September 2025 Grocery Challenge

carboot_karaoke

TravelCrystal said:

So I got up early today, put a loaf on in the bread maker and off to Lidl's for perspective bargains
Spent £10.60 
Kitchen rolls, frozen fruit x 2, one tin of b beans, Marg and milk
Free potatoes as reached £50 spend and £1.50 on a fruit and veg box.
Had to take pic's
This is why I shop in Lidl's 

Was going to do Spanish rice with some cooked lamb I took from freezer for tonight's tea.
Now we are having lamb, new potatoes and ratatouille
I have put the ginger in the freezer. Cooked some of the dodgy nectarines and froze and cooked the sweetcorn and will scrape off the kernels and freeze as my teeth sadly can no longer bite through a cob  

Total so far £86.74/£350



On holiday from next Monday for 4 night so hopefully won't spend too much
We shall see

Have a good rest of the month everyone

T.C

Wow 😳 that's a great haul.

Enjoy your holiday. 

Soontobeoap

I really wish we had a Lidl close by. The fruit/ veg boxes and the free bits sound brilliant.

We needed to stock up on nearly everything today. Our first trip was to Sainsbury's for our branded items. I had a nectar offer on ribena. £2.46p a bottle. I bought 2. They had an offer on pork mince  1kg for £4.65 nectar price so I bought 1kg beef mince for £9.50 to mix in with it. Meat prices seem to be going up every day at the moment. We will all be vegetarian soon!! Also bought Flora proactive buttery X2, lacto free cheese , 8 supposedly double wrapped own brand toilet rolls ( DH doesn't like Aldis 🤦). Nescafé coffee was £7.50! 🤯. I usually find an offer but we were there and DH put it in the trolley and it wasn't worth the bother of arguing. 🤣. The total for 12 items was £48.07 . It didn't look like we had anything in the trolley!!!!

On to Aldi for the rest of our shopping. We got the above for £34.09. it was a trolly full. No meat but fish, dishwasher tablets, cereals and sauces all add up and DH threw in a bulk bag of crisps after just announcing that he is going to eat more healthily.🤦. So altogether we spent £82.16

TravelCrystal

@Soontobeoap at least you have an Aldi nearby 😊

Soontobeoap

@TravelCrystal you are right and I am very grateful for that.

Pennypincin

I had a small spend in Tesco today.
£3.45 on budget low fat natural yoghurt, loose bananas, a bag of budget peas and a bag of budget sweetcorn.

Suffolk_lass

carboot_karaoke said:

Evening all, 

I am happy to have No spends to declare 😁

But l do have an Olio question l would appreciate your comments on.

I am new to the app and have been really happy with the items I've been chosen to collect. I do however keep missing out on items despite requesting within a few minutes of listing and offering to collect immediately.

It could be a coincidence but I'm wondering if part of the reason I'm not chosen is because I only click on meat items awaiting a response before adding other items like bread, veg, sandwiches etc. My rationale was that if l clicked everything l wanted straight away l might be chosen for a couple of lower priced items and have to make the several mile journey to collect, whereas its always worth the effort for meat / eggs etc the other items are a bonus.

Now I'm thinking 🤔  that from the FWH perspective its probably easier to allocate items to people who request several items to reduce the number of collections??

What do you think?

If I was the Olio person with the food, fewer collections of more stuff would be my preference

joedenise

Maybe ask the Olio person what they'd prefer.  Like @Suffolk_lass I think I'd prefer fewer collections with more stuff.

JingsMyBucket

Morning folks. We’re on our way to our vacation! Thank goodness. My brain checked sometime last week. I’ll do a quick update then read back through the thread. 

Up until yesterday, I had spent another £40.35 at various stores getting easy food for our last few days and cleaning items like clothes washer and dishwasher disinfectant. Mr. Jings ran the disinfecting wash on the clothes washer last night. 

Yesterday I spent £1.00 at Poundland for a 5 count multi bag of Kettle Chips. That’s even cheaper than usual! IT must be for back to school sales stock ups. Either way, I got some for our travel snacks. Much cheaper to pay 20p each versus £1.25 or more in train stations. 

£296.70/ £300 spent. £3.30 remaining.  

I’m actually going to use the rest of the month to keep track of grocery spending in France. Hopefully this thread will still keep me grounded. 🙂 We did our rough budget last week so we know roughly what we should be spending. 

PipneyJane

JingsMyBucket said:

Morning folks. We’re on our way to our vacation! Thank goodness. My brain checked sometime last week. I’ll do a quick update then read back through the thread. 

Up until yesterday, I had spent another £40.35 at various stores getting easy food for our last few days and cleaning items like clothes washer and dishwasher disinfectant. Mr. Jings ran the disinfecting wash on the clothes washer last night. 

Yesterday I spent £1.00 at Poundland for a 5 count multi bag of Kettle Chips. That’s even cheaper than usual! IT must be for back to school sales stock ups. Either way, I got some for our travel snacks. Much cheaper to pay 20p each versus £1.25 or more in train stations. 

£296.70/ £300 spent. £3.30 remaining.  

I’m actually going to use the rest of the month to keep track of grocery spending in France. Hopefully this thread will still keep me grounded. 🙂 We did our rough budget last week so we know roughly what we should be spending. 

Have a lovely holiday @JingsMyBucket.  Hopefully, you are taking your own vehicle so can stock up on olive oil/vinegars/items which are considerably cheaper and easier to find in France.  (I love shopping at Carrefour.)

@TravelCrystal hope you have a lovely break, too.

While I have been shopping, we have an American friend staying with us who insisted on paying.  We’re away next week in a holiday let.  Hopefully, I’ll get to pay for my own shopping then.

- Pip

TravelCrystal

Thanks for all the good wishes.
Have a lovely holiday @PipneyJane and @JingsMyBucket. I love France used to go there a lot back in the day. Could buy a baguette, bottle of wine and hunk of cheese for next to nothing. Showing my age.

 I don’t know how I’m doing it but managing to keep out of the shops before our holiday.
That haul I had from Lidl’s was amazing.
Have cooked down some of the peaches and nectarines and frozen together with all of our current tomatoes which will be good for a pasta sauce and save yet again another tin of tomatoes.
The only thing that may have to be discarded when I come home next Friday is a pomegranate. I used one yesterday in our salad, normally don’t buy them. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone, think we are in for a drier spell🤞
Last year I remember getting very wet on my birthday visiting an old castle.🤣
T.C