July 2025 Grocery Challenge

carboot_karaoke

Budget creamy chicken and tarragon pasta sounds delish @wishus l need some new ideas can you post the recipe please.

I have another 3 spends to declare...l know . Constantly buying fresh salad, fruit to manage the heat is making me spend more. Total of £22.13 from our normal grocery budget for chicken thighs, baked potatoes, drinks, yoghurts and salad that's already been eaten. A further £8.65 was spent from the entertaining budget on garlic baguettes, sweetcorn,mozzarella cheese for nachos, BBQ sauce and fizzy pop.

New totals 
Grocery Budget £159.82 / £450
Entertaining £28.47 / £120
Grand total £188.29 / £570

Changeyourlife25

£353.26/£450  

Ouch! One day into July and the damage is already done 🤭

Farm shop spend £158.60 
Morrisons spend £194.66

I got sooooooo much stuff though! As well as baking supplies, Fun treats, soft drinks. 
Includes the delivery and bag charge. 

I have a bit of a menu plan going on
so I’m hoping with all the fun bits included in the shopping it’ll keep us away from take aways and I also have lots of nice stuff to take out with us, so we can avoid the trap of spending when outside  

I got quite a lot of meat also which gives me much more flexibility in my meal planning
and I’m also thinking of doing a barbecue! 

As well as some lovely bits of cheese for a ploughman’s and general mouse habits 🐹

£96.74 left for the month 😱

Suffolk_lass

@PipneyJane - I was wondering why your husband does not buy butter in Sainsbugs as he goes there anyway and buys two packs elsewhere for £3.98 - Sains do their OB 500g pack for £3.95

Changeyourlife25

Changeyourlife25 said:

£353.26/£450  

Ouch! One day into July and the damage is already done 🤭

Farm shop spend £158.60 
Morrisons spend £194.66

I got sooooooo much stuff though! As well as baking supplies, Fun treats, soft drinks. 
Includes the delivery and bag charge. 

I have a bit of a menu plan going on
so I’m hoping with all the fun bits included in the shopping it’ll keep us away from take aways and I also have lots of nice stuff to take out with us, so we can avoid the trap of spending when outside  

I got quite a lot of meat also which gives me much more flexibility in my meal planning
and I’m also thinking of doing a barbecue! 

As well as some lovely bits of cheese for a ploughman’s and general mouse habits 🐹

£96.74 left for the month 😱

Another £3.56 adding bits to the Morrisons order 
(tomatoes and cucumbers)

£93.18 left for the month 

GSDMum

Had my planned shop today at Lidl, milk, eggs, butter, cream, phili cream cheese, fresh orange juice, tonic water, sparkling water, ex large chicken, xxl pork loin chops, chicken wings, roast ham slices, cod fillets, smoked mackerel fillets, bacon, eggs, lemons, doughnut peaches, cherries, plums, avocado, jersey royals, maris piper potatoes, couple packets of biscuits, French stick, and 2 Belgium buns for our morning coffee.

The chicken will do several meals, thinking on the lines of HM chicken nuggets with potato wedges, chicken paella using stock from the carcass, chicken pasta bake if I can squeeze the chicken enough. If I cut off the crown and roast it, that will make a roast dinner, and some coronation chicken type salad.

Spicy buffalo wings for Saturday evening, pork chop and wedges for tonight's dinner, cod fillets for Friday.

Thought to plan for shopping again in a week's time, except I've forgotten to get DH his fruit and fibre cereal and a couple of cartons of wet dog food. So I might pop into Morrisons (nearest shop) for a few items before weekend.... it'll be tempting though not to pick up a few extra bits.

Today I spent £76.69 / £275 = leaving £198.31 for the rest of the month. I'm topped up with laundry stuff, dishwater tablets, loo rolls, and cleaning stuff.... except I'll need some Calgon type tables soon. I'll need to investigate which tablets are more economical.

JingsMyBucket

Evening folks. I did my first shops of the month today. 

£2.99 at Savers for a bottle of Listerine. 

£5.20 at Iceland for a carton of 18 eggs and two packages of freezable ice pops to beat the humidity. 

£6.29 for a quick spin around M & S for bananas, green beans, cilantro, a lime, butter, and a can of mackerel in olive oil. They were out of sardines completely. I figured I’d try something new. 

