May 2025 Grocery Challenge

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon Everyone,  

I'm popping on to declare another spend for today at Asda. I brought salad, cucumber and coleslaw for todays dinner. Mushrooms,  eggs and hash browns for tomorrow's brunch.  A bottle of squash and a reduced Gym Kitchen meal for my lunch tomorrow   Total spent £11.47. 

New totals £ 204.38 / £470

TravelCrystal

@LiveSimply, don’t know if this helps but I get my spices, nuts, oats and dried fruit at Grape Tree. They have quite good offers. If you spend £35 or more delivery is free.

C_J

Another visit to my favourite community fridge where I got the following for the £1 donation:

Baking potatoes
Salad potatoes
Onions
Carrots
Parsnips
Cauliflower
Asparagus
Cabbage
1 small pumpkin-like fancy squash
Bag of stir fry mix
Bag of fresh Singapore noodles
Bag of beansprouts
Bag of watercress
1 pack 4 cooked beetroot
Bag of shredded iceberg lettuce
Bag of forced rhubarb
Celery
2 avocadoes
Lemons
Fancy cherry tomatoes
Mushrooms
4 hot cross buns
1 sliced Hovis granary loaf
1 small sliced sourdough loaf
1 pack skewered spiced prawns
4 lamb samosas
1 Tesco Greek salad ready meal
1 Pret chicken sandwich
1 Pret brie, bacon and chilli relish sandwich
2 packs cheese and onion crisps
1 pot of mint (looking a bit ropey, but it may perk up now it has been planted in the herb garden)
1 bunch of long stemmed yellow roses

The prawns and stir fry bits will be used up tonight and tomorrow, and there's plenty there for various soups and salads over the next few days. I might stuff the pumpkin-like squash with some rice and veg and roast it, not sure yet.

I also bought some milk and dog food yesterday costing £5.54 so my new running total for May is £30.14/£160

PipneyJane

goldfinches said:

@PipneyJane - yuck, that glyphosphate drying sounds frightful, I'm not surprised you don't want to eat the resulting oats. Unfortunately, I can't help you with a cheap source of organic ones because once I checked the places I could think of they all turned out to be non-organically processed. If it helps I've looked at Bakery Bits, Hamlyn's Scottish Oats and Marriage's Millers so you can at least cross those off your list of places to look. Good luck with finding some reasonably priced organic oats in the near future.

@goldfinches and @thriftwizard thank you both for looking for organic oats.  Our local market town has a branch of H&B, and I’m considering popping in on my way home from the office tomorrow.  I’ll try their branch of Sainsbugs first, though, since I’ll be using/abusing their half-hour free parking.  (H&B’s website has 1kg organic oats for £2.70, but it’s on the buy one get one half price offer, so 2kg would be £4.05.  However, I’ve been trying to re-set my password on their website for several hours and it isn’t working.)

I have a small spend at L!dl to declare:  £1.24.  We had vouchers for a free fresh vegetable and a free sauce, so I picked up a 600g family pack of huge mushrooms (£1.79) - the smallest was 2 inches in diameter and there must be at least 10 in the pack - and a jar of their own-brand mayonnaise (99p).  Rang those through first, then “paid” for that shop so that I was absolutely guaranteed to get the expensive mushrooms free.  In a separate transaction, I purchased a bunch of spring onions for 69p and YS packet of breakfast muffins for 55p.

The above brings our total spend to £93.84/£160 leaving £66.16 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

ETA:

K9sandFelines said:

@PipneyJane

Re OATS

Would the Kavanaghs ones from Aldi suit? I just looked it up and they are from Northern Ireland and organic.
Also the Flahavan's ones which are slightly dearer but also organic.

Ooohhhhh…. Thanks @K9sandFelines.  I’ll have a look.  I’ll make a detour to Aldi on my way home tomorrow, instead of going to Sainsbugs.  They aren’t on my usual route. Bound to be cheaper than the H&B ones I was talking about earlier.

JingsMyBucket

Hi folks. £3.35 spent yesterday at Iceland for bananas, ramen, and crackers. 

£230.81 / £325 spent. £94.19 total remaining.  

