September 2025 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

TheCheerleader said:

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.

@TheCheerleader you’re so very welcome! 🙂 I also need this thread to keep me on the straight and narrow. 

Suffolk_lass

Popped to the L place to pick up a small air fryer for £19.99 yesterday. It turns out they were not on sale until today. So I picked up plums and nectarines. Then I noticed some huge loose vine tomatoes. I took a whole box at £1.59/kg. All cooked, and made into jars of passata, they are safely in my larder in 8 jars.

Four of the tomatoes remain, with my garden pickings, on the windowsill in the kitchen, where they are ripening a bit more. I have one more batch of tomatoes to cook. I am going to strip the plants and put the fruits to ripen, before we go away next week, but I should then have enough to see us through winter, with none to buy.

I popped back today and bought the air fryer (never had one) which we will try out this weekend, as we have electric hook up for our campervan.

So another £8.82 of stores and £7.76 for the fruit. Milk has been cancelled now until October, so (note to self) NO MORE SHOPPING! Just nestling at £91.81 for September 

TravelCrystal

Just had a note from Zizzi’s site I recently joined. Went to the cinema last week and as a treat had a pizza beforehand with 30% discount. We paid out of our own money so not GC related. However, just had a ping from them to tell me as a birthday treat I have a free main and still 30% off of all food. We were going to call in to one on our way to our hol later in the month which GC will be paying for. So DH’s lunch will be discounted and mine free 😊 win win
PS just picked some more of our home grown tomatoes, we are now getting loads and our lovely neighbour is also keeping us in tomatoes. Don’t know when I last opened a tin as I am using them for a sauce with a little bit of tomato puree and chilli flakes.
T.C

mandco

£6.45 in m&s on gf bread, shortbread & a pack of Percy pigs for ds 
£5.20 in Tesco on bread & a meal deal 

Soontobeoap

£26.14 spent on 2 small Aldi shops for essentials. The price is down because we can only buy what we can carry without a car but also up a little asDH throws in more treats for when we get home from our walk! A small list is growing for when we get the car back.

JingsMyBucket

A couple more spends to declare. Yesterday I did stop by Savers on the way home and spent £6.75 on a 3L bottle of Dettol laundry sanitizer. I just checked Amazon and it sells for £10.39 on there so just a heads up for folks. Sometimes Amazon is not cheaper. I always buy it from my local Savers though. The folks are nice and I want to keep them in business. 

£22.93 just spent on H & B online for a click and collect order. I spent much more than that with all the vitamins and pills but £22.93 covers the snack portion. These are all various nut/oat bars and trail mixes to take with us during our vacation starting next week. Due to the 3 for 2 deal, I also finagled a free bag of shelled roasted pistachios! 

The snack bars are lower in sugar than the usual fare that's available in train stations. We also have a 6am train to catch so that'll help sustain us for the first part of the journey. Mr. Jings used to complain about me always traveling with food (I'm Type 2 diabetic) but a couple years ago he finally started to appreciate and understand it. 

£255.35 / £300 spent. £44.65 remaining.  

Hands firmly back in pockets until next Monday. My H & B order is estimated for collection then so I’ll swing by M & S for fruit to last us Monday to Wednesday evening. 

AnotherNewDay

AnotherNewDay said:

AnotherNewDay said:

Hi @JingsMyBucket thanks so much for setting up the September thread

I'm going to keep same overall target of £115 split as £45 for 2 ravenous cats and £70 for human groceries, household and toiletries.

First spend for September as follows: £4.99/£45 for cats and £10.13/ £70 for human groceries, household + toiletries.

Second spend of the month with the cats still at £4.99/£45 and human now on £24.42

Third spend of the month - 1 x wet food (£9.49) and 2 x dry (£9.98) totalling £24.46/£45 and human household spend of £41.24/£70

carboot_karaoke

Evening all,  

I hope you're staying dry and warm.  It's tipping it down here. 

I tried to stick to the plan of avoiding the big supermarkets this weekend opting instead for my local small Asda. I have to say the prices surprised me,  lots of the fruit and veg were more expensive than Tesco.  Not sure if it's related to being a small local branch or just that prices have risen so much  

Anyway, l suppose I saved time and money on petrol. Total spent was £25.28. 

This should see us through to Wednesday/Thursday at least.  I'm trying to shop from my cupboards for example using some YS beefburgers to make keema for dinner tomorrow that means l can use up frozen spinach,  peas,  tin of toms & chickpeas instead of the originally planned cottage pie that required me to buy more ingredients.  

I will need to do a proper shop by the end of the week we're running low on a few bulk items.  

New totals 

Grocery Budget £174.29 / £300
Bulk Fund £9.86 / £50
Grocery Challenge £184.15 / £ 350.

JingsMyBucket

@carboot_karaoke well done on keeping on track in the small sho. The smaller branches are usually more expensive, probably by 10% or more. 

I’m also pulling from the freezer and stores to use up any straggling food before we leave this week. We’re low on vegetables so I cut up the last two carrots to roast with the sriracha chicken as our dinner vegetables. I meant to cook the last few sweet potatoes as miso roasted sweet potatoes but I didn’t start early enough. They can go for tomorrow night. 

When I stop by Holland & Barrett tomorrow to collect my order, I’ll also visit M & S to get bananas, berries, and a curry. I’ll likely swing by Superdrug to also get travel sized deodorant as well. 

Soontobeoap

I think I have almost used up everything leftover from family staying in the summer holidays. I cooked the leg of lamb that I bought half price at Easter on Friday and we had. Roast potatoes and veg with it. Lamb hotpot on Saturday. DH had lamb sandwiches today and I have frozen 4 more portions for lamb hot pots later. The joint was £15.00 and we will get 8 meals each out of it plus a sandwich. Today I cooked up the 10 sausages that I had bought for the gluten free twins and made a double sausage casserole. One eaten and one now frozen. Pasties tomorrow and then I can go shopping again as we will have our car back after MOT. I haven't done the freezer stock take yet. Must do that very soon. Struggling with project managing the renovation and painting of our living room. It's manic here so I am quite pleased with my accomplishments in the kitchen this week. The house however is an absolute mess!