May 2026 Grocery Challenge

MrsFrugalLiving

Morning All, here is my first weeks shopping.

This week and into next I will use up homemade ready meals in the freezer. I had some veggies left over from last week, so didn’t need many fresh items. 😊

Weekly total £35.87/£175 remaining £139.13

I had to top up a bit including toothpaste 😬

Lidl - £15.85 (includes a few coupons - oats, raisins, blueberries, yogurt, grapes, cucumber, apples, oranges, nuts, bananas, tomatoes)

M&S - £4.25 (romaine hearts, milk, salad potatoes)

Home Bargins - £7.18 (sugars, muslie, toothpaste x2)

M&S - £8.59 - (tuna x4, tin tomatoes x4, flour x2, another yogurt, reduced baps)

LotsOfTea

Hi

I'm in again this month for £300 please.

I had my first delivery which came to £58.95 today for fruit, veg and dairy for the most part. I'll still need to pop and get oats from the refill store soon as I've nearly run out and since I eat them nearly every day for breakfast and would like to make some flapjacks for DS's packed lunches it's reasonably urgent.

£58.95/£300

cowboymum

Ran out of veg and milk today so spent £3.24 at Aldi and £13.60 at Tesco (also bought onion bhajis and flat breads - both of which I should make but never quite get the time to do so).

Total £196.20 / £550

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here. 

Evening y’all. @Elizabeth49 I’m so sorry to hear about your lost kitty.  I hope you got to spend some good time with them before they passed over.

On Sunday we visited the farmers market and then I stopped by some of our regular places for some items we’ve been missing. 

£4 at the market for a sourdough loaf from one of our favourite vendors. We split the loaf and froze half of it.  

£20.78 at Lidl for chestnut mushrooms (69p), 2 loose zucchini (70p), avocados (1.39), 2 bunches of bananas (1.66), strawberries (1.89), blueberries (1.29), chicken drumstick fillets (2.95), butter (1.99), 15 free range eggs (2.89), oatcakes (69p), potato sticks (95p), 2 pts milk (1.25), fake mint Aero chocolate bar (1.09), and a box of Very Berry Tea for 1.35 (it’s finally back after a year!) 

I also got a free 100g dark chocolate bar as my last Lidl Plus bonus before they changed over the scheme yesterday. 

£1.00 at Poundland for a bottle of Fairy dish soap. 

£9.10 at Marks & Spencer for clementines (1.80), garlic (1.00), 1kg of Greek yoghurt (1.95), and coffee beans (4.75)

Total £84.47 / £350 spent. £265.53 remaining. 

Blackcats

I think with mr l's new reward scheme that it will be the % off certain items offers that will continue to be worthwhile.

2 shops to declare - we collected our free fresh fruit and 1/2 price pomegranate from MrL's on Sunday plus some milk, avocados and fizzy water. £5 spent

On our way back from our weekend away we went into a dairy farm shop and bought some wonderful A2 milk, local honey, local Asparagus and some sausages and bacon. £20 spent

Fortunately my bank automates rounding up of spends which makes my sums so much easier. It's a nice bonus amount of £'s at the end of the month too without any effort or hardship.

£275 remaining

ArgyllLady

£5.55 on potato/sweet potato/sesame seeds and an unplanned for dessert for this evening (sensing a theme here!). Brings me to £47.21/£200.

diminua

Did a big online shop - I tend to do one a year, things like soup and bottles of squash and sauces where there are reductions for buying multiples but I don't want to cart it all back on the bus. Plus the things I was going to buy this week but don't mind someone else picking off the shelf for me (sweet and savoury biscuits, pasta…. etc) in order to push it up to £57.25, so I got my £1 delivery for a 3 hour slot tomorrow evening.

Actually went to the shop this evening to get the perishables I prefer to pick in person - veg, fresh fish, cheese, milk - which was another £16.64.

and £1.90 on crusty bread.

£112.73 spent so far this month, but my cupboards will be bursting as of tomorrow.

goldfinches

Went to Marks with a list yesterday and mostly stuck to it which was good. I bought 4x milk, gherkins, capers, ys pizza, carrots, celery, baking paper, 2x radishes and a pot of flat leaf parsley which all came to £15.39. The pizza is in the freezer for an easy dinner when I get back from my weekend away and I used some of the vegetables with some dried beans from stores to make Greek white bean soup in my slow cooker so I have four portions of that tucked away too.

That all brings my new totals to

Main GC Total £45.07/£186
Baking Budget Total £8.95/£24
Bulk Buy Total £18.00/£100

I need to buy toothpaste and frozen fruit today but don't otherwise need to buy any more food until next Tuesday I hope.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning GC'rs

Back from my shop. I went to Aldee and Leedl today.

In A, I spent £9.04 on 'snack' things for school lunches until the end of half-term, and I bought a bag of 'wonky' carrots, as they looked OK and worth it today.

In L, I spent £30.22 on 'groceries' and £5.58 on 2 x 1 kg carioca (pinto) beans that are in the Latin America week promo. The beans cost will come out of my 'bulk' fund.

Bread was the only thing I got YS'd today (and only 20% in L). I did kick myself for buying tahini 'after' Greek week - so I paid 50p more for it than I could have done, had I had the app sooner 🙄

There were some green boxes in Leedl today, but nothing that appealed to me. I had already purchased the 1.5kg bag of carrots from A, so the only box that may have been of interest had L's version of the wonky carrots in it, unfortunately they were the size of parsnips, and would have fed several horses and a shetland pony. So I passed on a box today.

In total, £39.26 on food and groceries, and £5.98 on 'bulk' - I have updated my signature.

Greying X

Elizabeth49

Off topic I know, but many thanks to everyone who commented on the lost of our old puss.

We will eventually get another cat, but in the meantime I'm going to put the pet food money aside every month so it doesn't come as a major shock to the system when we do have another furry friend to feed.