September 2025 Grocery Challenge

wishus

Need to catch up! Out of £150 budget, I've already spent £98.49 leaving just £51.51 for the rest of the month. 

Despite doing an eco shop to start, I've had to stock up on loo rolls and laundry stuff and then bought a bottle of wine to take to a dinner, so all that's been a bit of a dent. Plus I saw frickles in A*di and couldn't resist - battered pickles. They are weirdly moreish. Or moreishly weird. 

This means needs must I'm very careful with my meal plans to eke the food out as much as poss:

Monday: salmon roulade mashed swede, roast turnips, chard, carrots (from the eco-shop).
Tuesday: pasta with pistachio pesto, peas, mushrooms, walnuts, cheese.
Wednesday: Jerk chicken, rice and peas 
Thursday: bean burgers and wedges
Friday, Saturday - it's just me, so I will eat lentil dahl and rice, maybe make some roti.
Sunday: pork loin, mashed swede and boiled potatoes.

I will need to buy milk.
Hopefully I can get away without buying potatoes, lettuce, cucumber and coffee till next Sunday. That should mean £50 to last 15 days, which is doable.

TravelCrystal

@Soontobeoap I do much the same as @TheCheerleader. Loads of herbs, generally rosemary, bay leaf and thyme. Always carrot, onion and celery. I think celery is quite strong. If you reduce it down it is more flavourful. Always cook on the stove for a couple of hours wasting the gas. Don't know why I haven't put in the slow cooker like @PipneyJane
I will from now on, makes sense.

A couple of spends to report since last time.
Had to get bin liners in Asda on Saturday, a begrudged £1.54

Today whilst I was in town getting euros for the Grandchildren who are off to France, went in to M&S
A couple of bargains, YS Mince and YS chipolatas. £5.94
The weeks menu has now changed 

Lidl for the rest. Cheap white wine for tonight's Mushroom and cream cheese with spinach and tagliatelle, Fruit and veg, Double cream, 2 x milk, toothpaste. Gnocchi and toilet rim block £19.08

Total spend this week £32.50

Total so far £76.14/£350

T.C

PipneyJane

TravelCrystal said:

@Soontobeoap I do much the same as @TheCheerleader. Loads of herbs, generally rosemary, bay leaf and thyme. Always carrot, onion and celery. I think celery is quite strong. If you reduce it down it is more flavourful. Always cook on the stove for a couple of hours wasting the gas. Don't know why I haven't put in the slow cooker like @PipneyJane
I will from now on, makes sense.

A couple of spends to report since last time.
Had to get bin liners in Asda on Saturday, a begrudged £1.54

Today whilst I was in town getting euros for the Grandchildren who are off to France, went in to M&S
A couple of bargains, YS Mince and YS chipolatas. £5.94
The weeks menu has now changed 

Lidl for the rest. Cheap white wine for tonight's Mushroom and cream cheese with spinach and tagliatelle, Fruit and veg, Double cream, 2 x milk, toothpaste. Gnocchi and toilet rim block £19.08

Total spend this week £32.50

Total so far £76.14/£350

T.C

@TravelCrystal I'm only  a recent convert, myself, but using the slow cooker gives the stock a deeper flavour.   It's more "chicken", if that makes sense.

HTH

- Pip

Pennypincin

£10 over for last week. Oops.
starting again this week with £40.
I couldn't resist different things and am going to have to be more sensible.

JingsMyBucket

Afternoon y’all. How’s everyone doing today? This morning I headed over to Lidl to get a few basics and to raid their Italian week goodies. 

£54.41 spent on 1kg chicken breasts (6.49), eggs, double cream, strawberries, butter, granola, crackers, bananas, frozen mac and cheese dinner, 2 packs of mashed potatoes, 2 packs of sausages, 2 packs of Italian ham,  Italian salami, 3 kinds of Italian cheeses, a jar of passata, 5 jars of Filippo Berio pesto (only 1.75 each), and 2 packs of asparagus. I got the second one free because I paid for everything else first then scanned my Lidl Plus for the free vegetable bonus because I hit £50 spending. 

That pesto haul will last us through the end of November at least and is cheaper than Tesco and Morrison’s prices for brand name pesto. They both charge £2.80 for the same bottle of Filippo Berio pesto. 

£219.65 / £300 spent. £80.35 remaining.  

We leave on vacation next week Thursday morning and we’re just about stocked up on pantry and freezer goods before we go. After today, I’ll only put in an Amazon order for some vitamins and snack bars to take with us while we’re traveling. We may need some fruit between now and next Wednesday night but I’ll keep purchases to a minimum. Maybe some canned beans from M & S? Not sure. Mr. Jings just made a fresh batch of yoghurt last night and that should last us the rest of the week too. 

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon all,
I have finally gathered my various receipts together from the weekend. Four shops in all including, two to Tesco's. My preferred branch is having a refurb and there was barely anything on the shelves. Very disappointing, and resulted in me needing to go to another store the next day wasting time and petrol 😤. I've decided to avoid that branch for the foreseeable, shame because l like the scan and shop option, easier to keep track of the total costs.

My total spent was £79.35 although, approx £18 was for the ingredients for two Lasagnes my MIL requested (the 5% fat mince meat was £10.78😮 only option available). The rest was fruit, veg, and meat for this weeks meals.

I have spent more than l would like but l have a very full freezer and cupboards. My plan is to eat down what we have and just use my local store for bread, milk, top ups. That should reduce the temptation to spend more.

New totals

Grocery Budget £140.53 / £300
Bulk fund £1.80 / £50
Total £142.33 / £350

Changeyourlife25

Do we update this one or the Elsiepac one?
This one seems to have picked up more momentum! 

£140.64 / £600

The month seems to be going quite well for me 💪

Total comprises of a biggish l!dl, and a lil mr T shop, along side some corner shop trips and some £land sweeties.

Suffolk_lass

Sitting at £75.23 so far this month with only bowl fruit and yogurt to buy. We are off in our camper tomorrow until Sunday, then away on Tuesday for the rest of September, so hoping my £100 ambition for September can be realised. It needs to be, or Christmas is going to be a miserable experience this year!

mandco

A couple of small shops at the local express for essentials like bread milk fruit ect though a bar of chocolate & some fizzy drinks might have snuck into the basket too total £22.56     — £346.71/£800
trying to stay out of the supermarket till the weekend but do need toilet rolls today as I brought my usual brand last week and the quality was awful nothing like the usual standard it was like the cheapest stuff you can get ripping into shreds when you tried to pull off a sheet so we’ve used more than usual - hoping it was just a bad batch or I’ll have to find an alternative going forward. 

TheCheerleader

Another couple of small spends of £2.65 for potatoes and onions and £4.44 for milk and cheese.
102.40/£200 only £97.96 left until the end of the month, there’s a few things in the freezer to make meals with, but I had run things down last month when I challenged myself to £200. 

Thanks so much Jingsmybucket for running this thread, I really need to keep things tight.