January's No Food Shopping Challenge 2025

abundant1972

Confession time

Had flu and feeling sorry for myself not a good combo. I couldn't face a repeat of the same foods and so I bought pizza. I did at least reel in outrage when I saw what delivery pizza stuff costs (like £10+ for the pizza, £2.50 for a 1.25l bottle of fizz and £5.49 for garlic bread) - so went out and got the lot for well under a tenner. 

So whilst I broke my run - if it enables me to plough on with the rest of the challenge then I count it as a necessary evil haha. I'm certainly well within my budget as have saved loads. 

No Food Shopping Days = 13 
Spend Days = 1

Have a good day folks x

EitherWalnut

Hey all! Sorry for the radio silence on my part - I've been away for a few days so absolutely not using up anything in my cupboards! I must confess though that I have come home with a bag full of chocolate 🫣 Back at it tomorrow starting with something random I will pull out of the freezer for lunch.

One blip won't undo everything you've achieved so far @abundant1972 - I hope you feel better soon! (Let me know what amount you want me to put in if you want me to update the spend tracker on the first post.)

Can you believe we're almost halfway through the month?

abundant1972

Good morning! 

Thanks EitherWalniut. The treat night spend came to £9.50. Do I need to go back and work out how much I have spent on staples (the 5 allowed foods) too? Let me know 😉 

Back on the band wagon now. Had noodles and tuna last night, will be soup and a sandwich for lunch and last portion of chilli and rice for dinner. Spotted 2 x avocados I need to use up which will be nice on toast with some eggs I have in. 

No Food Shopping Days = 12
Spend Days = 3

PS. Amended spend days to include those days I bought stuff off my staples list. 

Thriftymissus

Am plodding along nicely. I have spent £8.80 though. This included bread and replacing some biscuits that my partner buys for him (and I don’t even like that much!) before he comes back from working away this week! 

Ate from what I have in today, overcame temptation to go and spend on buying new things for lunch. Should be okay tomorrow as well, touch wood! If I can keep going the best I can until Jan 31st, without adding to the £8.80, I’ll consider that a big achievement 😄

AnotherNewDay

Woohoo - have made it to the halfway point. Am out of bread now, unless I make some. Expecting it to be even harder with more interesting meal choices in the 2nd half 

abundant1972

Good evening! 

Had some long awaited news and a job offer so celebrated with a few treats to much on tonight with the rice and frozen veg haha. That takes my spend total up to £18.50

Fridge and freezer looking quite sparse so should be able to defrost at weekend 🎉

No Food Shopping Days = 12
Spend Days = 4

EitherWalnut

Good evening all!

@Thriftymissus - making it halfway through the month having spent less than a tenner on the food shop is still a pretty big achievement! 

@AnotherNewDay - I look forward to hearing of some of your more interesting combinations!

@abundant1972 - Congratulations on the job offer!  It's also so satisfying to be able to defrost the freezer and *properly* clean out the fridge. I won't include the purchase of your chosen staples in your total unless you specifically want me to.

I am not going to count the chocolate that I bought while I was away as I'm classing that as a holiday spend rather than food shopping.  It will give me a few nice treats to have over the next while though.  Yesterday, breakfast was free on the ferry on my way back, and I swiped a few extra snacks from the lounge to have with lunch.  Lunch ended up being my leftovers from the restaurant a couple of nights previous, and then I was rushing away after work to see Boyzlife (Keith Duffy from Boyzone and Brian McFadden from Westlife) so my pal had bought me some chips for tea.  Today I'm back on it like a car bonnet - slightly stale eccles cake for breakfast, and a tin of beans from the cupboard for lunch.  Dinner was some leftover party food from the freezer - salmon fishcake things and cheesy bacon potato things.  Not a vegetable in sight - must work on that as I do have some slightly sad greens in the bottom of the fridge.  Out of milk now, so herbal tea (or gin perhaps?) in the evenings for the foreseeable. Still haven't tackled the rice pudding... Maybe tomorrow is the day!

AnotherNewDay

@EitherWalnut - tonight's dinner is chicken with risotto rice, leeks, carrot and yellow pepper with Arrabbiata mix seasoning.
I also managed to pick up some Olio bread and sultana scones today

Thriftymissus

@Thriftymissus - making it halfway through the month having spent less than a tenner on the food shop is still a pretty big achievement! 

Thank you for taking the time to say that. And if by two-thirds through, (Tuesday-ish) it’s still a similar amount, that’s really good going as well, isn’t it x

EitherWalnut

Good evening all!

@AnotherNewDay - that actually sounds quite delicious - I am personally quite partial to a risotto!  Good job on the Olio finds as well - I'm a squad captain for my local store so I'm always delighted to hear of people using the app.

@Thriftymissus - I think it sounds like you're doing brilliantly! Any saving is an achievment, and moreso if you're also preventing food waste IMO.

I finally tackled the rice pudding yesterday - took a tin of rice pudding and a tin of fruit cocktail into work and had half of each mixed together for lunch. Was surprisingly filling!  Will possibly eat the rest this evening for dessert - or maybe tomorrow morning's breakfast.  Still another three tins of rice pudding in the cupboard though...!  Tonight's dinner is sausages from the freezer, served with a small amount of instant mashed potato found in the back of the cupboard, and roasted sweetheart cabbage wedges with some capers and parsley.  To drink, I'm having a gin and tonic from a gin club box that has been sitting unopened since the late summer. Happy Saturday folks!