. Had put bids on some travel upgrades but have had an accident that means I can’t travel. Totally forgot about the bids and won so a complete waste of money. I was doing so well this month too. 😩

So

Ive had to order a new dishwasher... £509 including disposal of the old item and installation

And had to wait in all day for the delivery and installation - as its an integral dishwasher

So ive made my meal plan for February & Ive been making bread for the freezer today. Made a brioche loaf, 16 pitta breads and 8 tortilla wraps. Ive got a bread machine and a stand mixer with a dough hook - so it's only a few minutes for each. The cost though is well worth it, its about 50p for the 16 pitta breads, about 25p for the 8 tortilla wraps and about about £1 for the brioche loaf

https://chefjonwatts.com/thai-style-chicken-satay/

https://chefjonwatts.com/chilli-con-carne-sweet-potato-wedges-easy-flatbreads/

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/beef-goulash

https://cooksimply.co.uk/easy-char-siu-fried-rice/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bhuna_murgh_masala_90385

Emily English frittata in a bagel recipe for lunches and jacket potato and tuna

porridge for breakfast with a variety of frozen and tinned fruit - there is a lovely slow cooker oats recipe with tinned sliced apples and cinnamon yummy!

Ive priced the food and doubled the quantities in places to make double - coming in at £130.45 on Sainsbury grocer shop - so I will shop at Aldi and then get the rest at Sainsbury (as Aldi don't sell everything I need) This includes loo paper, kitchen roll, dishwasher tablets! olive oils & some ingredients like mango chutney and curry paste to make bread.

The pitta breads and flat breads are https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tortilla_wraps_70015

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pitta-bread
I divided into 16 and still had large pitta breads, rather than 8 as suggested.

I have already got home made freezer meals in the freezer so will certainly last the month

The flat breads are very easy and are preferred this recipe to the one containing yogurt.

my brioche a bit dented on top and pittas ready for the freezer. I shall slice the brioche & put in the freezer, it’s nice toasted with jam - but like croissant 🥐 toasted

I've made all our bread for years, including pizza bases and flatbread. It's so easy and delicious. I mix different flours together for flavour and texture, so for example, sometimes make pizza bases with a mixture of strong white bread flour and dark rye flour. I also use dark and light spelt, malted, seeded and wholemeal flours.

Whenever I make a loaf I make 2, 3 or 4 in one go, and put the extra in the freezer. Heating the oven costs the same no matter how much is in there!

I haven't tried freezing flatbreads - I just make them when needed, but I will give it a try. And I've frozen pizza dough uncooked before (and other uncooked doughs) and it works well.

My freezer currently contains beef chilli and mixed bean chilli, dahl and 4 boxes of homemade veg stock. I've taken out some leek and ham pasta sauce for dinner tomorrow, and a big container of vegetable and barley soup came out last night. I had some for lunch today and we will all have the rest for dinner with rye bread and cheese.

You have inspired me to try some new recipes for the freezer @MikeRafone !!

That’s good to know @MikeRafone , I will give them a try as my kids don’t like my homemade flatbreads normally and the yoghurt ones do tend to come out a bit dense when I make them.

BandedSnail

I have frozen pizza dough with a coating of semolina, all rolled out ready to go, or I freeze the entire pizza and add the cheese before putting in the oven

If I am freezing the pizza dough I roll it out, dust in semolina and cook in the oven for 6/7 minutes, I do this in batches with a few pizza bases. I make the bases small - so they are a dainty dish for one!

I have a bread machine that I have stopped using as we weren't getting through the bread - but the idea of baking the bread, slicing and putting in the freezer made sense - even if we just freeze half the loaf

I did use the dough hook for 8 minutes on both flatbreads and pitta breads - as it's easier than by hand - they did come out much better. Just weighed everything into the stand mixer bowl and pressed start.

I think I'm just fed up of wasting food and having to cook daily - this way it's far cheaper, less waste, far less cooking. I want to eat home cooked decent tasty food, so this is the solution. Especially if it brings the grocery shopping down to under £150 per month

@MikeRafone thanks for sharing all the recipe links. I made porridge (on the hob and added frozen berries) for the kids this morning but apple and cinnamon porridge in the slow cooker sounds amazing - definitely going to try that.

Made some changes at work that would mean I’d save money each month and would be more available to cook from scratch but have had an accident that will take a couple of weeks until I’m mobile again so had to order food like pizza that can just be shoved in the oven. £90 emergency shop didn’t look very impressive!

Last pay of the month today.

January statistics

• £800 less than usual spent*
• replaced £500 I borrowed from savings for Christmas
• paid the Christmas food (£150) credit card bill completely
• forked out £600 for car repairs
• manged to save £500

*a lot of those savings come from groceries but also petrol (I haven't had to put any in our non-work car this month) and fripperies & child related costs. I'm close to finishing lots of our bulk items (shampoo/cat food/washing powder/screen wash etc) so those savings won't continue to be so good but I feel on a much more even keel wrt spending

I did managed to earn about £400 more than usual but that will certainly be reduced through February and the saving money is in anticipation of another frugal month. I hope not to have to un-save it!

However I had to replace our dishwasher yesterday so that's £250 down on the month ahead already.

• 2 cups oats
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups milk
• Sainsbury own apple slices
• Pinches brown sugar (or maple syrup/honey to taste)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp salt
• Nonstick cooking spray or butter for greasing the pot
• Optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract, a pinch of nutmeg, or a handful of raisins/dried cranberries

Instructions
Generously coat the inside of your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray or grease it with butter to prevent the oats from sticking.Add all ingredients (oats, water, milk, apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt) to the slow cooker.
Mix thoroughly to ensure everything is evenly distributed. Cover the slow cooker with the lid and cook on the low setting for 4-6 hours. Cooking times can vary, so it is recommended to do a test run during the day first to determine the exact time needed for your appliance.
Serve warm with optional toppings such as chopped nuts, extra apple slices, or a drizzle of maple syrup.

@AlexFurbison this was how I cooked my apple and cinnamon oats - I used sweet cinnamon and didn't add any sugar, but did add yogurt

Thanks so much @MikeRafone

Sorry if this is already been covered but does anybody do a monthly shop? If so, do you tend to buy pretty much everything in stock your fridges and freezers and pantry and then just top up with milk and bread or do you just buy dried goods/ no perishables for the month and then buy fresh stuff maybe weekly?

We do a monthly (or so) Costco shop, and then go to a greengrocers on a Saturday.

As well as being a bit cheaper, we think it has saved us a lot of money on unnecessary purchases. For example my DH sometimes used to stop off on the way home from work to buy some beer or wine, and then as he was invariably hungry, add crisps, some nice cheese, chocolate buttons for me, dog treats, etc to his basket. Now he has a good stock of alcohol in the house he just comes straight home.

It was also great when lockdown started - we had good stocks of pasta, rice, bread flour, tinned toms, chickpeas, dog food, toilet roll, toothpaste, etc and so didn't have to join the panic buyers.