2026 Frugal Living Challenge

kimwp

Mamma2004 said:

Supermarket consideration... 

I'm lucky enough to have Sainsburys, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and Tesco within a mile of me.

Tbh I have defaulted to Tesco because delivery or click and collect is so convenient and some particular products I can only get there.   However, over the last 6 months or so I have had issues with product quality on vegetables EVERY time.  Usually the potatoes are rotten, and the corn and asparagus are off but it can be any veg, and it's become a game of seeing what I need to return with the driver and what I later discover is off and have to WhatsApp with Tesco. 

Tbf Tesco are excellent at refunding the product quickly on WhatsApp and will often give me a refund of delivery charge and/or a compensation gift card.  But I have just really reached the end of my tether bc it often means I am having to go out and replace the veg that's bad. 

Lidl veg is equally bad for us here. 

My food shop is probably 40% vegetables. 

Today, I did a mainly veg shop at Sainsburys.  And surprisingly with nectar prices on some of my usuals, my shop was £2.28 cheaper than Tesco AND I got £1.40 in nectar points. 

I just wanted to share this, as I am surprised!  And also, just wondering if anyone else wants to add their 2 pennies on where they shop, particularly for fresh veg. 

Thanks all 😊

Edit: Sainsburys veg quality has always good in my experience.  I think I may have to split my food shop and get my veg in Sainsbury's and everything else in Tesco. 

I found that Sainsbury's veg was better quality in that it seemed to last longer. I read somewhere that the more expensive shops get the first pick of the fruit/veg and the cheaper shops get the stuff that will go off quicker - whether true and how that would work, I don't know.

mumtoomany

Morning all, hope everyone is well.

@Mamma2004, we have tesco, morrisons, aldi, lidl, independent cash and carry, farmfoods and an excellent vegetable shop, in town around 8 miles away. In completely the opposite direction 10 miles away is Sainsbury's and coop. We tend to go to town every week to 10 days and I visit several of the shops above. I tend to know, from checking the web, which will be cheapest for what items. For fruit and vegetables I visit the veg shop first. They always sell £1 boxes of past it's best fruit and veg. A box might contain 20 apples, or 4 cauliflowers, or be a mix of different things. Not as fresh as it could be, but so much cheaper. I then base the meals around what I've bought, or freeze things for later use. I'll try to add a photo to show you the sort of things we get.

Hugs, mumtoomany.xx 


PS, welcome to the thread.

mumtoomany

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mama67

I get fresh veggies either on my Tesco delivery or from Lidl when I go there. Sometimes from the veg shop in the village where the Drs is (totally opposite direction to everything else).
I haven’t found a problem from supermarkets but it is mainly root veg & onions, cauliflower, broccoli & green beans I tend to use frozen. 

Mamma2004

mumtoomany said:

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They look fantastic for a £1 - what a deal!  Thanks for sharing 🥰

fionaandphil

I think its down to individual branches regarding the veg.  My nearest Aldi, Lidl and Sainsburys the quality is good, but the one a bit further away can be hit and miss and equally the Morrisons in the next town can be poorer quality.  Difficult to decide, especially if you are ordering online.

I am still working through the cheap Christmas veg, prepped another batch of roast potatoes today for freezing and have made some curried parsnip soup for tomorrow which tastes lovely but DH may want a bit more curry in his.  I also remembered to get some fish out yesterday so have made a fish pie for tea tomorrow using that and some sweet potato mash for the topping.  I have also made a crumble to go in with it while the oven is on and must remember to chuck in a few baked potatoes.

Hope you are all having a good Sunday.

2Scratters

My small frugal bits are using a lip brush to get the other half of the Lip conditioner out of the tube, there is literally as much left in it as there was when it was new. It really is a lot of money wasted if it is not to be used up. I do get the brushes from Super D*ug as they are good enough and have lasted a while too - I am talking years. Also the eco deodorants that are expensive that sit in their reusable cases I have found the same problem half of the product is left in them, this time I use the spatula that I use with a hair cream removal it fits into the cardboard cartridge just nicely and use that too it has extended taking me to another 2 months use of it. I know it doesn't seem a lot in the grand scale of things yet money wise it is so we can still have treats to use up wisely. 

Have a good frugal weekend

2 Scratters xx

PipneyJane

Thanks for the new thread @Frugaldom and for the inspiration you provide.  I will probably lurk here more than post.  

