July 2025 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Afternoon y’all. There are a couple spends from this week to declare. On Tuesday I went to B & M and Tesco while today I did my usual in town runs. 

£10.24 at B & M for shampoo, 2 packets of coconut rice, and 2 different packets of biscuits 

£24.09 at Tesco for YS sliced watermelon, bananas, chilies, fresh thyme, mushrooms, 2 balls of mozzarella, sliced ham, pork meatballs, canned tuna, parchment paper, frozen breakfast waffles, frozen mac and cheese, coffee beans, and more Yeo Valley yoghurt for starter. 

Today I spent £3.75 at Iceland for more Mr. Freeze ice pops and some mango ice pops. 

£8.00 on local honey at my regular café. 

£12.70 spent next at M & S for strawberries, garlic, dinosaur kale, a bag of onions, 2 YS pasta meals (I put them straight into the freezer), and 4 cans of baked beans.

£20.41 at Lidl for loose carrots, bananas, tomatoes, fresh parsley, powdered onion, hummus, kabanossi, granola, potato chips (crisps), 30 eggs, butter, and some mochi for desserts this weekend. I also got some free items via Lidl Plus: a pack of spaghetti and a large pack of blueberries. 

£337.77 / £400 spent. £62.23 total remaining.  

Yikes. And I thought I was doing so well. More meal planning to come this week. I also need to cut back on the snacks. I think I've been eating my stress lately? That said, I've been buying lots of drinks, ice pops, and other items to keep cool or to have cold dinners. At least the yoghurt bill will be reducing going forward... 

mandco

So much for I don’t need much £73.33 in sains - I have the grandkids staying for a few days from tomorrow which wasn’t planned so had to stock up on full fat milk/yogurts/cereal/drinks I don’t usually buy plus extra fruit/veg & branded snacks. 3/4 days of breakfast lunch dinner & snacks is a lot of extra food especially when sdd allows them to be very picky and only buys branded products as they won’t eat own brand stuff - funny how when they are here they generally cant tell the difference when it’s mixed/swapped with the generic version as long as it’s served in the branded packaging or picnic style   

Blackcats

Went to Lidls today with all appropriate vouchers activated and a meal plan and a list!
I'd allocated £60 and spent £58 which technically should be £50 as DH bought "vital" things from the middle aisles 😀

£185.24 left for July 

LotsOfTea

I had a supermarket delivery that came to £75.24 today and I should be ok for a week now as there's plenty of stuff to make meals from and some holiday treats too.

£204.33/£300 used so far.

Nelliegrace

I shopped at Asda yesterday while DH had a medical appointment.
I got a medium chicken and some large strawberries, both half price and stocked up on wholemeal bread flour, muesli, and tinned sardines in brine at 52p.

The apples were from New Zealand and South Africa so I didn’t bother and bought four sticks of English rhubarb for £1.38 instead. It won’t be long till the first of our own apples start to ripen. I bought grapes and nectarines, both cheaper than at Aldi, and some loose carrots. 

Milk was £1.65 but the litre of thick yoghurt was still £1.80, and butter still £1.99. I bought another butter to freeze in portions. 

Dinner was roast chicken with new potatoes and plenty of steamed vegetables. I made a bread and butter pudding and served it with some strawberries and double cream. They go together very well. 

£20.30 spent.

GSDMum

Managed to keep out of the shops for 7 days! It seems running out of milk is the trigger for a shop, milk stays fresh enough in the fridge until its sell-by date,

Yesterday I needed milk, butter and cream, hence it was a trip to Lidl. Bought 5 cartons of milk, 6 pats of butter (also for August consumption), and a large pot of cream. Bought a treat for dessert, and couple of packets of dog treats.= £34.46.

My 'trigger' for the next shop will be 26th July.

Was aiming to keep to £275 this month and August to get my yearly monthly average of £350 back on track (presently it's £359.32). I'm afraid I've busted this month's target. Spends to date for July = £283.73 (includes £6.99 Tesco delivery saver).

TravelCrystal

So I decided on an Ocado delivery today as I needed a particular flour that M & S do
Only ordered it yesterday, no subs and a few bargains  easier to print out what I had.
£63.04 spent with reductions

Most of this will be used next month and beyond and I don’t think I will need much more for the rest of July
Total so far this month £173.78/£200

Naturelover22

@C_J on the butternut squash, I had a look at my slimming world recipes and here are a few ideas, we have done the top two and they are nice.
Roast or grill the chunks with courgette, peppers, tomatoes, onion etc and have like a Mediterranean veg, then have with chicken or pork?
Blitz it up and add to lentils and mince to make meatballs.
Cook pearl barley and boil squash separately, put pearl barley, chopped tomatoes and seasoning in oven dish, put squash on top as a layer, cover with foil in the oven for 25min. Remove foil and cook 30min until liquid gone and squash tender. Serve on own or with protein.

@carboot_karaoke my work has filtered milk and I have noticed the same, it lasts a lot longer and saves throwing away an opened bottle over the weekend.

@Auti I have noticed that some church groups as part of outreach work have set up similar to food pantries in my area, some creating googling with different keywords has found me some places I did not know existed (not all are of benefit to me, or I don't need them but nice to know what is around for those that can use them)

C_J

@Naturelover22 - thank you for the butternut squash suggestions. Last night I caught up with some TV programmes I had recorded, one of which was Jamie Oliver’s One Pan Wonders in which he roasted a butternut squash and added it to a thick stew of fried mushrooms, red pepper and onion chunks, a jar of chickpeas, a tin of tomatoes, some crushed garlic and a large spoon of black olive tapenade. I’ve spent this morning replicating that, but have also added some beef stock paste and a sachet of red wine jus (left over from Hello Fresh I think), some tomato paste and I also chucked in a handful of baby spinach leaves, a dash of red wine vinegar and some salt and pepper. It tastes really nice. Jamie served some as it was, but froze portions of it as a base to have later in different forms, such as adding curry paste or chilli, or oregano. I’m going to do the same, it sounded a great idea for not having several portions of the ‘same’ thing to wade through 🤣

C_J

Reporting back on my experiment with dehydrating the spare milk : it did work, but it took for ever so I shan’t bother again. I lined the Ninja with a ‘bowl’ of grease proof paper, poured in some of the whole milk, and set it to 60 degrees for six hours. I had to run that programme three times before it dried properly (although I think the dehydration setting doesn’t use much power, I still thought it didn’t feel very MSE) and then I had to chip it off the paper and blitz the shards into powder. Two litres of milk yielded about one large tablespoon of milk powder, so really not worth it - but it was fun trying!