Blackcats

we had a self-catering holiday at the start of the month that had its own separate grocery budget.  We did bring quite a few things back with us that will carry forward and help reduce future grocery spending.  We also bought some potatoes and eggs from front garden stalls - Guernsey hedge veg.   They taste so fresh and delicious.

I'd really like to have an underspend this month as I'm trying to build up my car savings pot - car tax and insurance are due in June.

£167 remaining.

K9sandFelines

PipneyJane said:

goldfinches said:

@PipneyJane - yuck, that glyphosphate drying sounds frightful, I'm not surprised you don't want to eat the resulting oats. Unfortunately, I can't help you with a cheap source of organic ones because once I checked the places I could think of they all turned out to be non-organically processed. If it helps I've looked at Bakery Bits, Hamlyn's Scottish Oats and Marriage's Millers so you can at least cross those off your list of places to look. Good luck with finding some reasonably priced organic oats in the near future.

@goldfinches and @thriftwizard thank you both for looking for organic oats.  Our local market town has a branch of H&B, and I’m considering popping in on my way home from the office tomorrow.  I’ll try their branch of Sainsbugs first, though, since I’ll be using/abusing their half-hour free parking.  (H&B’s website has 1kg organic oats for £2.70, but it’s on the buy one get one half price offer, so 2kg would be £4.05.  However, I’ve been trying to re-set my password on their website for several hours and it isn’t working.)

I have a small spend at L!dl to declare:  £1.24.  We had vouchers for a free fresh vegetable and a free sauce, so I picked up a 600g family pack of huge mushrooms (£1.79) - the smallest was 2 inches in diameter and there must be at least 10 in the pack - and a jar of their own-brand mayonnaise (99p).  Rang those through first, then “paid” for that shop so that I was absolutely guaranteed to get the expensive mushrooms free.  In a separate transaction, I purchased a bunch of spring onions for 69p and YS packet of breakfast muffins for 55p.

The above brings our total spend to £93.84/£160 leaving £66.16 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

ETA:

K9sandFelines said:

@PipneyJane

Re OATS

Would the Kavanaghs ones from Aldi suit? I just looked it up and they are from Northern Ireland and organic.
Also the Flahavan's ones which are slightly dearer but also organic.

Ooohhhhh…. Thanks @K9sandFelines.  I’ll have a look.  I’ll make a detour to Aldi on my way home tomorrow, instead of going to Sainsbugs.  They aren’t on my usual route. Bound to be cheaper than the H&B ones I was talking about earlier.

You're welcome 
Fingers crossed they have them and they are suitable.

PipneyJane

Good morning Frugalers!

Thanks again @K9sandFelines for suggesting going to A1di for organic oats.  £2.19 a kilo for the Kavanagh Oats is a good price.  Two kilos purchased, £4.38 spent.

A1di were definitely the cheapest.  I did check out Sainsbugs first, because they were on the way.  They charge £2.30 for 750g for their SO Organic Oats, which works out as £3.07 per kilogram.  That’s higher than H&B (£2.70/kg)!

The above brings our total spend to £98.22/£160 leaving £61.78 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

LotsOfTea

I spent £18.48 yesterday on a few fresh bits like cheese & veg and some treats for the weekend as DH is away for work so DS and I will be watching Eurovision together and having our own little party. 

Up to £34.46/£200

K9sandFelines

PipneyJane said:

Good morning Frugalers!

Thanks again @K9sandFelines for suggesting going to A1di for organic oats.  £2.19 a kilo for the Kavanagh Oats is a good price.  Two kilos purchased, £4.38 spent.

A1di were definitely the cheapest.  I did check out Sainsbugs first, because they were on the way.  They charge £2.30 for 750g for their SO Organic Oats, which works out as £3.07 per kilogram.  That’s higher than H&B (£2.70/kg)!

The above brings our total spend to £98.22/£160 leaving £61.78 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Oh, that's brilliant.Yayy for Aldi coming up trumps. I'm fussy and only like the big oats, but don't eat them half as much as I should. I should check if mine are organic really, now I've learnt that info from you. Or else learn to start liking the smaller grains 🤭