I think my goal is to try to live a comfortable, middle-class life on a working-class budget, so that I stay living below my means, while putting extra money aside for budgeted items/retirement/known wants.  (Does that make sense?).   I try to budget for everything - that way nothing is unexpected or a rude shock.  Everything is quarantined into its own savings pot. Approximately 1/3 of my take-home pay goes towards household bills and the mortgage; another third goes to my personal investments; and the final third goes towards things that can generally be called “Living”: the Running Away Fund for holidays, my cricket membership and football season ticket, our regular trips to the BBC Proms, plus all the incidental expenses that people forget about until the spending pain hits (haircuts, Christmas, choir expenses, presents, clothes, garden stuff, the car, IT stuff, etc, etc). I do have some mad money built into my budget for general spending, which I don’t track, but I hate not having a float in my personal bank account.  

I’m also trying to make up for lost time, having spent most of 2024 off sick, being treated for Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, without much of an income.  Depending on how you look at it, either luckily or unluckily, my DH got made redundant while I was sick and was unemployed for 5 months.  We lived off his unemployment benefit, some investment income and our savings.  (Bye-bye Car Fund.)

Probably my biggest expenditure this year will be a trip home to Oz with my DH at the end of October, to visit my sister and BIL for his 75th birthday, possibly including a trip to the Melbourne Cup.  (They’re horse racing people.). I want to catch up with a lot of old friends.  There may be side trips, too, since one of my dearest school friends now lives in northern Queensland. It won’t be cheap, but it’ll be worth every penny.

I’m 60 and DH is (nearly) 58.  On the retirement front, when I joined my current employer’s pension fund in 2021, I immediately asked them to increase my contributions to 10% of my salary instead of the statutory minimum.  When we got our pay rises last year, I increased my contributions to 20%.  It was worth it, although it cut my take-home pay by £200.  I also qualify for the maximum 9% contribution that this employer pays.  With the exception of one final salary scheme, my other pension pots are all consolidated into the one fund.  That final salary scheme will start paying out in 2030, at about £8,000/year.   In 2032, I’ll be able to claim State Pension.

@Sheliavw so sorry for your loss.  Big hugs.

@Gem-gem, glad to hear your mum is on the mend.

@ShazzaDazza If I had to boil things down into one phrase, I think the biggest moneysaver is forward planning.  Like most here, I cook from scratch.  Like you, I soak dried beans and chickpeas and then pressure cook them.  I always do the minimum of a triple batch, although in the case of kidney beans a “triple batch” is really the equivalent of 6 cans worth, since I always add 2 cans at a time to chillies, or refried beans.

@AmyinIraq sorry to hear about your boiler.  Hope you’re managing to stay warm.  Fingers crossed its problems can be resolved without costing a fortune.

- Pip

joedenise

@PipneyJane - I'm struggling with pressure cooking times for chickpeas and butterbeans - can you give me some tips please?

PipneyJane

joedenise said:

@PipneyJane - I'm struggling with pressure cooking times for chickpeas and butterbeans - can you give me some tips please?

Certainly, @joedenise.  Firstly, it’s a bit of a production number, so I’ll start a few days before I plan to eat the chickpeas/beans and I always process 500-600g each time, the equivalent of 5-6 cans.  “Beans” in my case are normally kidney beans.  The rule of thumb is:  if the packaging says cook soaked beans for xx minutes,  pressure cook them for one-third of the stated time.

Start by soaking the dried kidney beans or chickpeas for at least 10 hours, then drain them, shove them into a (clean) bread bag and freeze them for a day or two.  Freezing helps to break down the cell walls and cuts cooking time.

Once I’m ready to cook them, I’ll defrost the bag for half an hour or so - just long enough to get it to the point where I can peal it off the lump of frozen beans or chickpeas - then dump the lump into my pressure cooker, cover with a kettle-full or two of boiling water, put the lid on and bring it up to 15lb of pressure.  Once at pressure, I’ll cook chickpeas for 40-45 minutes or kidney beans for 25-30 minutes, setting a timer to remind me how long they’ve been on.  When the timer goes off, I switch off the heat and leave them in the pressure cooker for an hour or so.  Eventually, I’ll drain the beans in a colander, then portion up and freeze until needed.

HTH

- Pip