April 2026 Grocery Challenge

Finstickle

Hi @JingsMyBucket

Please put me down for

£350

Thank you

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here.

Welcome to all the newcomers and the returners!

You're welcome @Nelliegrace but all the wonderful spreadsheet credit goes to the lovely @Suffolk_lass for all the hard work she put into it.

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For us, it's going to be a really tight month but I'll keep it at:

£350 March 31 – April 30.

I'm going shopping later today and that will kick off our budget. I'll be able to reach the £150 mark in Lidl this way and can snag the free bag of nuts via Lidl Plus. Hopefully they also have half priced lamb in my store as well.

carboot_karaoke

Morning all,

I popped to Lidl yesterday to buy a large bottle of milk @£2.40 and redeemed my free veg voucher for a 7.5kg bag of potatoes.

In hindsight, l wished id chosen a different item given the cheap veg available this weekend.

Grocery Budget £54.01 / £400

Bulk Fund £3.50 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 57.51 / £450

JingsMyBucket

@carboot_karaoke I tend to go for a bag of mixed peppers, asparagus or a container of expensive tomatoes for the free vegetable. I'm on foot so can't carry the 7.5kg potatoes anyway.

Suffolk_lass

Hmmm. I had my big April delivery today (a day early because I had a free month of deliveries for March) I did swap the veg last night to exchange in the 4p carrots and parsnips for the full priced ones, and to take advantage of some on offer beef joints (knowing these have been used from my freezer).

I bought 2x500g of steak mince and therein lies the hmm. Each pack contained exactly 497g of minced beef steak. I know this because I divided each pack into two and weighed the bags to be about the same. So before I complained, Mr Sl asked the universe what the UK weights and measures regs are for pre-packaged goods - there is a negative tolerance of 3% up to 500g - so anything from 485g can legally be labelled as 500g packs of "goods".

Given the precision of UK retailers' equipment the question is whether my scales are wrong or whether they have dialled down the quantity as a legal form of shrink-flation. It has never been under before (but it is probably six months since I bought minced beef). The scales on the fresh counter have to be calibrated and so asking the butchery counter to weigh and serve you gets round the shortfall, and I do normally shop in store, so just for the benefit of others, I am reporting it here, as it has raised an alarm bell for me.

TravelCrystal

Just reporting my first spend of April.

Very interesting @Suffolk_lass about the weight of your mince. It does make you wonder.

My delivery from Ocado is coming later today and consists of fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs that I don’t have in the garden, bacon, meringue nests, fresh lasagne sheets, mayo, crème fraiche, biscuits, jam, cheese, yoghurts, milk, frozen prawns, eggs and tinned tomatoes. £68.19 spent

Incidentally, the marmalade I made from the Seville oranges I had in the last order turned out well. 6 pots made. Works out at 68p a jar plus gas to make it. And it’s very tasty according to D.H

Have a great Easter everyone

T.C

mandco

£600 for April please

This is lower than normal as we’re hopefully away at the end of the month so only 3 weeks plus some extras for our house sitter while we are away. I’m hoping to come in closer to £500 but there will be extra spends at Easter so want to keep some wiggle room.

Spends so far £132.83 over the weekend plus £6.78 today on 2 x tg2g bag these were great value as most of it is still in date for a few day

2 x cottage pie -2/4. 2 x cheese & chorizo tortelloni 3/4 2 x fresh tomato & basil soup 3/4. 2 x 14 Quorn cocktail sausages 2/4 2 x attack snack 4/4
2 x lunchables 7/4 pk fridge raiders 1/4 pk lamb samosa 3/4 pk 20 ready to eat cocktail frankfurters 7/4 raspberry Swiss roll 2/4 and a muller rice today’s date

Matron_Midge

I’ll be starting off the month with a shop on Thursday. Usual budget of £400 but may have to dip into our £200 slush fund - we will see

Thanks for the new thread!

Greying_Pilgrim

First expenditure to record today. I went to a local market town that has a branch of h3r0n f00ds, and dropped lucky on quorn cocktail sausages for 69p BB 6/4 so I bought 2 punnets. I also asked LG to choose an easter egg for themselves, as I hadn't bought one. As it turned out, they chose a very modest £3 egg in H3r0n, and had a £3 back-up choice in £land had nothing been in H3r0n. I'm glad they chose what they wanted, as I wouldn't have chosen the same egg for them. I also bought some malt-ezer eggs and reece-sez peanut butter bunnies for us all to share on Sunday. I also bought some Jarlic, apples (for holiday) and the TV guide (not included in the grocery budget. On food (or food-like substances), I spent £9.24.

Must update siggie figgie. Thanks for the welcome @JingsMyBucket

Greying X

JingsMyBucket

@mandco and @Matron_Midge I've got your budgets recorded.

Hi folks. My first spend to report for this month after returning from my usual shopping round this afternoon. 

£50.48 at Lidl for half priced 2.62kg whole leg of lamb (15.58), 1kg carrots (4p), Polish sausage (3.99), black pepper sausages (2.49), bananas, broccoli (1.08), 2 loose red bell peppers (1.40), onions (99p), 2 avocados (1.76), fresh parsley (50p), 2 cans of mackerel (1.98), 15 free range eggs (2.89), milk (1.25), mascarpone (1.69), spaghetti and penne pasta, frozen mango (1.59), snack bars (2.49), 1kg rolled oats (1.09), 1kg crunchy peanut butter (3.99), fizzy vitamin C tablets (1.19), digestives (59), cappuccino sachets (89p), and oatcakes (69p).  

I chose a 300g container of cashews for my free nuts/dried fruit Lidl Plus offer. I'll lop off an ≈ 800g hunk of the lamb and freeze it separately for roasting later.

Next was £6.53 at M & S for clementines (1.40), cavolo Nero (1.65), garlic (50p), chilies (1.00), YS bread (58p), 2 cans of baked beans (90p), and 1 can of plum tomatoes (50p). It’s my first time buying M & S canned tomatoes and I’ve heard they’re good while being affordable.  

Total £57.01 / £350 spent. £292.99 remaining. 

I didn’t get everything I wanted today because I just couldn’t carry all the heavy stuff. I’ll return tomorrow to get a bag of 2kg potatoes from Lidl and more canned goods from M & S along with fruit, cheese and yoghurt. 

A flyer from Morrisons arrived in today’s mail and it has some valuable coupons that can only be used in the store. The first is £5 off £25 expiring April 12th. I’ll likely swoop by there later this week to get some more meat for the freezer and other items. It looks like they have a 4 for £5 freezer deal too so that will help push me towards the total.