February 2026 Grocery Challenge

determined_new_ms

hi everyone! I haven’t been around for a while! Find it hard to keep up on here. Anyway! I had been totally inspired by Nicole Svenson on TikTok. And I have slashed my food bill as a result. Now only going GC shopping 2x pm and have spent circa £350 on groceries for Jan and feb! My bill had creeped up to about £400-500 pm!

I am challenging myself to spend £250 pm this year and two months at £100. I had to be creative as my partner isn’t exactly on the same page!

My goal for the year £2700

jivjules1

8.99 spent by DH on snacks for DS1 who is in hospital

108.26/350

Soontobeoap

Hi I am back in

£250 for me in February please.

We are back from our lovely cruise today. Went shopping to Sainsbury's and forgot nectar card and list! Total school boy error. Had planned to spend nectar points today. It will have to wait until next time. Will keep receipt and have nectar points added when I go back but is little cancellation when I missed out on nectar offers! Kicking myself but honestly head is still in holiday mode. £65.00 spent already! Only did small shop compared with what was planned because of my error but we can get through weekend.

goldfinches

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81874999#Comment_81874999

Sorry to hear your DS1 is poorly and hope he gets well soon.

I am feeling rather embarrassed by how much I've spent already because I've given in to temptation in the supermarkets despite making a list, I had been avoiding working out the total and hoping it would go away if I didn't look at it IYKWIM. Anyway, today I decided to get it over with and it isn't pretty so here goes.

I spent £14.65 at Sainsbury's, followed by £9.65 at Mr Ts, £2 at Paul and then £13.10 at M&S of which £10.75 was on baking ingredients which helps a bit.

That makes my new totals £28.65/£168 GC, £10.75/£24 Baking Budget and £0/£100 Bulk Buy.

I will have to buy loo paper, washing powder and paper hankies tomorrow so will try again to stick to my list.

This week's bake was Tim Spector's Pecan Chocolate Cookies which I made with walnuts instead of the pecans and they were a huge hit, I forgot to take any photographs before they were all devoured. This coming week I'm planning to make the double chocolate variation shown lower down that page which looks delicious.

Sallyp2

Co-op are doing old school xmas saving stamp books - each stamp costs £1

Save £48 by Dec and earn £2 in stamps

i've got 2 books

RedLipstick

@determined_new_ms Good luck, looking forward to hear how it goes. I'm trying to limit my grocery shopping to once a week this year (it's working well so far), so twice a month would be such an achievement, please keep posting! 😍

Suffolk_lass

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81875178#Comment_81875178

@RedLipstick I have found that doing one big shop about every three plus weeks just about works for us. It sounds a bit bonkers but we get milk delivered and can buy eggs locally, and I have plenty of homegrown stuff in the freezer or bottled. It needs a monthly plan to the extent that you have options (so what I do with the leftovers isn't planned out but I know I will use on 2/3 days.

My other top up shop is often a bit of bowl fruit and that is how I realised my naughty thing is the off-list things I pick up - so avoiding that temptation by not shopping is the way of things. It might work for you too @goldfinches if you "can resist anything except temptation" (as my granny used to say!).

It takes a bit of practice, but realising what your own habits are that regularly bust your budget, really helps to mitigate/stop/tolerate in a more controlled way. I mean, who doesn't love a scoop of ice-cream, so a tub of it goes in my trolley most visits.

I need some eggs and bowl fruit this week so just need my conscious eating to extend to my conscious shopping

JingsMyBucket

Welcome back @determined_new_ms and @Soontobeoap . 🙂 I’ve added your budgets in to the list. 

@goldfinches those totals don’t seem that bad. You’re roughly at a quarter of your budget a quarter of the way through the month. No need to beat yourself up. Unless you like that kind of thing… no judgement here! 

Well, we haven’t been shopping since the beginning of the month so I’m happy with that. I’ll sidle out to M & S today to replenish our fruit, yoghurt, and canned supplies. 

Good news on the Hello Fresh front. Even though we’ve liked the meals he chose this past week, Mr. Jings said he’ll cancel it because he’s not sure about value in the long term. It was good to shake things up though and have him cooking for meals instead of me for a while. 

RedLipstick

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81875300#Comment_81875300

Thank you @Suffolk_lass I love all the tips. I did a bit of research last night on it, and to be honest, I think it could work, especially as I tend to eat lots of fairly similar meals on rotation, and I can see there is a lot I could possibly fit into one big shop if I planned in advance. I shop with a list, and actually have ice cream, mixed nuts and fruits, and popcorn on a weekly rotation as well, I could just order everything once a month, and then just get fresh fruit etc. Would also save me carrying my weekly shopping all the time, and just get one big delivery at the beginning of the month. Even talked to my mum today, and she also told me how to plan better (especially fresh vs hard veg etc). When I was little, one monthly trip to a big grocery shop was a thing, she would then buy ad hoc stuff as needed once a week, we didn't even have these big grocers in the area so monthly trip felt like a treat, I could explore books and backstreet boys cassettes while mum was picking the meat 😅 So I can see it's definitely doable, just need to look better at my own habits.

Again, thank you, really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience xx

PipneyJane

Evening All

I have three shops to declare from this weekend:

• £21.84 in L!dl yesterday, which included a free Dubai muffin (was £1.99), BOGOF packs of pencils 75p - we bought two - YS cooked Swedish meatballs £2.31, 1kg frozen mixed berries £2.54, 1kg fusilli £1.19, Pierogi with sauerkraut 2x£1.49, Sauerkraut £1.29, vanilla chai £2.99, vitamin c 4x£1.19, bratwurst £2.99
• £18.10 in Sainsbugs on 8 bananas £1.05, 2kg potatoes £1.15, 610g broccoli £1.34, 1L milk £96p, 450ml Yeo Valley Yoghurts 2x£1.25, 2kg brown lentils £3.50, 2kg red kidney beans £3.75, 500g penne 5x41p, Fevertree grapefruit soda £1.80.
• £2.30 today in Sainsbugs on snacks for my DH to eat while he’s watching tonight’s Superbowl.

This brings our spend to £99.44/£189 leaving £89.56 for the rest of the month.

-Pip