August 2026 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

Another dash in to add my totals for this week; I thought I was doing quite well, having spent just £67.92 between the butcher, the fishmonger & the market, but then the market greengrocer, bless his cotton socks, gave me 11Kg of going-over strawberries… amazing, and I'm certainly not ungrateful, but also eeeek! I sweltered all afternoon & managed to prep 5Kg, some of which have gone into the chickens & a little into the compost bin, but we now have 14 jars of strawberry jam, though I did have to dash over to the Sainsbobs in the next town for more sugar, lemons and some raspberries too, strawbs being rather low in pectin and pectin itself being totally unavailable at short notice hereabouts now. I offered the other 6Kg on our neighbourhood WhatsApp group & they've nearly all gone now, like my windfall apples; any left in the morning will just go into my compost heap as they're really not going to keep in this heat.

Phew! I think today was the worst day of all this summer, so very hot & humid, and everything down here is tinderbox-dry; I'm not far from the New Forest fire and there are others in the surrounding area too, which is all a bit scary. My heart goes out to those who've lost their homes in Stourbridge…

Greying_Pilgrim

15p spend on Milk to declare! I bought it from the c0-op - but I initially tried to purchase it at my - local to home - co-0p, which, naturally is a totally different co-operative to The c0-op that I've joined online 🙄 I had asked in two of our local c0-op stores about the membership cards, and had been told in both stores that they didn't do them anymore, and "you just go online and join". Absolutely no mention of 'be aware that there are several iterations of the co-operative retail movement, depending on where you live 🙄 The operative this morning in our local store was actually quite rude - and yet it was them that gave me the incomplete advice the other day…… But I managed to figure out (when I'd trudged back home sans milk), that there was a c0-op - that was the same as the version I had joined - in our town. It was just further away from me than both aldee and leedle 🙄

I pootled over in the car (too far to walk and bring home milk without it turning to yoghurt in this weather), and bought milk - in exactly the same livery, for the same price, with the same BB dates as was on offer in our local co-operative store 🙄 But the operative at the till was head and shoulders above our local store in politeness. They even apologised profusely that my local store had refused to accept my c0-op card, when I checked with them that it would work in that store! So nice.

So, I've got my membership fee back, as you all said I would. I don't suppose I will be inundated with 50p off milk and £1 off your shop offers moving forward, but at least I am not out of pocket, and have 4 pints of British milk to enjoy for 15p 😁

Off to update siggie figgie.

Greying X

merida88

A little batch of spends to declare - will catch up with the thread in a mo!

£27.90 delivery, I had ordered more but the refridgeration failed on the van so would not deliver any fresh or frozen items. Which bafflingly included sparkling water and long life almond milk!

£7.20 in sainsbo's yesterday on a couple of bits to take to supper with friends.

£21.45 in sainsbo's today on items we couldn't have delivered. £16.29 in H&B on supplements, and £4.98 in the asian supermarket on chilli crisp and gram flour.

New total £315.27 / £550

K9sandFelines

£4.71 spent in Ald!

Had to go out to get more cat food as my female oldie is not touching her current food.

So I got more tinned peaches, ginger nuts (for when I'm feeling a bit sicky) . The orange juice I forgot last time, and some sweets to send a friend abroad. I've gone over my theoretic weekly total; but as I'm actually on a monthly total, I'm hoping it will even stuff out, as stocks carry forward.

JingsMyBucket

Evening y’all. The past week has been a whirlwind between visiting the Edinburgh Festival on the opening weekend, hosting a friend from NYC, and me starting a new full time contract. Before yesterday, our GC tally had been £155.31 including a large Tesco order. We’ve done the usual weekend shopping the past couple days.  

On Friday evening we spent £27.42 at M & S for bananas (72p), strawberries (2.10), raspberries (2.50), watermelon spears (4.90), loads of various yoghurt (7.70), chicken legs (1.50), 2 pts of milk (1.20), tortilla wraps (1.45), coffee (4.75), and 4 cans of baked beans (1.20).

