May 2026 Grocery Challenge

cowboymum

Another £30.99 spent at Tesco. Bought a few things for holiday and made a chilli and a bolognoase which I've frozen for the first couple of days when we go on holiday.

Nuts, trail mix etc £23.45. More supplements £14.70. Aldi for tea bags and a few other bits £11.85. Tesco £6.53 for salad stuff and picnic lunch for the trip.

Total up to now 364.02 / 550

TravelCrystal

I agree @Sallyp2 having cash focuses the mind and that used to be my mantra. I have at the moment however got stuck on cards and am on my last bank having completed all the switches to get extra money for savings.

So on that note reminding myself having my shopping delivered rather missed the point so I cancelled my O order that was coming and went to Lidl’s.

I bought fruit and veg, tea, coffee, milk, Greek yogurt x3 which for some reason are now down to £1.49😮, jelly, muesli and granola, biscuits, marg, corned beef, bleach, scourers, evaporated milk and vanilla extract.

Total £42.41. Didn’t spend any of my points as will save up for a voucher.

Hope everyone is having a good month.
Almost done for May now I think, but better hang on, you never know 🤭

T.C

thriftwizard

£165.20 added, which covers the rest of last weekend's spends & all of this weekend - butcher, fishmonger, greengrocery at the market & the inevitable supermarket spends too. So £273.53 spent, two weekend spends to go (one with family staying) and £176.47 left to spend - tight, but doable with care. I've just bought fish for the freezer, and was given a whole lot of frost-damaged fruit & veg "for the chickens" - who will get the bits that I can't dehydrate (mangos, peppers) or cook up & freeze (tomatoes) plus the iceberg lettuces - so I will have plenty to fall back on!

goldfinches

Hi all, I've just had a massive tot up of a whole series of outstanding purchases including this week's Riverford box and several trips to various supermarkets so here are my new totals.

Main GC total £83.26/£186
Baking Fund total £18.35/£24
Bulk Buy Fund total £25/£100

I had to buy ruinously expensive instant espresso powder and walnuts this week for Wednesday's bake as coffee and walnut flavour biscuits were specially requested. I also bought more frozen fruit from Sains on the 3 for 2 offer and counted that as a bulk buy.

Here are the biscuits which I made with Doves Farm gluten free plain flour and Flora salted plant butter because I couldn't find unsalted Flora or Naturli in any of the supermarkets near me. They did spread a bit more than I liked and were very fragile so next time I might add a bit of xanthan gum to help them firm up a bit. This is the Nigella Coffee Shortbreads recipe I used.

Greying_Pilgrim

Small grocery spend to add today. I was over the right side of town to access fArmf00ds, so went for a look. Not much doing today, but i did get 1L olive oil for £4.99, 3for£1 cannellini beans and a small jar of pAtAks mango chutney for 89p. I then popped into Morries, not a shop i frequent regularly, but I'm glad I went for a look, as ours has transformed, and for one thing, they now have a whole 'World Foods' section, which they previously didn't. I limited my purchases to some veggie burgers £2, 4 seed mix £1.05 and some YS'd Chaat Masala for 38p. Total grocery spent £10.31.

Greying X

Finstickle

Hi All,

Late to the party with no posts against my standard budget of £350 for the month, unfortunately not because I haven't been spending, I've already spent more in May than I did in total in April 🙄

Two larger weekly shops at Asda (£53.84 & £76.13) as well as my delivery saver (£6.95).

A weekly shop at Lidl this week as needed a change (£65.54)

And various top-ups at Co-op & Tesco totalling £63.46, and I still need to go now and get washing up liquid!

I'm at a festival next weekend so will bring some food and buy some and then straight into the half term holidays although DD is at her dad's for half of it. I do feel well stocked and have a batch cooked ragu for the next couple of days as well as some in the freezer.

Also, my milk keep going off. Everything else seems fine but I had to throw away about 3 pints yesterday of a carton which should have lasted until the 19th, very frustrating, so I have turned the fridge up in the hopes of avoiding this going forward.

I am going to eat what I have as much as possible and see if I can hit my target, but knowing that I was £100 under last month does bring my the comfort of knowing I can do it as well as knowing if I do go over my average over the two months will be on target.

Current value

£265.92/£350

MrsFrugalLiving

Hello & Happy Friday All 😊

Here is my second weeks shopping - includes some household items.  I’ve kept them in at the moment but might have to separate into a different budget like I’ve seen others do next month if things get tight with hitting the target - but it helps me to keep out of shops to think I’ve not got much budget left!  Still got quite a bit in freezer so that helps.

Second week spend £54.34

Total spend £90.21/175 remaining £84.79

Lidl - £36.71 (includes a few 15% off items for pantry/freezer - blueberries, bananas, grapes, cucumber, apples, oranges, tomatoes, courgette, pitta, bagels, celery, spring greens, salmon, sweet potato, ginger, frozen peas, carrots, baking potatoes, cheese, eggs, dark chocolate, shortbread, fresh corn, egg noodles)

M&S - 1.78 (reduced bagels)

M&S - 0.85 (milk)
Waitrose- £15 (persil non bio, deodorants and kitchen drain cleaner)

Another two shops to go so might be able to keep to budget but let’s see - there’s still time for me to crack!! 😂

Hope you all have a good weekend. 👋

Sallyp2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81999468#Comment_81999468

did you pay with cash? I love the curve ball as counting change is obvs becoming a lost skill

Sallyp2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81999851#Comment_81999851

once you open milk it lasts 3 days. Am guessing you keep it in the fridge door? If so, it will be subject to temp drop everytime every time you open fridge

i get glass pints from milkman and store in veg/salad drawer

cowboymum

Another spend £63.02 at Tesco - holiday shopping!

Total £427.04 / £550