January 2026 Grocery Challenge

Nelliegrace

January Grocery Budget £155 for 2 pensioners, £1,825 for the year.

Storm Goretti forecast with an amber warning for snow this evening and overnight.  

DH went to the local Co-op this morning for two x 4 pints of milk, £3.30 with Co-op card.
The ingredients for a loaf are in the bread maker.

We took a friend for lunch at the college restaurant and had a lovely meal cooked and served by the students. This month’s Premium Bond win used for that. Home in good time. 

Total spent £55.93.

leftatthetrafficlights

Few more bits bought...

£74.77/£350

Changeyourlife25

£246.14

I think I need to make a daily effort to check in.
only a few days off and surprised how much it builds up.
It’s becoming very obvious we’ve got a bit of a corner shop problem, I’m gonna either have to give up or buy a crate and make them last.
2 red bulls everyday and a milkshake for DS1 as payment for going to the shop builds up quick 🤣

other than that, a lil mr T trip, got some nice reduced section bits and other dinner stuff.

Nelliegrace

Has Sainsbury’s discontinued both their red and gold loose leaf tea? It is not on the website. 
Shame on them. I hate the taste of paper and pulp in tea, and the scum and microplastic from tea bags. 

dollypeeps

Second shop of 2026 done ✔️ Oh Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear OverBudget!!!!
Lidl  £75.34
Aldi. £ 7.93
MrT.  £20.02
Tot.  £103.29
I did have £4.60 is on a gift card for MrT and used purse cash for Aldi, also transferred £10 from grocery surplus funds.
I did over buy in Lidl a I had a £5 voucher but I stocked up on all my joints of meat.
1 medium chicken 1.69kg
1 large gammon joint 
1 pork loin 1.73kg
1kg chicken breast
10 sausages 
2 x 400g 10% fat grass fed mince beef

I think if I’d have stuck religiously to my list I would’ve come well under budget.
Only the sausages are need for this weeks menu plan.
A bit of a lesson there but I’m filing it away under bulk buying.
I had a small balance of £4.50 left o the bank account but this been transferred to he surplus grocery ( which proved to be a good idea and help today)

GC 103.29 / £90 bank and £10 cash 

thriftwizard

Storm Goretti passed us by with nothing worse than our driveway becoming a temporary lake, which we had to paddle through to take one of the cats to the vet. So the market was on this morning and I spent £14, on a dozen eggs (DD1's visiting, there will be serious baking) leeks, pomegranates, lemons, peaches, passion fruit, fresh ginger, garlic (though there is still some home-grown, but they're small & quite fiddly) & mushrooms - the market ones are really fresh & will last for a week, if they get the chance. Hoping the storm has been reasonably gentle with all of you?

patentgirl

Doing well so far but then January always seems to go well as the year goes on I tend to overspend spent £78 out of £180 need to sort my signature out found the ideal time our local Coop reduces down so to be honest probably most of our food items was a yellow sticker my only problem with that not got biggest freezer have fun playing Tetris when home always have home made soup for lunch so think that is helping budget too good luck everyone 

Working_Mum

Nelliegrace said:

Has Sainsbury’s discontinued both their red and gold loose leaf tea? It is not on the website. 
Shame on them. I hate the taste of paper and pulp in tea, and the scum and microplastic from tea bags. 

I hope not Nelliegrace - it's the only tea my Mum (who has dementia) likes!! I'd noticed over Christmas my local (big) Sainsbury's didn't have any on the shelves!

PipneyJane

dollypeeps said:

Revs up the shopping trolley!!! And we’re off…….
…

One thing I did differently today. I paid my Lidl food shop off my barclaycard when I got to my car so it updated my bank account and showed me exactly what I had left to spend.
Hopefully this will continue 

I do this too, @dollypeeps.  Whenever I purchase anything on a credit card, I always pay it off immediately.  That way, there’s never a nasty shock when the statement comes through.  (Also, all my standing orders and direct debits go out of my account immediately after payday, so anything left in it is definitely my money.)

joedenise said:

Suffolk_lass said:

joedenise said:

I generally add chickpeas to my butternut squash curries to make it got that bit further and also add in some protein.  Would that work for you @ShelivesintheShire?  It's actually my favourite vegetable curry!

