March 2025 Grocery Challenge

RandomOne

Good morning. I need to go shopping again today. I wont need any meat, we still have plenty in the freezer. I'm going to make a list and stick to it. 

I might try Aldi for the first time today. I've heard that their fruit & veg can be a bit hit and miss and i dont want to waste money on fruit and veg that goes bad quickly. Does anyone shop at Aldi and can let me know please?

I'm also going to write a meal plan for the week before i go, and will do some meal prep this aternoon. 

t14cy_t

spends of £53 today over morrisons, aldi and b and m. total £100/£200 so far. olio came good last night for odds and ends.

SausageDogSandwich

A few small spends and the big shop delivery last night means I’ve already spent £89.98/350.

Blackcats

First shop of the month was done yesterday.  It's always a big shop to start the month as we use our 10% off voucher at lidlsto stock up on store cupboard ingredients.
i've been inspired by the batch cooking tv programme as it's reminded me of the time saving and money saving from batch cooking.  So this month I'm going to freeze a batch cooked meal a week so that in the last week of the month I'll have 4 "free" dinners.  This week will be a big slow cooker stew which I hope will be cook once, eat twice this week and once at the end of the month.

Soontobeoap

@RandomOne I regularly shop at Aldi. I find their fruit and veg is as reliable as other supermarkets. Make sure you check it over properly as you would anywhere and you should be OK. Particular bargains are their wonky mushrooms. I buy the biggest box I can get and then cut and freeze what I don't use. Their 39p bag of carrots are particularly good value. A bag of 6 or 7 onions is 95p and look out for their swedes which are priced per swede but vary greatly in size you can often get good value there. I love their mini Tom's and salad stuff. Spring onions stay fresh longer than other supermarkets which I shall not name. An added bonus is that I always walk out of the door surprised at how little the bill was. p.s their meat is good too.

AnimalTribe

I've never had a problem with Aldi fruit and veg. I've also been lucky with Lidl £1.50 veg boxes when they've been available. 

£88.13 spent over the Co-op, Sainsbury's and Aldi (including a lot of dog food). 

Doom_and_Gloom

Doom_and_Gloom said:

£149.86/£248.
£98.14 left.

£1.25 in Waitr*se on 2 pints of whole milk for OH.

£151.11/£248.
£96.89 left.

thriftwizard

Slightly startled to pop in to report a £14.35 top-up spend today, and discover it's my first spend of the month! But  actually that's right, as I'd not been to the shops since Friday & that was counted in February's budget. The chicken I bought on Thursday & roasted on Sunday fed us last night in a casserole & will do so again tomorrow in a stir-fry, plus I've made a big stock from the carcass & bendy veg. The Girls have been laying like the clappers so we had omelette this evening, and I took a pack of left-over slow-cooked ham scraps out of the freezer to brighten up the omelettes for us omnivores (DD2 had mushrooms instead) and lunchtime salads, plus make a pasta sauce on Thursday. So not much needed now until this weekend's shop on Thursday/Friday. 

My celery at the allotment is providing a welcome blast of flavour at this time of year - never grown it before, did everything wrong, but it's turned out great anyway, so I will grow again - alongside our fairly tiny but tasty leeks, tree cabbages, chard & kale. All took a long time to get going, as the plot was used as an ornamental garden for 20 years previously & the soil is very shallow, stony & depleted, but we're getting there now. Plus there's parsley in the little greenhouse, and chives dotted all around the place. I've got cracking on a series of pallet-collar beds on the stoniest, shallowest part; our local Scrapstore had them for £5 each, much cheaper than they're being sold elsewhere around here. And we produce lots of compost! So I also have perennial leeks, broad beans & shallots coming up, have sown carrots & beetroot, and have even put some spuds in one of the beds, well covered over. The pallet collars will be lifted & redeployed elsewhere once I've established a decent depth of soil. Tomatoes & chillis are up & about in the conservatory & DD2's raiding my seed collection & planting mad amounts of stuff - she's going to need a plot of her own! Anyway - all should cut the food bills down & keep us in vitamins, fibre & fresh air, going forward. 

PS - just discovered air-fried bread! Who knew?! 2nd rise in the fridge overnight, then into the Ninja first thing while I sort the cats, chickens & cockatiel out, & there's fresh delicious bread for breakfast, without tablespoons of sugar like the recent bread-makers are demanding for some reason.

K9sandFelines

£12.59 spent to take advantage of the 50% off pancake ingredients at the Co-@p, and the £10 off Just E@t code. 
This is what I got below. Only the eggs are for when DGD visits. I don't think I did too bad.I probably wouldn't have normally bought the Biscoff; but I've only got marmalade in the fridge, no other spreads, so it can be cracked open when that's gone.The rest of the ingredients will be used up for baking. I have pancakes all the time ( albeit mostly American style), so not making any today.

JingsMyBucket

A very early morning hello from the bus up to Edinburgh. I just finished eating one of the wraps I made for eating today. The second will be eaten before another event at 6:00pm today. People don’t feed you at meetups / networking events anymore! I’ve also got various fruit and snacks to last me through the day. 

Anyway, I have one spend from yesterday. £18.31 at M & S for arugula, cherry tomatoes, clementines, bananas, tortilla wraps, YS tikka curry and a lamb rogan josh curry. 

The curries were for an easy dinner last night due busyness of prepping for my trip and finishing client work. I pulled a homemade spinach side dish and a garlic naan out of the freezer to accompany my dinner. 

£111.09 / £350 spent. £238.91 total remaining. 

£34.15 of bulk funds left.  

The house is fully supplied and there’s no real reason for Mr. Jings to shopping while I’m gone. He’s got lots of easy food for him to eat. We shall see though.