March 2026 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

March started yesterday with the milk bill for the forthcoming week. February has ended with a 10% overspend of £330.03, overtaking the good progress in January. We are only just under the 16.67% if we divide the year by 12 and spend the same each month. Of course, we try to stay under that so there is stuff left for December.

With a couple of stores buys stashed in the March budget already, I'm going for £200 this month and only buying essentials. We have lots in the cupboard. I do have a list in my Morries app but I'm going to trim it before I go.

Soontobeoap

£8.00 spent at M and S on baguette and ham for DS and family's arrival. I would usually do cold meats and salad which would cost much more but this is a lot easier and cheaper. I have made a lemon meringue pie with all of the lemons left over from pancake day and taken some stewed.apple out of the fridge for an apple pie as I overdid the pastry making! @nellygrace you would be so pleased with me. I also rubbed the inside of the lemon skins along with some white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda over my hob which is now sparkling bright in the sunshine. 😊

JingsMyBucket

Happy Saturday folks!

I've updated the Budgets up to here.

I'm still ruminating on what ours should be. While rootling around in the freezer last night for today's dinner, I noticed we're getting low on some basic meat items. I'll take a pass at making a list of dishes to cook this month and plan spend from there.

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon all,

I committed the classic mistake and went food shopping while l was hungry and as a result put a few to many treats into the basket 🙈. I visited Asda, Aldi and Tesco's stocking up on ingredients for the coming weeks menu total spent £107.67 including some toiletries and greaseproof paper from the bulk fund..

Grocery Budget £102.92 / £400

Bulk Fund £4.75 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 107.67 / £450

PipneyJane

First shop of the new month has been done. £17.50 spent in MrT’s on 4 tins of Mackerel (£2.25 each), 4 tins of Pease Pudding (£1 each) and 2x1kg bags of dried black-eyed beans (£2.25 each). Yes, I found Pease Pudding! And the tins were full-sized!

Is it just me or do you get annoyed at supermarket layouts, too? I think they are designed to confuse you, to stop you comparing products and prices. I had to look in three separate places for the black-eyed beans, before I found any! In the interim, I found split-red lentils in different sized packets and brands, in at least 5 places. (All different prices, too.) Grrr…

The only reason I visited this particular branch of MrT’s is because that’s where I found black-eyed beans in January, when our regular branches of MrT’s and Sainsbugs didn’t have any. (I’m stocking up my store cupboard. Always have packages in reserve, as well as the current, in use, Tupperware boxful.)

Also visited L!dl to pick up my “free” packet of chocolate chip cookies. I managed to get a relatively expensive packet, priced at £1.59. Interestingly, despite my having to use their app in order to get the freebie, because I didn’t purchase anything else, there isn’t a receipt saved for today’s trip.

This brings our total spend to £17.50/£182.90, leaving £165.40 for the rest of the month.

Meal Plans for the next few days:

Sunday: Southern-style Pork & Beans in the slow cooker, made with belly pork and cooking bacon. Since I don’t have any white beans, I’ll use blackeyed beans from the freezer. Served on bulgar wheat.
Monday: Mary Berry’s Sausage & Red Pepper Hot Pot, made with YS Pigs-in-Blankets purchased at Christmas and frozen.
Tuesday: Chole Paneer
Wednesday: Chicken Tray Bake
Thursday: Grilled salmon accompanied by leftover rice from the tray bake

• Pip

Jen_x

Newbie (ish) here. Joining in this month as I really need to get my grocery budget under control.We're currently right on the cusp of having more going out than we have coming in so economies need to be made

There are 3 adults and one child in our household. Also a dog but her food is budgeted separately. I'll include washing powder and cleaning supplies in the budget. I'm aiming for £400 this month and hoping I can bring it in a little bit under. I make from scratch 99% of the time,make my own bread and I've a well stocked freezer and cupboards to pull from so that will help.

GROCERY BUDGET 0/£400

diminua

Hi Jingsmybucket,

Could you put me down for £250 this month again please

Thank you.

Soontobeoap

Welcome @Jen_x . Love the name. Welcome and good luck

goldfinches

I've decided to have a veg delivery box from a local organic farm, where you can choose all the items in your box, to see if that will help me to avoid temptation in the supermarket; so I've ordered my first one to be delivered next Thursday. I've included a kilogram of Seville Oranges because I haven't seen them anywhere else here at all and 2 Crown Prince squashes which I think should keep for quite a while because I didn't know how long they'd be available from the farm. That cost £38.20 but it should have enough veg for a fortnight and I'm planning to batch cook it all on the Saturday and Sunday.

That makes my main GC total £38.20/£186.

Soontobeoap

Another £3.25 for me on ice cream and custard The lemon meringue and apple pie that I made as a desert were both lovely and received lots of compliments and were all made from store cupboard, freezer and left over lemons from pancake day. I have however found 3 more lemons in fridge so feel a cake making session coming on this afternoon whilst the large chicken from the freezer cooks for our roast dinner. Hopefully the chicken will feed us for most of the week in different forms.

I have lost my lemon drizzle cake recipe and have not been able to make one quite as good since. Does anyone have a recipe where you rub the flour and butter together first. It makes a Madeira style cake rather than a lighter sponge and used to get me lots of compliments. I must organise the family recipe book that I keep meaning to do so that all recipes are safely kept for future generations.

Thank you all for all of your tips. You are never too old to learn new tricks.😉