July 2025 Grocery Challenge

GSDMum

Trust you're on the mend now @Changeyourlife25, well done for keeping under control spendwise, when you're ill online shopping comes into it's own.

I try to keep away from the shops until my 'planned' shopping day. But found we'd ran out of DH breakfasts, and dog treats. On the way back from taking DH for a blood test I called into Morrisons spending £19.16 on bread rolls, crumpets, fruit and fibre cereal, dog treats, new potatoes, and fresh cod and haddock fillets that were on sale. 

I've already busted the £275 target this month, my actual spends being £302.89.

I've got a Tesco delivery due on Friday 25th (roughly £130) so I'm going to be well over. I was aiming to keep to £275 this month and August to get my yearly monthly average of £350. All's not lost yet, I thought I'd lump both July and August together to make £550 budget over Jul/Aug. Average monthly spend is running at £367.98 - must do better

TravelCrystal

Morning all
Just a small amount to report this week 
Spent the princely sum of .48 in Asda on Y.S 6 rolls and 6 crumpets.
The only thing I needed for the rest of the month was milk, so remembered I had a 2 litre one in the bottom of the chest freezer, defrosting in the fridge as we speak. If that turns out to be dodgy I still have an unopened long life to fall back on.
We have just finished the broad beans that we grew this year, not enough to freeze.
Will plant them again next year God willing.
DH has also been collecting the Charlotte potatoes that were planted. Again a success, so will do again next year
Our best crop this year were the strawberries. Out of a small raised bed and 3 hanging baskets we must have had over 300. 

The weather was cooler yesterday so I made a beef stew in the slow cooker. 500 grams of stewing steak, a couple of old potatoes, bottom of the fridge carrots, sweet potato, onions, runner beans from one of our neighbours that looked like they should have been picked before now so in they went. 
It was delicious and I have put a meal in the freezer and separated out some of the juice to use as a gravy over a roast dinner one day.

Plain fish tonight as I am just off out to visit a friend and will not feel like doing much on my return. I will just fry in butter and lemon, Charlotte potatoes and frozen peas, easy 😊

So I am going to declare now for July as I have enough in stores to keep me going.
£174.26/£200

Good luck everyone for the rest of July

T.C

K9sandFelines

I'm glad I'm not on my own here, going into the shop for something I needed and coming out with more, must be the week for it.
I intended to just get two soya milks. One for cereal one for coffee. The cheaper one splits, but I've just made a coffee, and the dearer one has split too. Despite, only boiling the water to 70 as recommended. I'll try and warm the milk  a bit next time and see if it's still the same. If so, I'll stick to Tesco's cheapy one as that doesn't split
Anyways aswell as the milk, I ended up getting two spring onions, one plain tofu, broccoli and bread on YS to freeze once I've made room..
So, £5.54 extra to add.
I need  to sit on my hands now. As I've got nineteen days left

C_J

Good evening everyone. I'm just back from my regular Community Fridge visit. This week my £1 yielded:

6 large baking potatoes
2 onions
Carrots
Fresh ginger
1 large butternut squash
Scotch bonnet peppers
Courgettes
1 red pepper
6 large tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 large avocado
2 red apples
3 lemons
1 large punnet blueberries
1 large punnet strawberries
1 bag beansprouts
Large bunch spring onions
1 loaf Jackson's sliced sourdough bread
1 small loaf Hovis white bread
1 loaf of Hovis multigrain sliced bread
1 pack Warburtons orange and raisin thin cut bagels
1 pack of 4 M&S beefburgers
1 large M&S risotto primavera ready meal
1 pack Waitrose ready to eat baby beetroot
1 tub Waitrose hummus
1 tub coleslaw
1 Pret hoisin duck wrap
1 Pret egg mayonnaise sandwich
1 pack Waitrose sliced German Brunswick ham
1 M&S brioche and strawberry sandwich (the one that's been all over the press recently!)
2 Pret blueberry breakfast bowls
1 Pret bircher muesli breakfast bowl
1 tub smashed avocado
1 large head of celery
2 little gem lettuce
2 packs x 2 chicken gyozo snack tubs
2 x 600ml double cream
1 x 300ml single cream
1 pack M&S purple crunch stir fry mix
1 Tesco Greek salad with feta and kalamata olive lunch bowl
1 M&S summer edit beetroot and whipped goat's cheese salad
1 tub M&S tzatziki
1 bag x 2 Sainsbury's pain au raisins
1 pack cut fresh herbs - coriander
1 pack cut fresh herbs - Italian mix
1 M&S summer edit cereal drink (appears to be liquidised milk and cornflakes)
2 bottles Daylesford organic cucumber tonic water
1 large bag Sensations lime flavoured poppadom snacks
1 bouquet of white roses