£14.48 / £400 spent. £385.52 total remaining.  

I’ll do a proper shop later this week for supplies to cook Mr. Jings’ birthday dinner next week. Oof, his birthday is this Saturday and I still need to find a card for him! 

JingsMyBucket

Changeyourlife25 said:

Changeyourlife25 said:

£353.26/£450  

Ouch! One day into July and the damage is already done 🤭

Farm shop spend £158.60 
Morrisons spend £194.66

I got sooooooo much stuff though! As well as baking supplies, Fun treats, soft drinks. 
Includes the delivery and bag charge. 

I have a bit of a menu plan going on
so I’m hoping with all the fun bits included in the shopping it’ll keep us away from take aways and I also have lots of nice stuff to take out with us, so we can avoid the trap of spending when outside  

I got quite a lot of meat also which gives me much more flexibility in my meal planning
and I’m also thinking of doing a barbecue! 

As well as some lovely bits of cheese for a ploughman’s and general mouse habits 🐹

£96.74 left for the month 😱

Another £3.56 adding bits to the Morrisons order 
(tomatoes and cucumbers)

£93.18 left for the month 

@Changeyourlife25 careful. It’s really easy to blow your wad in the first few days of the month and then not leave yourself enough for the remainder. I find that allocating a certain amount per week works well for me by giving myself a boundary. I’ve fallen off that wagon lately and the result has been me overspending the past couple months. So with your remaining £93, possibly try dividing it between the remaining 4 weeks starting from July 8th. That’ll give you a budget of £23.90 for each week which may or may not cover your basic top ups. Good luck! 

mandco

Budget of £800 again for July 

Small spend of £10 on bread lactose free milk bananas & some salad bits total was slightly more then this but I’d told them anything over the £10 cash I’d given them due to extras they added that weren’t on the list they had to cover. I’m going try and leave my card at home and pay in cash where possible this month to see if that helps.
Really trying to stay out of the main supermarkets till the weekend but do need to pick up gf bread & peanut butter tomorrow.

Nelliegrace

Thank you, @elsiepac,

Grocery Budget for July £155 for the two of us.

First shop of the month at Aldi. There were a few gaps in the fresh produce shelves, we were late because DH has been at bowls.
The English wine and roast chicken dinner are a celebration. I chose the largest medium chicken available, 300g more than the smallest one at the same price.  We tried an English wine from Bacchus grapes at a local vineyard recently, this was about half the price.
(I shall bake cakes for the week while the oven is on.)

The Ricotta cheese was on offer at 99p, I shall freeze some in small pots because when it is opened it goes off quickly. We haven’t tried the Greek style salad cheese but it was 85p, and the Feta was £1.69. The Greek style yoghurt is good, £1.75 a kilo.
It will be a salad and sandwiches week to suit the weather

£26.84 spent.

wishus

carboot_karaoke said:

Budget creamy chicken and tarragon pasta sounds delish @wishus l need some new ideas can you post the recipe please.

I have another 3 spends to declare...l know . Constantly buying fresh salad, fruit to manage the heat is making me spend more. Total of £22.13 from our normal grocery budget for chicken thighs, baked potatoes, drinks, yoghurts and salad that's already been eaten. A further £8.65 was spent from the entertaining budget on garlic baguettes, sweetcorn,mozzarella cheese for nachos, BBQ sauce and fizzy pop.

New totals 
Grocery Budget £159.82 / £450
Entertaining £28.47 / £120
Grand total £188.29 / £570

Recipe

Here you go!

Creamy Tarragon Chicken Pasta - Pinch Of Nom - is just the pics and reviews but it's basically this recipe:
Creamy Tarragon Chicken - Pinch Of Nom + pasta + reduced fat cheddar cheese.
Only you use chicken pieces rather than whole chicken breasts, and cook the pasta while the chicken, onion, garlic and mushrooms are simmering in the stock, then add to the dish and stir in the cheese and tarragon. To finish, it says add on grated reduced fat cheddar cheese and pop under the grill, but I didn't bother grilling it.

Another pinch of nom one tonight, also very good - gingered pork Gingered Pork - Pinch Of Nom

Disaster as I was retrieving sugar from the shelf and the bag split - it went everywhere! Luckily it's bin night.