April 2026 Grocery Challenge

whitecatcreamsofaDOH

£72.78 / £420

About £12 under budget which makes a nice change. Nothing in for dinner for next week so will need to shop on Monday.

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here. 

Good evening all! This thread went gangbusters over the weekend! I’ll catch up in a bit. Since March 31st, we have a few spends to declare. 

£24.02 at Tesco on Thursday for bananas (1.13), broccoli (15p), onions (15p), potatoes (15p), 2 red bell peppers (1.40), toilet paper (5.75), block butter (1.99), shortcrust pastry (1.35), 400g cheddar (3.25), 300g back bacon (1.25), Vicks Vaporub (6.20), and a surprise Dairy Milk buttons Easter egg for Mr. Jings (1.25)

£19.39 at Morrisons on Saturday by Mr. Jings for 2 bags of coffee beans, various ramen, digestives, and ginger nuts. At least he tapped my More card when he was checking out. 

Then I did some shopping yesterday (Sunday). 

£10.66 at Morrisons for half priced beef on sale (7.23), bananas (1.28), and apples (2.15). That allowed me to get 1,000 points. I’ll head back later next week to get some critical shopping which will give me another 2,000 points. 

£10.87 at Lidl for scallions/spring onions (8p), loose ginger (41p), potatoes (8p), block butter (1.99), 2 pints of milk (1.25), various yoghurts, frozen prawns (2.59), and a net of chocolate eggs to take visiting to his cousins (1.99).

Last was £8.48 at M & S for clementines (2.10), Skyr (2.50), YS seeded bread (98p), 4 cans of baked beans (1.80p), and 1 can of coconut milk (1.10p).  

Total £130.43 / £350 spent. £219.57 remaining. 

Ooof, that’s a lot for the first week. We’re trying to buy little bits here and there and only what we need for the most part. I’ll visit Savers tomorrow for necessary items like matches and toothpaste and then M & S for more cheddar. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening GC'rs. £18.17 spent in MrL today. We're currently on holiday, so spends were slightly skewed to buying 'dupes' of what we have at home, but due to travelling, couldn't bring with us - eg olive spread and milk. The total was under £10 (just) but then we passed the ice-cream and wine shelves, so…… But we are on holiday, and won't be frequenting cafes or pubs, so costs are being kept to a minimum.

I will update my siggie figgie now.

Greying X

JingsMyBucket

Howdy, a couple spends from a nice sunny walk into town today. 

£8.34 at M & S for cilantro (85p), a lemon (45p), twin pack of avocados (1.75), YS hummus (1.04), and a 550g block of extra mature cheddar (4.25). 

£4.70 at Iceland for 2 YS 200g punnets of cut pineapple (74p each) and 2 YS 325g  of 5% ground beef (1.61). I did the math in the store those packets of ground beef work out to £4.90 a kilo instead of the usual £10/kg which is the current going rate. 

£3.18 at Savers for matches (69p) and Febreze air freshener (2.49). 

Total £146.65 / £350 spent. £203.35 remaining. 

Hands firmly back in my pockets for the rest of the week. We’re still working through and on the Easter Sunday lamb leg. Last night I made a lamb saag with some of the meat. I’ll slice off the rest and make a couscous roasted vegetable salad to serve with the YS hummus. 

Suffolk_lass

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81952527#Comment_81952527

lol, mine's a 21 year old Bosch Gourmet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it definitely applies here. Ours was an ex display model bought from "made for idiots" - remember them!?

Sallyp2

new spend total £77.93 / £200

co-op 1 = £12.46 (cat food deducted)

sainsburys = £1

co-op 2 = £21.98 (incIudes x2 ice cream multipacks as its gorgeously sunny) (resisted urge to buy some chilled cans g&t)

am finding paying with £ cash is helping me stay on list

LotsOfTea

I bought grapes, tomatoes, blueberries, cucumber and wraps today and spent £9.08.

We've still got plenty of veg in the fridge and plenty of freezer stuff to be using up so I'm hoping this month will be a relatively good one.

£12.95/£300 so far

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening GC'rs

Another £16.49 spend to own up to, but £10+ was on alcohol/no alcohol cider. Next time I won't bother with the cider, it's no more special than fizzy apple juice. Not like the famous Irish stout, that the 0% version tastes like the alcoholic version.

I have updated my siggie figgie, and I shall hope to stay out of supermarkets for the remainder of the hols.

Greying X

thriftwizard

Well, I've been a bit lackadaisical & failed to check in & post my spends over the Easter weekend; sunshine has meant it's allotment time! So I just added what I know I spent at the market to the sums gone from the bank account to the supermarket & the butcher - only to realise that a fair bit of the supermarket spend was on chocolate or similar for the family, which should come out of a different "purse"! And I'm fairly sure I was in a rush & didn't wait for the receipt… I do know it was 5 x around £5 (2 x £5.50, 1 x £4.50 and the other two were very close to £5, which was my "target" figure, for fairness) so will scurry off & take £25 back off! Then there was a minor spend on tofu for DD2 whilst passing an Ald! earlier today so I'll add that back in… It's definitely easier to keep track if you stay up to date!

cowboymum

More spending today but quite happy that we've used up pretty much most of the fresh vegetables (apart from few root veg and some.of the cheap potatoes). Really don't want to waste anything.

Riverford £39.75 (includes chicken carcass, eggs, fruit and veg)

Sainsburys £40.95 (doubled up on a couple of things that were on offer plus baking stuff as completely run out)

Aldi £25.18 (teabags, coffee, peanut butter and sangria!)

Total - £105.88 today, bringing total to £415.99 / £620. Hopefully I am now fully stocked so just fresh stuff for rest of month. (Eek already spent 2/3 of budget for April!)