September 2025 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

Found a chicken in the freezer so did a pot roast today. DH is quite poorly. Temp of 38° and been in bed most of the day. Not sure what he has got.The smell of it cooking tempted him to eat a small meal so I am really pleased that I cooked it. We now have 3 or 4 easy meals to take us into October. Declaring September at £227.37. Over budget again!

Pennypincin

I'd £8.94 left from the budget, so have transferred it to the bulk fund.

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon all,
I have my final two spends to declare for September, £1.65 for some milk on Friday. The £7.09 yesterday for bananas, cheese and bread. Total spent £8.74.

This means l achieved my goal of, £10 a day for a family of 6 😁

Final Totals 

Grocery Budget £299.44 / £300 -   £0.56 remaining 
Bulk fund £29.49 / £50
Grocery Challenge £328.93 / £350 

See you on the October thread. 

TheCheerleader

Wow @carboot_karaoke that is a fantastic result, I don’t know how you did it with a bigger family and food costs rocketing!
You’re a marvel, well done 👏🏼

I’ve overspent £206.78/ £200 but I’m happy enough with that total, it keeps me focused. 

Thanks again to Jingsmybucket for setting it up ⭐️ 

Soontobeoap

@carboot_karaoke some tips would be gratefully.received. I am OK when it's 2 of us but when it's 5 I am spending double what you spend. 2 of them are gluten and dairy free one is also soya free but it can't make £300 a month difference. How do you do it?

Just had a bath and hair wash. Instead of taking the foil off under the lid of my shampoo and conditioner I have poked a hole in it. It is frustrating to get it out but reminds me not to over do it. A little bit goes a long long way.

When we are ill DH goes for unhealthy food and I can't stand.fatty things. Tonight he had fried bread, bacon and egg and I had a jacket potato with chicken and bacon in mayonnaise. ( DH wouldn't have eaten 4 day old bread normally) Not being able to get to the shops has definitely helped us to eat what we have in.

PipneyJane

How did it get to be October 3rd?  I don’t know where the last week has gone.

I’m declaring at £153/£184, leaving £31 to roll over to October.

That looks better than reality.  We were away for a week and all food spending for that week came out of our Running Away Fund aka the Holiday Money.  I did have a couple of small spends on Sunday (£8.32 in Sainsbury) and Monday (£2.83 in L!dl).

See you in October!  And thank you again, @JingsMyBucket for setting up and running this thread.

- Pip

PipneyJane

Soontobeoap said:

@carboot_karaoke some tips would be gratefully.received. I am OK when it's 2 of us but when it's 5 I am spending double what you spend. 2 of them are gluten and dairy free one is also soya free but it can't make £300 a month difference. How do you do it?

Just had a bath and hair wash. Instead of taking the foil off under the lid of my shampoo and conditioner I have poked a hole in it. It is frustrating to get it out but reminds me not to over do it. A little bit goes a long long way.

When we are ill DH goes for unhealthy food and I can't stand.fatty things. Tonight he had fried bread, bacon and egg and I had a jacket potato with chicken and bacon in mayonnaise. ( DH wouldn't have eaten 4 day old bread normally) Not being able to get to the shops has definitely helped us to eat what we have in.

@Soontobeoap - A tip for you:  I decant my shampoo, hair conditioner and body wash into (reused)  pump-action handwash bottles.  Now that my hair is short, I only need one pump of shampoo and one pump of conditioner so despite washing my hair every day, each bottle lasts well over 3 months.  (It’s a tip I learned on the Sneaky Ways to Save The Pennies thread.)

Hope your DH is feeling better.  (I had my flu and Covid jabs on Wednesday and spent yesterday feeling very flu-ey.  Ended up sleeping the afternoon away.  Feel human now.)

HTH

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

@ PipneyJane I sent Mr Suffolk for his Flu jab this week. I shall have mine on Tuesday next week so that I can react for the rest of the week without it stopping me from doing essential stuff and he can look after the dog! We both usually react to the Flu jab

JingsMyBucket

@TheCheerleader @PipneyJane and others, you're very welcome!

I'm finally back from vacation. We were supposed to return home on Saturday evening but all the trains out of London were cancelled due to Storm Amy knocking out power lines across England and Scotland. We had to get an emergency hotel room at the Premier Inn near Euston station on Saturday afternoon. We finally made it home Sunday afternoon after scrambling for the first train out of the city around 8:30am. 

@Soontobeoap I hope your husband is feeling a bit better now. @Suffolk_lass and @PipneyJane thanks for reminding me about vaccinations. I need to book mine for this year. The Scottish NHS normally would've called me up to get a vaccination since I'm immunocompromised but they haven't so far. I'll look into it this week. 

Anyway, onward to the October thread. 🎃

carboot_karaoke

@Soontobeoap
@TheCheerleader

Apologies for my late response.

In truth September's grocery total looked better than it was due to a lot of freezer and pantry stock accrued from previous months. 

That said, l have implemented a lot of tips from various MS on this thread which help to keep my spending in check for example.

Always do a food inventory and food plan before going food shopping. l cook everything from scratch and any leftovers are taken to work as lunches, or frozen. Then once we have a fair amount of freezer bags we have a random leftovers night 🤣

I try to plan to make the most of ingredients especially fresh to avoid waste for example a bag of potatoes will do a roast and then ill have a cottage pie, or sausage and mash later in the week to use up.

Meat is probably the biggest expense, l have reduced the amount we use in each meal and stick with the cheaper cuts of meat.

l buy 750g mincemeat and spilt into two. Then bulk with cheaper items i.e. lasagne has peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes or cottage pie has lentils, or a keema has chick peas and spinach. You get the idea 😉

I deskin and debone chicken thighs myself, tedious but does save a lot of cost. 

Snacks, can also be expensive so l bulk buy when there on offer but ration the amount l put in the cupboard  🤫otherwise they'd be eaten in a few days.

Wishing you a frugal October x