Today I went shopping at Morrisons and Lidl. £29.20 at Morrisons for bananas (70p), 2 for £3 colorful plum tomatoes, bell peppers (1.79), ham trimmings (1.69), salad bag (1.00), cooked chicken breast pieces (1.74), red Leicester cheese (2.95), 2 for £5 sausages, pork loin steaks (2.34), halloumi (1.99), and 1kg peanut butter (7.00).

£27.20  spent at Lidl for apples (1.99), blueberries (1.69),  2 x canned mackerel (1.98p), 2 mozzarella balls (1.98), seeded sourdough bakery loaf (1.99), 3 avocados (2.07), granola (1.99), 2 x oatcakes (1.38), sliced German ham (75p — it’s a new product), 700g pork shoulder steaks (3.89), 30 mixed size free range eggs (5.70), and face cream (1.79).

Total £239.13 / £350 spent. £110.87 remaining. 

I just remembered that I was supposed to be trying for £340 this month instead of £350. Yikes. Maybe I’ll keep it at £350 for now. I’ll try to keep my spends for the next couple Saturdays to about £45 each time around. Some meal planning needs to happen this weekend and possibly some batch cooking as well. This new work contract is running me ragged and I don’t have the energy to cook in the evenings and am searching for easy food for my lunches due to working from home. 

(I’ll update the budgets tomorrow morning and catch up on the thread then since this is already a late night post.) 

RedRose61

I’ve had a hectic week and so I’ve definitely taken my eye off the ball! DH had an appointment with his Rheumatologist and so I took the opportunity to go into Ic*land to get some of their chicken skewers and rice . I ended up spending £22.50.
Because I was busy I ordered Morrisons on Amazon thinking that a £15 off voucher would be good. Total was £54.22. These two costs together is much more than I would usually spend in a week. On the plus side, I’ve got bulging freezer, fridge and cupboards! I wasn’t feeling too bad until I nipped into T@sco because I had run out of Green Teabags. Another £3 spent.

£145.82 to last until the end of the month.

Definitely sitting on hands now!

Nelliegrace

I passed on the ice cream maker to DD, there was not enough room in the freezer for the large bowl. The grandsons are very excited, it is going to be their task. I used to make strawberry and raspberry ice cream with the abundant fruit from the allotment.

M&S have brought out UPF-free ice cream. Expensive at £5 for 500g, but it is going to be for a treat after an afternoon with the vampires at the local hospital.

The honey ice cream is good, an old fashioned flavour. As soon as I got it home, I cut some and pressed it into small, stainless steel baby food pots and put them in the freezer. A penny lick of ice cream is now 12/6. (62.5p)

I bought 2 small carrots for 6p as well, but the bill was £5.05. M&S gave 1p discount for using my own bag, a carrot and stick approach to reducing the sale of plastic shopping bags.

TravelCrystal

Just a quickie @joedenise, we had the steak and chips for lunch yesterday c/o the Co-op, very tasty and for £3 (£1 off) a bargain

Will make a mental note to go in more often in passing when I have a bit of freezer space. There were loads of chips

Have a good day all

T.C

carboot_karaoke

Morning all,

Sadly we don't have a Co op nearby l feel hungry every time l hear someone mention the steak and chips offer 🤣

I've finally had a few minutes to assess the damage across multiple "little shops". It wasn't quite as bad as l thought. Some things were brought from another budget. In total another £55.41 was spent on food with another £5.75 on fairy liquid and black bags from the bulk fund.

Grocery Budget £191.82 / £400

Bulk Fund £16.99 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 208.81 / £450

mandco

still puppy sitting and not Been able to get put much so shopping has been all over the place with lots of local top ups rather than proper shops - decided to stop burying my head in the sand and tally up the damage a whopping £388.09 to add. Considering that includes a trip to Costco excluding cake & party food for DD’s birthday as those are a separate budget, a few bits that probably shouldn’t be counted like birthday supplies & a bulk buy of hay for the rabbits which will probably last 2-3 months it’s not as bad as I thought though definitely going to be tight despite this months increase.

£705.78/£800