Me too @joedenise - with onion in long slices and frozen spinach - ooh, I need more frozen spinach, now I've typed that!

I generally add some frozen spinach to all my curries.  Fresh might be quicker but I can never get through a bag quick enough and I don't find it freezes as well as buying it ready frozen!

Frozen spinach is also considerably cheaper @joedenise.  Please share your butternut squash curry recipe!

ShelivesintheShire said:

@Elizabeth49 You can significantly decaffinate ordinary teabags by pouring a couple of inches of boiling water over the tea bag, leave it for a minute then discard the brew. You then make tea as normal using the tea bag.

Ooohh!!! Another useful tip!  Thanks @ShelivesintheShire .  Hopefully, I’ll remember it when next I fancy an evening cuppa.  Does it significantly alter the flavour?

patentgirl said:

Doing well so far but then January always seems to go well as the year goes on I tend to overspend spent £78 out of £180 need to sort my signature out found the ideal time our local Coop reduces down so to be honest probably most of our food items was a yellow sticker my only problem with that not got biggest freezer have fun playing Tetris when home always have home made soup for lunch so think that is helping budget too good luck everyone 

I feel your pain @patentgirl .  Our freezer has reached the “dangerous to open” point where things leap for freedom and land on your feet, if not careful when opening the door.  I still have one container of goose stock to freeze, after last weekend’s efforts but we harvested 3.5L of stock and 2.5kg of rendered fat from the “Christmas” goose, plus 4 meals*, and enough meat for a 4th (now in the freezer).  

And all that Freezer Tetris was before I bought a frozen Salmon en Croute (£4.99) in L!dl yesterday, when I popped in to get our “free” family pack of mushrooms.  £9.97 spent, but I also bought 1kg of cooking bacon (£1.99) and a packet of chorizo-style meatballs (£2.99), which we’ll eat over the weekend because there’s no way I’ll get those into the freezer.

I have two other shops to declare:  £3 spent on a 4kg sack of large onions at a local Asian shop on Wednesday, and £12.60 spent in Sainsbugs on Sunday, on two 500g jars of coconut oil (£4.80 each/Nectar price), plus a bag of rocket (£1), 55p on pita bread, and £1 on another tub of houmous.  

Note:  the Bulk Fund has refunded £14.25 to the GC purse, to cover the cost of the coconut oil and the tray of 12 tinned tomatoes we bought earlier in the month. (The coconut oil will last us years, since I only use it to make chocolates, but it was a great price, while the tray of tinned tomatoes should last 3 months.)

This brings our GC Spend to £98.23/£180 leaving £81.77 for the rest of the month.

Need to pick your collective brains, please?  We have 2/3 of a tub of clotted cream lurking in the fridge.  (It’s been there for months and is refusing to become a growth medium, which means I can’t just throw it out.). What can I do with it, please, to use it up?  

Many thanks, 

- Pip








* The meals were: roast dinner, goose risotto, chestnut stuffing toasties, and a pastry turnover thing I made by combining the last of the stuffing with a bit of chopped up goose breast and a fried onion, then packing it into some ready-rolled puff pastry and serving it with another batch of roasted potatoes and roasted sweet potatoes. Had the leftovers for lunch yesterday.  Yum!

ancientmum

I'm a few pounds over budget on last year's total, but ready to make a fresh start in 2026 from 7th January.
So far I've spent (rounded up to the next £1) £4 in Sains, £2 in little Tesco on milk £6 in the market on eggs and sausages, and a big spend of £34 in Lidl after £5 coupon taken off.  To make the shop up to over £30 I bought toilet rolls, laundry pods and stock-ups of flour, tuna and pasta in addition to the normal weekly groceries.  I won't have to buy any more toilet roll until June!