March 2025 Grocery Challenge

Nelliegrace

March Budget £155.

£5 a day for two pensioners. Meat ration £3 each a week.

I am still using the tins, jars, and packets from over stocked store cupboards, and the portions of meat and fish, and the last of the cheese and butter in the freezer. I have 2 dozen eggs in pots in the freezer just in case we get bird flu locally.

https://defra.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8cb1883eda5547c6b91b5d5e6aeba90d

We have apples stored in the garage still. We have an unopened sack of white bread flour well in date, and some bags of white and wholemeal to use up soon.  

Pancake Day on the 4th, Lent starts on the 5th. I try to use up all of the dried pulses for frugal meals in Lent. 

AnotherNewDay

I'm going to join for March...aiming for £100 for the month again. This is split as £50 for 2 hungry cats and £50 food/toiletries/household for 1 adult human woman

patentgirl

Thank you @elsiepac for starting thread 

Please put me down for £250 for March.

my budget covers 1st to 31st March for 2 adults but will be doing couple family meals (12) and feeding grandchildren (5) numerous times over course of month massive overspend last month under budget in January which I am hoping to recreate. Good luck everyone 

Suffolk_lass

Working_Mum said:

Thanks @elsiepac for starting March's GC.

I read along for February and would like to join in for March please. I am a divorced mum to two grown up children (S26 and D23). They still live at home but often spend time at their partners houses during the week. They both work at fabulous restaurants so their food needs from home are quite limited (a certain yoghurt for my son, Qu0rn for my D). We have a gorgeous cockerpoo who eats for England but never puts on any weight (lucky thing!)

Food at home is a real area of weakness for me - I have been working on it (for a few years) and can now cope (just) with the sight of an empty fridge or treat drawer! I looked back through my budgeting book and my monthly food bills last year ranged from £330  through  to £650! 

I am planning to retire in 2 years so have been practising working to my fixed income figure. So I set a budget of £260 for food etc February and came in at £224.51 which I am thrilled with and I don't feel as if I have gone without!! 

This thread definitely helped keep me focussed. Thank you everyone.

((WM))

£250 for March - it's a five week month at £50pw. 
£60 for dog food, laundry products, toothpaste and deodorant.

Welcome @Working_Mum, it sounds as though you are also getting a grip on your spending, with that underspend. I also keep my animal and livestock costs outside my GC. I still track them, but I don't report them. My bill is GC (mostly in a supermarket, butcher and small local top ups), Direct debits (delivered milk is my godsend, keeping me out of the shops; my weakness) and storecupboard - the non-perishables that I buy multiples of when they are on offer. My budget (for two of us) is £3000 for the year. I try to underspend to add to December, and so far I am at £374.49 to the end of February

RandomOne

Welcome @Working_Mum. This is only my second month doing the GC and it's actually been so helpful. Good luck with March  

My March GC starts today. Having done a freezer inventory yesterday, i know that i have enough meat for the month. I picked up a lot of yellow sticker meat and am so pleased with some of the bargains i got. 

So spending in March is going to be focused on fruit, veg and tinned goods. I'm also working a LOT of hours next week, so i need to make sure i pack a lunch instead of dropping into Tesco on the way to work to get a meal deal. 

I think I'm going to make sure that every meal i make has enough leftovers for my lunch the next day. I'll bulk out meals with veggies etc to make sure I'm bulking them out at a minimal cost. I'm going to write at least 2 weeks of meals later, including breakfats and lunches. 

TravelCrystal

Morning all
While I have five minutes thought I would report March spends so far!

Ocado:  £15.50 Meal deal (pies and chips)
granary flour, b beans and custard powder plus portion of delivery charge

Lidl:  £62.75  Cheese, soy, honey, marg, toothpaste, ll milk, evaporated milk, frozen f and v, holiday food, fresh f and v and other dairy.

£1 shop, £1 kitchen roll

Total Spend £79.25/£400

Next week we are eating out a fair bit as it’s D.H birthday.
So fingers crossed for this month’s budget 
Good luck to everyone

T.C

GSDMum

Hi, please can I join in?

So far I've been getting more economical since the New Year, cooking up the Christmas over-shop and batch cooking. I cook for Hubby who's 81, and me of course, I'm 71.Think it's important to keep our protein levels up at our age. 

In January I spent £361.21 (£11.65 a day) in groceries, February £277.25 (£9.90 a day). To be fair I did a lot of batch cooking in January, of which dishes are still available in the freezer. We've not bought any alcohol since last summer, which has brought the bills down quite a bit, it's also good for our health. I've also stopped buying the multitude of cleaning stuff, preferring nowadays to use my own cleaning recipe of a dash of washing up liquid in a spray bottle of white vinegar, infused with a stick of cinnamon, this is turning out to be an easy saving. 

In comparison, we spent £6402.48 during the whole of 2024 - That's a whopping £17.54 a day...... crumbs 

March I've set my target at £217, that's £7.00 a day. 

Hoping to come in under this amount as we'll be mainly eating from the freezer. 

PipneyJane

Count me in, please @elsiepac.  Thank you for the new thread.  We have £5 leftover from February.

Please put my March GC Budget at £165.

 That’s for all supermarket shopping for two adults and covers virtually all meals, since we both take lunches to work.  Our month will run from 1st to 31st.

Many thanks.

- Pip

Soontobeoap

Hi all
 Started March a day early. Spent £44.00 in Aldi on a week's shopping. That should be it as long as I don't let DH lose on his own!🤣 Also went to M and S with £40.00 worth of vouchers that we were given to us the Christmas before last. Seems a shame that they were just languishing in a drawer so I bought 3 lots of beef minced  ( will make into pasties,shepherds pies and lasagnas for the freezer tomorrow Also going to try Cowboy mince with rice), 2 pks smoked bacon, 2 individual steak and kidney puddings, reduced sweet and sour chicken Meal that I will make fried rice to go with, some satsumas and a large trifle as a treat for DH to try and stop him buying chocolate bars and biscuits as we are both trying to diet. ( I know!! Cakes and trifles aren't usually included in diets but it will stop him charging off to the shops in a week moment. Now all I need to do is sort out the freezer and make up the meals. Also hoping to make up some cakes to add to the freezer to feed DHs sweet tooth! 

thriftwizard

Thank you for our shiny new thread, @elsiepac! I'm havering - I could try for £500 again this month, it's a 4-weeker and there are 4 of us living here at present, one of those fairly, but unpredictably, part-time... that'd be £125 each, should be manageable... BUT, family contingencies! Oh go on, it might not happen; nothing ventured, nothing gained... so

£500 

again please! I'll stop talking to myself now...