September 2026 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Spends to declare.

We went to t3sc0 to use the £3 off a £20 spend. Naturally, they didn't have stock of the underwear size I needed for DH - although we did eventually find a 'repackaged' set. So I had to pivot and luckily there was nightwear in the correct size for our kiddo - which is on my list to buy before the weather changes, so although I spent more than intended, it was enough to trigger the voucher, and was on 'needed' things. We then went to the home of barginz, and although I was primarily after non-food things (different budget), I did need apples. I picked up a YS'd bag of apples, a YS'd one of pears and because they looked nice, I got a bag of sweet potatoes too. £2.30 in total spent on groceries there. Then we popped into A$da next door, and although it wasn't on my list, I got a net of easy peelers, as they were part of the fruit & veg offer at 87p.

So £3.17 spent, but at least on fresh fruit & veg - no junk, so I'll allow myself a little slack.

Off to amend my siggie figgie.

Greying X

leftatthetrafficlights

Spends on Thursday and today - conditioner x6, lemon juice x2, tinned tomatoes, strawberries x2, black grapes x2, raspberries, toothbrushes, bottled water (need the bottles to freeze the elderberry cordial I'm making), blueberries, sugar x3, bread, watermelon and oranges.

Running total September: £45.67

Nelliegrace

September budget for two pensioners at £5 a day, £150.

We enjoyed our free hot drinks and 2 for 1 cream scones at the garden centre, an hour with his mobile phone turned off to calls about bowls clubs!

Shopped at Home Bargains on the way home, Brazil nuts 200g £2.59, tinned pilchards in tomato sauce 400g 99p x 2, butter 250g £1.39, (worth trying at that price, I shall freeze it in weekly ration portions.)

£5.96 spent.

Total £46.02

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here. 

We went over the August budget by £30 so I’m going to adjust my September budget down by £25 and see how we manage. We started off September shopping yesterday by heading to M & S to get some food for my birthday. I treated myself to a pizza and crashed on the sofa yesterday. 😂 I split the purchase into one from our checking account and the other using a £75 M & S gift card that my SIL sent to me as a birthday treat. I’ll use some of the gift card for groceries this month and some for a couple clothing items. M & S also sent me a voucher for either free flowers or chocolate truffles. I chose the dark chocolate truffles, naturally. 

£24.04 at M & S  for various yoghurt, custard, toothpaste, jarred butter beans, 3 baked beans (1.20), bananas, milk, pizza, and prawn curry for Mr. Jings. Then I spent £15.00 of the gift card on the rotisserie chicken dine in deal. I got a huge chicken to roast and 3 sides for that deal. 

Today I did the usual Saturday round of grocery shopping. £1.58 at Savers for matches and Fairy dishwashing soap. 

£40.70 at Morrisons for bananas, salad kit (2.50), YS salad (55p), 2 x YS baby plum tomatoes (56p each), a net of Disney easy peelers (only 5p w/Morrisons card!), 2 x YS asparagus (80p each), 2 x 1L of extra virgin olive oil (16.00 on sale), 2 x Laughing Cow triangles (2.50), 3 x ham trimmings (1.69 each), skyr and yoghurt, butter (1.85), 2 Tilda microwave rice packs (2.00), snack bars (2.50), and some Cadbury wafers (75p). 

Two of the ham trimmings went straight into the freezer. Ham trimmings vary a lot because they really are just factory seconds. This time around, they’re very high quality thick pieces with a nice bit of rind that would normally cost you £4 for 3 slices in a regular pack. These ham trimmings are 300g each and I snapped up 3 of them! 

Morrisons have also sent me a boatload of money off or additional points vouchers again and they will come in extra handy over the next couple months. 

£16.90 at Lidl for a free birthday bakery cookie, 2 large avocados (1.38), 15 FR mixed eggs (2.85), cilantro (50p), 400g strawberries (2.15), canned mackerel (1.09), frozen mac and cheese for my post-shopping lunch (2.49), oat cakes (69p), a couple small yoghurts (1.04), and 80 dishwasher tablets (4.79). 

Total £98.22 / £325 spent. £226.78 remaining. 

Yeesh, that’s quite a dent already but some of that was stocking up for the rest of the month on olive oil, dishwasher tablets, and ham trimmings. I’ll put my hands firmly back in my pockets until the end of this coming week. I might sneak out away from desk at some point on Thursday to get milk and cheese at M & S but we’ll see. That remaining total leaves about £70/week for the rest of September but I think we could manage. Our fridge is absolutely bursting with fresh veg right now. Off to meal plan… 

K9sandFelines

I've noticed that alot of the time they will list a product that is no longer sold, which i assume if online isn't generic to one area. But hey, who knows 🤷🏻‍♀️! I miss my supermarket.

K9sandFelines

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82126477#Comment_82126477

I picked up one one those bags of sweet potatoes in ours as they are cheaper than everywhere else. They weren't taped up and they came out the bag and rolled all over the floor 😂I also get my sack of potatoes from there, but have avoided it with the warm weather as I didn't want them sitting sweating in the bag til.i needed them.

