October 2026 Grocery Challenge

TravelCrystal

Just a quickie, when I went to Lidell’s forgot we would soon need marg. D.H was off to get his beer supplies so got me a couple of Utterly B’s. £1.98 to add to the spends.

Agree with others @navelorange1, cut yourself some slack. It’s really hard at the moment with costs and time limitations. Don’t know if it’s possible to lay your hands on a slow cooker but you could batch cook in that and food would be ready at your convenience. I very often cut up veggies and or meat the night before, then throw it all in the next day if you are time short.

T.C

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here.

Howdy folks. I've been away from the thread for a bit especially because last week Wednesday I was diagnosed with a tear in one of my retinas. I had to get a rapid laser eye procedure that same day and I've been taking it easy since then. Three cheers for SpecSavers and the Scottish NHS optometry/ophthalmology!

I'll tally up my spends later this evening since we've been a bit off piste for the past few weeks. Have a nice Sunday everyone!

Greying_Pilgrim

Get well soon @JingsMyBucket. And bravo to the opticians and ophthalmology services and staff for knitting you back together!

Greying X

mandco

Local express store today = £7.70 on a carton of lactofree milk & 4 x gluten free soy sauce reduced to clear @ £1.55 - usually around £3

PipneyJane

Afternoon All

I’m 44 posts behind, so apologies if I’ve missed anything. I will try to catch up later. It’s been one hell of a week, work wise, and I’m just catching up with myself. Anyway, on to the Grocery Challenge…

I have 6 spends to declare:

1. £5.38 spent by DH in L!dl on Wednesday, to take advantage of some vouchers that were expiring. He bought 500g tubs Greek Yoghurt 2x£1.69, 1L lactose free milk 2x99p.
2. £2.44 in Sainsbugs on the same day, to get another Nect4r reward. 3-pack sweet peppers £1.99, 7 loose mushrooms 45p.
3. £1.75 for a Tiger Loaf in Iceland yesterday. (They’re our closest convenience store.)
4. £12.80 in W8trose today on 500g black turtle beans 4x£2.15 and Wool Wash £4.20.
5. £35.15 in L!dl today, spent on 12-slices smoked cheese 2x£1.69, large loose garlic 2x38p, 1L lactose free milk 2x99p, 500g wholewheat fusilli 4x75p, 600g diced beef shin £7.49, Frozen salmon en croute £4.99, Feta £1.69, vitamin C 3x£1.05, crème fraiche 75p, 500g Greek Yoghurt £1.99, interdental brushes 3x£1.99.
6. £7.20 in Sainsbugs today, spent on 8-pack bananas £1.39, 450g Yeo Valley Greek Yoghurt With Honey 2x£1.88, 600g pack mushrooms £1.85, 1 loose carrot 16p, 1 loose mushroom 4p.

We also received 4x£2 coins in our change.

This brings our total spend to £110/£220.10 leaving £110 for the period to 30th November.

Meal Plans:

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

Today - Beef Stew with Dumplings using the shin purchased today in L!dl, sweet potato, carrots, mushrooms, some home grown cherry tomatoes, a tin of 3-bean mix, an onion, red wine and garlic.
Monday - Broccoli and Chorizo Pasta
Tuesday - Bread & Cheese Pudding (to use up the Tiger Loaf)
Wednesday - Chicken Tray Bake
Thursday - ? Sausage & Lentil Casserole

• Pip

Blackcats

@JingsMyBucket - I'm pleased you were treated so promptly and that you are recovering well.

We have been away on our holibobs and return home tomorrow. I'm now looking forward to getting home and especially to collecting the cat from the cattery.

I've done an Ocado order to be delivered tomorrow which will prevent us from having to stop off when hungry and/or tired. I've bought enough for a week and will try to avoid any extra spends this week. A big chunk of this month's reduced budget has been used but I'm still left with a manageable £75 a week for 2 more shops.

£100/£250. £150 remaining

PipneyJane

@JingsMyBucket so glad your eye problem was identified and dealt with quickly.

@navelorange1 big hug. You have a lot on your plate. In my own college years - working full time and night school 3-4 times a week - there was a point where I lived off microwave baked potatoes. (Scrub the potato, stab it a few times and zap for 9 minutes. Cut a cross in the top, shove in a slice of cheddar and zap for one more minute, then it’ll be ready to eat. Try not to burn your mouth on the first few mouthfuls. HTH)

All this talk of vanilla paste makes me want to suggest an alternative: home made vanilla sugar. Essentially, you bury a vanilla pod in a jar of castor sugar and leave it undisturbed for at least 3 weeks. It will then be ready to use in your baking. (If a cake recipe calls for castor sugar with added vanilla extract, use this instead of the sugar and add a teaspoon of extra liquid.) Leave the pod in the jar. Once the jar is nearly empty, refill it with castor sugar. The pod will continue to infuse the sugar for years.

HTH

• Pip

carboot_karaoke

@navelorange1 Don't be too hard on yourself. Your in a difficult situation and working really hard, I'm sure it will pay off. This thread is a safe space to say how your feeling. Often just saying things out loud or, in your case writing it down makes us feel better.

@JingsMyBucket Sounds like a scary situation. Wishing you a speedy recovery xx

carboot_karaoke

I have 3 more spends to declare… £20.83 in Tesco mostly on meat and snacks (we had guests for dinner yesterday). Another £9.08 in Aldi for seasonings, drinks and three pizza's with 75% off. Finally £4.99 in home bargains for toothbrushes, vitamins and soothers.

New Totals

Grocery Budget £145 / £400

Bulk Fund £33.82 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 178.82 / £450

Its been a steady start to the month, I have once again been included a Tesco challenge to earn extra clubcard points by meeting spend thresholds on various items. I did quite well on the last two racking up about £45 worth of extra points. But this time I've decided to save actual pounds £££ just buying what we need. Plus, l need to save to cover my spiralling petrol costs 🙄

thriftwizard

A sharp intake of breath from me, upon realising I hadn't added my market spend of £25.50 from Friday. Meaning I actually only have £50 per week left… bearing in mind our assorted special dietary needs, this really will be a challenge, especially as it's important to me to continue to support our local shopkeepers & traders as well as feed the 3 (sometimes 4, occasionally more) of us well. But on the upside, in the end DS2 & family couldn't come today because of a school concert they'd forgotten, so two-thirds of the beef joint has gone into the freezer for future reference & I only cooked one-third.

@navelorange1, you have so much to cope with & so little free time, you do need to keep things as easy as possible for yourself. Seconding the advice about slow cookers, and adding that some people find a rice cooker is also a big help. Cooking for leftovers is a useful idea too; I usually cook 2 or 3 main meals bigger than we need at the weekend, then the leftovers provide the basis for the rest of the week's meals, which will usually be quick & easy things like fried rice, stir-fry with noodles, omelette, simple pasta dishes, & baked potatoes with whatever's left in the fridge. Same main ingredients, different flavours & textures, not much work, especially if you're using frozen veg. Miso is marvellous stuff; we've found the big packs from the health food shop last better & cost less overall than the little jars or sachets the supermarkets sell, and we've recently been delighted to find the blocks of firm tofu in Lidls & Aldi, which defintely work out cheaper than the silken tofu from W8rose or the health food shop & seem to be more versatile. And tuna's lovely but there are lots of other tinned fish to experiment with as well, and eggs & cheese are good inexpensive basics, easy to "dress up" too.

Also, several of us do end up spending a high proportion of our target figures towards the beginning of each month, stocking up on staples & laying in the basis of a month's meals, just adding in fresh stuff as we go along. (However I seem to have overdone that idea this month!)