October 2026 Grocery Challenge

merida88

Crikey @JingsMyBucket, must have been rather unnerving! Glad you are on the mend :)

I'm off the starting blocks for October with a delivery including £88.96 of qualifying spend. I count human food, household bits and basic toiletries. Wine is a separate budget which keeps me more aware of alcohol spending.

I think I will need some decaff teabags and oat milk imminently, as am now in a Tea Mood. Probably the gloomyish weather..!

mandco

@JingsMyBucket eye sight issues can be scary - great to see the system working quickly and efficiently hope your doing ok

Spends over the last 2 weeks minus a few days away which were a different budget total £315.18

Homebarg@ins £16.26 mostly household & coffee sachets
Aldi £40.55
sains £46.36
iceland £62.67
Poundland £33.00 large chunk of this was on brioche rolls for 1/2 term breakfast butties & our Halloween party as they are long dated
M&S £1.10 on 2 jars of the 55p beans to try
Costco minus non grocery items purchased - £115.24 trays of chicken, bacon, frozen teppenayki meals for ds, chicken goujons & Gyoza for Halloween buffet, lunch box fillers, cartons of juice, 200 wash fabric softener which will last till next yr, 1kg if kp peanuts & 2x lemon drizzle loaf cakes which are now mostly sliced & frozen.

Total so far £508.94 / £825 which seems a bit low at this point in the month especially as I’ve stocked up on some extras for 1/2 term/halloween already even taking into account we had a few days away

mandco

@carboot_karaoke. It’s so easy to get roped into spending extra on things you don’t actually need for the bonus points/rewards. We have shopped more at Tesco this year as I’ve had quite a few the club card challenges that have been worth doing and I’ve actually accumulated a decent amount of points so far this year across various shops thanks to bonus offers /rewards which will go towards Xmas but I find you really do need to think twice on the benefit of the reward vs additional costs spent if it’s things you wouldn’t normally be buying as those extra can really add up. What I tend to do now is only activate offers on things I know I’d be buying anyway to remove the temptation.
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This round of Tesco offers has been pretty poor I think there’s only 3 I’m going to bother with as the thresholds are ridiculously high on most 3-4 times higher and way more than I’d be willing to spend than previous rounds across all of our accounts. Not sure if they’re cutting back what you can earn there unless you spend big to help push the new earn points with reward partner scheme thing but I’m not falling for it,

LotsOfTea

I've just realised I forgot to actually press 'post comment' on my last post so I'm apparently joining in rather late this month!

Please can I be £300 for the month again for 2 adults and a teen.

I had the first shopping delivery of the month last week and it came to £52.41. Since then I've spent an extra £4.05 in B&M on sweets to stash away for Halloween (there are so many kids who live on our estate that I always end up buying big bags of cheap lollies), a tin of condensed mushroom soup and 3 packets of seasoning mix at a bargain 10p each. The last two things were inspired by @Greying_Pilgrim who has mentioned buying them previously. I hadn't bought condensed soup for years but it does make a very tasty sauce for a stew or pasta bake, especially with a drop of wine splashed in to make it seem really posh! I would never have picked up the brewdog spice mixes without them being recommended as I think of that as solely a beer brand but looking at the ingredients they look quite nice and were very reasonable.

So I'm up to £56.46/£300 so far.

Soontobeoap

Shopping done at Sainsbury's this morning. Managed to get 2 half price legs of lamb for the Freezer and a chicken for £3.99 . Will keep an eye out for the half price beef and Gammon now as ny having a roast and then using leftovers in hotpots stews pies and pastys gets us through the winter with some really hearty not too expensive meals. Will update signature later as I have done a couple of very small shops at Aldi too.

Greying_Pilgrim

@LotsOfTea - you did well getting those seasoning mixes for 10p! I paid 29p ea for mine the other day (still a bargain compared to what you'd pay in a regular supermercado). I prefer the 'smoky burger' one to the 'lazy' one - you can use the former in so many things, although I do like the lazy one. I'm just starting to think it doesn't have a good shelf life tho - due to the citrus element I think. However, it is a nice seasoning. I've only seen those two options in our bee&Em's, although I think there are different mixes in addition to those. And YES! I totally agree with how the tinned soup is transformed into something 'more' with a splash of wine in a pasta bake or whatever. It's been our Christmas dinner option of choice for the past 2 years! 😁 Cooks lovely in the SC too! 😁

Greying X

carboot_karaoke

@mandco Totally agree, the thresholds have increased massively.

I have just recieved another £5 off from Lidl if l spend £40 or more. Its a discount l might use if l can justify it on items l was genuinely going to buy. My previous vouchers required a £30 spend. Looks like all the supermarkets are moving the goal posts 🙄

mandco

had to get a root canal finished today so popped in sains local after to pick up carrots & basil for dinner tonight and was doing well at avoiding any unnecessary extras till I saw the dairy free choc ds like on clearance at 23p down from 90p so picked up 10 of those too - not technically needed but worth stocking up on at that price £3.24 spent

£512.18/£825

RedRose61

Lot’s of spends to declare because I used up lots of my store cupboards and freezer last month.
£15.77 in Morries. I managed to get some Y/S fish and chicken to start building up the freezer again.£52.10 Aldo on all of the staples and meal plan ingredients.

I also managed the get a Prime Day deal last week for my coffee pods which I forgot to declare. I’ve split it across three months because I ordered enough to last until Christmas! I’m including £6.33 this month.

Today I went to Lids to pick up some free spice and tinned cherry tomatoes. There were some coupons that I took advantage of too and I bought some more treats for my Christmas Cupboard. £34.19 spent.

As Lids is a bit further away from where I usually shop, I popped into Icel*nd to take advantage of their 10% off on Tuesday for over 60’s. I was a bit surprised at the prices, they seemed really high for lot’s of items. Just as I was feeling a bit despondent about it I came upon a few Y/S items. Cooked chicken to pop in the freezer, chicken pieces, puddings for the other half and some snacks. £9.35 spent.
I’ve now got a healthier looking freezer and cupboards but a high grocery spend.
£88.74 left from £270.
I can’t see me coming in on budget this month because I will need a few more bits from Aldo this week.
It will be super tight this month. I will definitely do some serious meal planning for the next couple of weeks.

K9sandFelines

I've got a shop from Oc@do arriving tomorrow, as there were some things I needed that I couldn't find elsewhere.So, £33.40 to add to general spends

Then, £2.83 toothpaste and £1.27 washing up liquid opened from Am@zon

£27.55 on Soya Crispies, deodorant, live cultures, the other toothpastes and mouthwash (bulk buy)