January 2026 Grocery Challenge

Changeyourlife25

£6.86/£500

Starting off the year with a lil corner shop trip - milk, loaf, pasta , 2 tomatoes 🍅 

Frugalwannabe

Happy New Year!

Please can I be added for £600 for the month. This is for 5 of us and with 2 teen boys and a tween girl they’re all pretty much eating non stop!

thank you ☺️

Soontobeoap

Welcome @ShelivesintheShire and Crysta27  this  is a lovely group of very helpful people.Good luck @Frugalwannabe when we had 3 grandchildren with us for 2 weeks in the summer we spent £600 in the month so I have an idea what it is like. Good luck with the challenge

PipneyJane

Happy New Year All and welcome to the new GC members.

I have two small shops to declare from yesterday.  We needed to spend £7, in order to qualify for L!dl’s 10%-off voucher, so popped into the one near our local MrT’s.  £7.95 spent on Chocolate (£1.09), Maasdam cheese slices (£1.99), 4 oranges (£1.89), Schloer (2x£1.49).  Only the oranges were a necessary purchase, (for stuffing today’s goose), but the cheese will be used in to form the basis of another meal.

L!dl wasn’t particularly well stocked, so we wandered over to MrT’s, looking for inspiration for NYE dinner.  Found a Camembert (£3.25), a Cranberry Raisin & Cashew Bloomer (£2.35) and a packet of, 2 YS chicken pastries (90p).  Last night’s dinner became baked Camembert accompanied by sliced bloomer, and we had the pastries for brunch today.  £6.50 spent.

Naturally, when purchasing the above, we acquired two £2 coins, whcih have gone into the Running Away Fund moneybox, together with 25p of shrapnel.  Small savings add up.

This brings our total GC spend to £18.70/£180 leaving £161.30 for the rest of the month.

I’ve already started the big shopping list for L!dl.  Will probably go either tomorrow or Saturday.  Have to go to Sainsbugs as well, in order to take advantage of an offer there for discounted yoghurts.  (We have a yoghurt each day for the calcium.)

- Pip

Nelliegrace

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

A walk around Sainsby’s out of the rain. Tomorrow is forecast to be icy. 

With my loyalty card, 
I bought a matured beef joint on offer at £8 a kilo. It cost £12.84 instead of £27.27, and will cut into 3 Sunday roasts, of just over 500g at £4.28 each. 
Menier dark cooking chocolate (without Soya lecithin)  x 2 at £2.25

In the sales I bought
470 g of Brie for £1.12
600g of cheddar for £2.50, both to freeze in weekly portions. 
Brandy butter 62p
Brandy cream 500 ml £1.
The cream made 200g of butter, drained and rinsed thoroughly with cold water, squeezed in sterilised muslin, and frozen in weekly portions There was 250ml of buttermilk left with sugar and brandy, for baking. 

We got the milk, bananas, cooked beetroot, 

£26.01 spent

Soontobeoap

We had the beef stew tonight made from the roast beef.I made extra gravy with it so have frozen that with  all of the left veg for a beef soup for me one lunch time and I spooned out the 3 chunks of meat left in it to make pasties for tomorrow. They will almost be veggie ones but as long as DH sees a bit of meat these days he is happy. We have come a long way! So I am through the first week on just over £30.00 and now off on a Carribbean cruise for 5 weeks to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary year. See you all on the February thread. 

TravelCrystal

Happy New Year G.C’rs
Welcome all newbie’s and good luck to everyone for 2026 and your budget’s

I have managed to keep out of the shops for a few days as using the Ocado order bits and bobs still.
Had a lovely carrot and ginger soup made in the slow cooker for a quick lunch yesterday as we had the neighbours around last night.
Made a loaf from the M and S flour that I really like to go with the cheese purchased, biscuits for cheese and the party food, posh sausage rolls and Indian snack selection.
Neighbours bought snacks and tipples.

There were seven of us in our small lounge and we didn’t get to bed until after 3.00 😴 but a fun time was had by all.
Today mid afternoon D.H and myself had rump steaks from our meat supply which were gorgeous.

Because I had frozen some milk last week I have been able to keep away from the shops but I think Saturday will be the day to venture out.
Hopefully any forecasted bad weather will wait.

T.C

carboot_karaoke

Soontobeoap said:
So I am through the first week on just over £30.00 and now off on a Carribbean cruise for 5 weeks to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary year. See you all on the February thread. 

Congratulations on your Wedding Anniversary 50 years is amazing. A 5 week caribbean cruise seems like a fitting way to mark the occasion 🥰

It our 25th anniversary this year Mr CK and l are still trying to decide where to go. 

JingsMyBucket

carboot_karaoke said:

JingsMyBucket said:

I really hit the YS jackpot today! @carboot_karaoke, I’m going to copy your style of displaying your numbers. Let me know if that’s okay with you 🙂 

It most certainly is 😊

Thank you @carboot_karaoke 🙂

Happy new year everyone! Welcome to all the new posters and the returners. It's never too late to join. 

Budgets are updated to here. 

Soontobeoap

Enjoy your 25th @carboot_karaoke whatever you decide to do. For our 25th we had a party at the hotel venue where we had our wedding reception. For our 40th we took the family to Bude for a week. It was lovely with toddler and baby grandchildren but there were only 8 of us then. There are 12 now and all much bigger. Each one is different but all just as special. We only celebrate the big ones. 🙂