September 2026 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - dearest @Nelliegrace - our husbands must have been separated at birth! I too regret it if I do not take 5 minutes to grate and fill a tupperware box of grated cheese for the week, as one block doesn't last if I don't! DH too makes 'doorstep' sangers - and I ain't referring to the bread! Whereas to be totally fair, if it is grated, DH is bordering on parsimonious with it - especially if it has to last until I next go to the shops.

But with rising prices/shortages possibly on the horizon, I need to get better prepared. I do use/was aware of the mature cheddar/better flavour for cooking tip, and have certainly added mustard to cheese sauces in lieu of additional cheese 😁 However, I'm always willing to learn, and I think I need to get more organised with some ingredients - cheese being one, for our family.

Thank you @Nelliegrace and @LotsOfTea for taking the time to respond to my questions - it's certainly helpful to me, and I'm hopeful that perhaps others can benefit from your guidance too 😁

Greying X

LotsOfTea

@Greying_Pilgrim I've never tried grating cheese from frozen but it might work if you've got a sturdy enough grater? I usually defrost the cheese overnight in the fridge first. I suspect @Nelliegrace 's idea of chopping it into smaller blocks and then freezing is the best idea. I'll try doing that myself in future.

PipneyJane

@Greying_Pilgrim I’ve been known to freeze “hard” cheese in block form, cheddar and Parmesan, and have never noticed a change in texture afterwards. (I just “park” it in the freezer until we finish the previous block, then defrost it and use it/eat it as we would normally.). Perhaps the freezing issue is a problem with soft cheeses only? I also freeze Paneer, since the cheapest way to buy it is in huge blocks, which I then cut down into recipe portions before freezing. Again, not noticed a difference. HTH

I have two small shops to declare from yesterday:

• £24.76 in L!dl, spent on YS Pizza £1.69, Gouda slices £2.45, Wheat beer 2x£1.3, Belgian beer 4.31.49, 450ml plain yoghurt 55p, Salmon en Croute £4.99, 200g Greek Feta £1.69, 500g wholewheat fusilli 2x75p, VitC 3x£1.05
• £11.28 in Sainsbugs, spent on 896g sweet potatoes £1.07, 634g Carrots 44p, sliced ham £2.25, humous £1.35, Olive focaccia £2.50, wholemeal wraps 77p, choc chip cookies £1.40, 200g baby spinach leaves £1.50

And two from today:

• £11.86 in L!dl on 60g pine nuts 4x£1.69 and Camembert 2x£2.55. They didn’t have the pine nuts yesterday, or I’d have purchased them then.
• £1.26 in Sainsbugs on a YS pot of basil, while we were collecting the Sunday paper

The real reason we went to L!dl was to check out the insulated “lunch box” they have in the Aisle of Surprise from today. It’s very sturdy and one is the perfect size for a picnic, so 3 purchased at £4.99 each. (One for each car and one for the kitchen.) The headline price was £8.99, but there is a £4-off offer available to L!dl plus users.

This brings our total spend to £80/£180 leaving £100 for the rest of the month

Meal Plans for the week

All breakfasts are cereal and all lunches are leftovers, unless otherwise stated

Today - Lunch: baked Camembert with the bread purchased yesterday, Dinner: beef bolognese using 1lb or so of our home grown cherry tomatoes
Monday - stir fry, using up some leftover peanut rice, some smoked fish from the freezer, spring onions, shredded carrots and some of the spinach
Tuesday - pasta with HM pesto
Wednesday - Chole Paneer (a chickpea and paneer curry) served with bulgar wheat
Thursday - wraps made with ham, humous & spinach;
Friday Ham & Cheese Crown

• Pip

Greying_Pilgrim

Thank you for all the cheese-freezing help. I shall have an experiment and see how it works out. Tbh, if it just works for cheese to be cooked, it will be a good rhythm to get into - so worth the 'jolt' out of the course I have been travelling (slackness, complacency and laziness have crept in, what can I say?).

On a related groceries note, I have joined our local 'regional' cooperative. I don't think it is going to be as valuable to me as the 'blue' co0p membership, but I'm thinking ahead, and we may well get to the stage where it is cheaper to walk to that cooperative than to get the car on the road for 'emergency' milk etc. Being a member will at least help a little.