Greying_Pilgrim

@K9sandFelines - the sweet potatoes are the cheapest price 'normally' in home of barginz aren't they? I got them because I still have a big half of my Leedle BNS left (used the 'bulb' bit in a curry last night), and I figured I could make a curry with the SP's, plus I have a soup recipe that uses BNS, SP's and chickpeas - and as the weather has turned dreich, it may legitimately be soup weather again - YAY! Yes, it's a pity that 'ome bargains, do their bigger bags of tatties in plastic bags - I've noticed a few wildly sweating bags in this heat ☹️ Mind, the paper/vented bag I got from Leedle had several blight ridden tatties, so paper isn't infallible. I discarded the mushy tatties, washed the rest in lightly acidulated water, and then dried them. Most of the tatties have gone into a spare (paper) tattie sack I had from last year. Hopefully they will store OK for a while, there's only about 4kgs in there.

@Nelliegrace - I spotted that you mentioned buying cheese and portioning it to store in the freezer. I have frozen cheese before (primarily grated, for use on home-made pizza), but may I politely ask if you freeze your cheese in blocks/slices or grated? And when defrosted, do you use it for 'everything' or just for dishes that involve cooking - so pizza, or gratin or cheese sauces/macaroni cheese, broccoli/cheese soup etc? The reason why I ask, is because I had always thought that the fat content (structure?) in cheese is changed when it is frozen and it's not quite the same to eat "raw" (not the right word, but hopefully you get what I mean), after being frozen. My normal 'goto' cheese is the cheaper mild or mature cheese that certainly aldee, Leedle and sainsbugs sell in 900g blocks for around the £4 mark - which may make it less suitable for freezing (although this is the cheese I have frozen for future cooking). You also mention freezing butter - which I have done too, and it proved a great method of transporting 'enough' for sandwiches when we went away for a few days recently - and it stayed frozen/cold in my hotch-potch of coolbags and freezer blocks. If we had to buy lunches/teas on the road on holiday, we couldn't afford to go - but can't always afford the time/cost of a self-catering caravan or cottage or chalet either.

Greying X

LotsOfTea

I've frozen cheese in blocks plenty of times @Greying_Pilgrim and it's perfectly fine to use uncooked. It doesn't seem to affect the taste but it does affect the texture so it goes a lot more crumbly. Not a problem if you're going to grate it anyway but it would be annoying if you wanted it in slices.

Greying_Pilgrim

👍Thanks @LotsOfTea that is helpful to know 😁 We use cheese alot for packed up lunches and picnics, in addition to using it in/on meals - and sometimes the fam. take a chunk of cheese in a sanger that was destined to top a pizza or something (which happened in the summer hols when I - shock horror - made the mistake of inadvertently being out of the house at lunchtime and the family couldn't wait a while longer for their lunch 🙄)

Do you grate from frozen, or de-frost it in the fridge first?

Greying X

Nelliegrace

@Greying_Pilgrim, When we were both working, I bought the more economical large blocks of cheddar, but it didn’t last in the fridge because DH cut thick chunks for sandwiches for his packed lunch, more cheese than bread, and snacked on cheese and crackers, and moaned when we ran out. It was not a healthy diet.

I researched and tried WW2 rationing, going the whole way with an allotment, productive garden, foraging, keeping poultry, and bees, joining the Smallholders and WI and using Marguerite Patten cookbooks. I still use the healthy rationing quantities for meat, cheese and fats, and fill up with lots of seasonal vegetables, and home baking, like Nella Last. There was only the National Cheese from 1941 to 1954, no regional cheeses were allowed.

Hard cheese does go a bit crumbly when it is frozen but it tastes fine. I stock up on cheeses in the Christmas sales, or when I see some yellow stickered. I cut it into blocks and wrap it tightly to freeze. Strong cheddar has more flavour so you can save by using a bit less in cooking. I put out our weekly portion and hide store the rest in the freezer. The average ration for two of 100g/ 4 oz of cheese is enough for a week when I do the cooking, a bit of cheese on a tortilla or in a pasta sauce, a bit grated on jacket potato, thinly on toast or in a sandwich. When it is gone that is it for the week, food shouldn’t be in an endless supply for grazing, with surplus to waste. It is about amount we were used to having in a meal growing up. We didn’t have snacks. Cheese sauce on thick slices of toast, Welsh Rarebit, would stretch a very little cheese into an evening meal for six, a bit of mustard in the sauce added more flavour.

Butter freezes well. I make butter when I see cream on offer, Morries sold 4 pints of whipping cream from the bakery for £1 which made 27 oz of butter, and one year Sains sold off cream after Christmas at 4p. DH prefers a butter spread, he never learnt to scrape the butter, cuts large chunks and tears the bread trying to spread it, and moan, moan, moans, for nearly 47 years now. (I count olive and rapeseed oils as the margarine ration.) Another rationing habit we grew up with was butter or marmalade on toast, never both. Bread and jam.