Such a lot of food this week! I've frozen some bits to use later. Plenty of breakfast choices above, and the  sandwiches and Greek salad will be lunches tomorrow, Friday and Saturday - handy, as I am out and about on all three days. I'll have the risotto tonight followed by the M&S brioche/strawberry sandwich for pud (not too sure about this one!!), a stir fry tomorrow night and there's lots of nice ingredients for a ham salad on Saturday.

I've only just used up the last butternut squash, but today's looks as though it will be fine in a cool dark cupboard for a week at least.  I'll churn the double cream into butter.

Shopping-wise I will need to get another bag of worker dog kibble and 4 pints of milk before the weekend but that's probably about it.

July total so far now stands at £18.67/£150, which is amazing.

K9sandFelines

Amazing haul @C_J 🤩

joedenise

@C_J the butternut squash will last for several months as long as it is really dry, which it should be as it's come from a shop.  I've got one in a cupboard that doesn't get opened very often so more or less kept in the dark which has been there for a couple of months and is still fine although I do actually have plans to use it fairly soon in a curry, some of which will get frozen.

JingsMyBucket

Morning folks. We’ve had a couple trips to the shops over the past week. We’re at our budget limit for the month but still have a week to go. The point now is to mitigate the damage. We’ve got a lot of veg in the house and meat in the freezer. There are just some daily items to replenish such as fruit or milk to make yoghurt. 

£48.19 at M & S on Sunday for some basics as well as 1L of extra virgin olive oil (£8.50), organic whole milk to make yoghurt (£2.40), and a smoked gammon to cook at home (£6.50).

£23.75 yesterday evening by Mr. Jings at M & S again for 3 containers of coated chicken and coffee beans. Mr. Jings thought the chicken was 3 for £12 but one of the packets actually cost £9! Oy vey. It was still cheaper than ordering KFC so that’s money still saved in a roundabout way. 

£409.71 / £400 spent. £9.71 over spent

Dang it. Just remembered some friends are visiting us from England this weekend so we’ll probably host them for dinner or breakfast at least once. We may have to do a Saturday morning scramble for supplies then but I’ll try to limit the damage. The annoying thing is they’re kind of free wheeling and won’t give specifics to their arrival times or when we’re going to hang out. They’re staying in a different place in town so we’re not fully hosting them, but it’s still unpredictable. 

JingsMyBucket

@C_J, love your hauls. That was a particularly bountiful one this time around! 

Nelliegrace

July Budget for Two £155.

DH bought 2 packs of wonky British apples and 2x 4 pints of milk at Aldi but I haven’t found the receipt.
About £5.20 spent.

I shopped at Aldi yesterday afternoon when it was quiet. 
Quite a few bargains, the grapes and potatoes were on offer, the large butternut squash was £1.09, the kilo of nectarines was £2.35.
34p for a pomegranate! I keep it in the fridge and cut it a bit at a time to add a few fruit seeds to my muesli. 
DH will eat fruit with his breakfast if it is cut up and put in front of him, half of an apple, orange and banana every day, and a variety of fresh, tinned or dried fruit. 

We use British cold pressed rapeseed oil in the bread, £2.99 for 500ml, though there are cheaper alternatives in plastic bottles.

£23.97 spent.

The foragers’ cherry plums are in season, yellow and red in the hedges round the park and on a local housing estate. They make a tasty jam, I use a cherry stoner to prepare the fruit.  
The Czar plums in the garden are beginning to ripen. We have just a few Tomcot apricots. The first few blackberries are ready to pick. 
Yellow cherry plums.

mandco

Various shops totalling £136.60 to add bringing me to £743.50/£800 with 7 days to go so very doubtful I’ll stay under this month - Aim now is to try and stay as close to budget as possible. I’ve noticed Unexpected spends events that were unplanned but require additional purchases are proving to be a significant reason for overspends so need to work on a strategy for those going foward.