January 2026 Grocery Challenge

TravelCrystal

@PipneyJane, I made some meatballs with my pork mince last week and added cumin, coriander, egg and a crushed up weetabix I’ve had for over a year, the last one. And after browning cooked in a tomato, leek and garlic sauce

diminua

Getting quite tight now - £237.85 spent, so £12.15 left until 1 Feb. 
Milk, coffee and toilet rolls bought today. I know I still need margarine and bread. I'd like an alternate sandwich filling for work as well - at the moment I only have cheddar cheese and pickle. Maybe mackerel or houmous.  Potatoes and pasta and more milk, probably at some point next week. It might still be doable. 

Nelliegrace

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

My 18 year old car had a service and passed its MOT.
I stopped at Aldi on the way home for milk x 2, and small bananas. I bought more oranges, on offer at 89p for 5. We have half an orange each rather than juice with breakfast. I bought a kilo of chicken drumsticks 30% off at £1.50. I cooked them all in the casserole, and made another wholemeal apple crumble and some rock cakes, so DH has something to take to the football and won’t be tempted by junk food. 

£6.57 spent.

January spending £106.68.

Suffolk_lass

Nelliegrace said:

@otb666 We started buying high % dark chocolate, without added Soya Lecithin. It doesn’t take much, just a small square or two eaten slowly, to feel satisfied. We have our two ounce, 50g, ration each as a Sunday treat, and mine lasts all week in my sweetie jar. We have quite a stock in the cupboard, bought mainly on offer. It sits there, not even tempting, yet we couldn’t get enough of the addictive Mars, Snickers, Double Deckers, etc. which we used to buy. We have stopped buying any other sweets and don’t miss them. One look at the ingredients and it is easy to put them back on the shelf. 
I bought some 72% cocoa drinking chocolate to have with hot milk for a treat. 

This is why I use cocoa or 90% cocoa solids and lighten with cream, and sweeten myself with cane sugar or honey - so I am in control. The cane sugar thing is because the processing undertaken to render the sugar is much more straightforward and takes so much less energy than beet sugar, and I believe that makes it better for how your body metabolises it. T&L or Sainsbugs O/B are both cane. As a beekeeper I keep a close eye on white granulated sugar and Morries have 5K bags of T&L for £5 at the moment. If it weren't for the bees, our sugar consumption would be miniscule

Pennypincin

Hi everyone.
I've 2 shops to declare totalling £24.04, both the usual bits and bobs, today's had some treats for today, although I try not to to get too many out of the shopping money.
I'm left with £135.96 for the next 3 weeks.

thriftwizard

Sigh - £78 added (ballpark figure, receipts AWOL! But reasonably accurate; it's the pennies that aren't accurate rather than the pounds) for the weekend's grocery spend, to last us throughout the week, which means I'd only have £40-odd for next weekend's groceries. BUT Friday is payday, hence into February's budget! So I can breathe a small sigh of relief. That said, I've ordered £30-odd of flour from our local mill, so whilst I'd normally put that under the "bulk-buy" heading, I should probably start including it in the general grocery spend, as there aren't so many people living here now. Leaving me £10-odd for topping-up, which will probably only be some sliced bread for OH. Hmmm... 

jivjules1

Ended up spending on snacks and frozen pizza and chips and went to get milk and spent £20 it’s definitely a learning curve but much better than usual so I’ll take that

407.13/600 was hoping for £400 so mid not spend anything now!some good lessons for next month! 

oceandreamer

£7.41 spent at Lidl on milk, yoghurt, stir fry and curry sauces and some rice.  
127/200
I'm pleased with this month's spend but it has been helped enormously because my freezer is ridiculously full so I am making a real effort to eat out of it  Because of this, I haven't bought any meat all month which has been a huge saving.  This will probably be the case for most of February too, which is is good for the budget, but a bit ridiculous at the same time.

cuddlymarm

Hi guys
I have gone over slightly as I’ve spent £159.04/£150 but my freezers are now full after Xmas and I’ve bought some dried and long life milk and extra bread flour to stop the need for extra little shops ( where I end up buying more than I’ve planned) 

Elizabeth49

Hi, It's been a bit of spending week. £45.46 at the local butchers. I ordered later than usual this month as they close for the first two weeks of January, so I hoping that by keeping the portitions fairly small it will last until March, but bet it won't! So I'm going to see how it goes and then decide if I keep ordering from there as it's a lot dearer than the supermarket. Good stuff though and I like to support local shops.
I'm going to come in just under budget this month, but that's because I started with full freezers. Febuary is going to be harder even though it's a short month.
Other spends were a Sainbugs delivery £47.47, Savers for household cleaning stuff £9.25, M&S £13.00 for some fancy bread and other bits for visitors, and £1.20 at the local shop for mushrooms I forgot to buy everywhere else.
I should only need fruit, veg and milk midweek, so should be just under budget when my new month starts on the 30th January.

£383.66/£425