As a Leedle+ holder, I got a butternut squash for 49p per kg the other day. A third went into a curry last night, a third went into a butternut lentil apple soup for lunch and I have a third left over. The apples were some of the battered/less attractive ones out of a YS'd bag I got yesterday, and everything else I had to hand. I did add garlic, mixed spice (cinnamon would have worked well too), and some lemon juice to my version, and I only partially blitzed it for a more rustic soup. We had bread to go with, but it eked out what bread was left, which sandwiches wouldn't have.

No grocery spending today (YAY!).

Greying X

TravelCrystal

Just on the subject with cheese, I do sometimes freeze the cheese if it’s at a bargain price, I find you can freeze so many things. The problem always is the space. My D.H is also a cheese glutton.

I did find a little hack during this hot weather. We sometimes have a cheese and egg salad. I used to make a salad and put a pile of cheese with the halved eggs separately on top.

Now I get a large bowl, start with grating some cheese, probably half what I would have previously used, grate carrots and apple on top then add the rest of any ingredients I decide on and mix it all up when I’m ready to serve and put a couple of halved eggs on the top.
Amazingly he hasn’t complained 🤭

He also likes doorstep bread if given half a chance

T.C

K9sandFelines

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82127170#Comment_82127170

I think so yes. On Fresh Mondays they go from between 80-90p instead of £1.19 upwards.

So 99p is good deal as it's all the time. However I wouldn't 100%trust the weights in those bags as like I said the one I picked up rolled out. So maybe others have too. I suppose it's the chance you have to take. Sweet potatoes will be great in your soup. I'm getting both of those next week on the fresh Mondays, and will have a general stock up on fruit and veg. I didn't buy any today, because of the Abel @nd Cole order. So I'll go into Co-p tomorrow as generally anything they've over ordered will be reduced in price.

Greying_Pilgrim

Thank you @K9sandFelines - you've taught me something else I didn't know! I hadn't heard of Fresh Mondays and so had a goggle. 50% off, that's a good saving, not needing loitering around the YS'd section at unsocial hours by the sounds of it 😁 We do have some of the 'bicycle' delivery mechanisms here, but I'm not sure how extensive they are - so I'm not sure how easy I could access the promo. But at least I've learnt something already this morning - Thank You 👍😁

Sorry - had meant to do this before posting. But I totally agree with you regarding open bags (in any shop really), and of course barginz of the home doesn't have a weigh scales to hand ☹️ But I just checked my SP's (I'm going to use some of them today), and (luckily) there was over 1kg in the bag I had. But you do raise a very valid point, and we should all check we're actually getting what we're paying for (holes in bread bags are another pet peeve of mine).

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

£5 spent this morning. As it's the last day of the offer, I partook of the 2 x pizzas + an ice cream tub from the c0op. I actually accessed the offer from our local regional co-operative store which was running the same deal as the 'blue' c0op. The benefit was that the local store is a bigger shop, and they (although not today), appeared to stock all the options for both pizza and icecream that is included in the offer. The local-to-me blue c0op only has half the options - and for veggies this is always the magherita, which is OK, but I wanted to try the spinach and ricotta. So today's £5 bought me 2 x spinach and ricotta and 1 x fish food.

I was able to walk to the shop, so no money spent on fuel. Plus I still have coupons left to apply to any purchases from the blue c0op - which, if I can combine journeys, will likely see milk purchased.

Off to amend my siggie figgie.

Greying X

dollypeeps

£2.98 spent on bread in Aldi bringing week 1 total to £86.26 /£90

Hopefully we can remain within budget. Been away this weekend which helps the grocery budget but nothing else 😱

LotsOfTea

I needed to stock up on fruit and veg today and also shampoo and conditioner. I never bought especially fancy toiletries anyway but I've decided to shift down to the bargain 79p own-brand versions to see if they're ok. Obviously if they are then we'll stick with those in future. I also picked up a tin of sweetcorn to start a little 'power cut stash'. I've got plenty of tinned food but not much you'd want to eat if you couldn't heat it up so I'm going to get a few little bits and bobs just in case.

I'm concentrating on shopping from home as I'm an anxiety-hoarder and have let stocks build up too much and now I could really do with saving the money. I avoided buying hummus today as I already have 2 pots in the freezer and I also have tinned chickpeas, tahini, garlic and bottled lemon juice so I could definitely make my own when I finish the 2 frozen pots.

£13.87 spent today which brings me to £23.75/£300 so far.