July 2025 Grocery Challenge

Naturelover22

@wishus i like their recipes, and really liked that book, I have borrowed them from the library before to save another book on the shelf.

@Nelliegrace i get the greek style salad cheese and it is very good.

Husband did aldi shop today £55.00.

£9.56 on cat food and litter.
Fizzy drinks, pork mince, yogurt pouches, chicken breasts 1kg, ham, chicken thigh burgers? Ice cream, squash, pasta, red onions, cheese, noodles, breakfast bars, apples, passata, pak choi, corgettes, crisps, cottage cheese, blueberries, raspberries.

Spent £55 out of £215, leaving £160.

goldfinches

Evening all and I'm off with a salad stock up at M*rks, I bought a seeded baguette, lettuce, cucumber, radishes and tomatoes for £5.25.

That makes my new total £5.25/£150.

I've decided it's far too hot to bake this week so have spent the Baking Budget on some ice pops that were on offer at Mr T's for £1.20 instead.

In other news when I went for a shady walk this afternoon I noticed that the first blackberries are turning red so think it won't be long before we'll be able to start picking them here so I spent some time spotting good patches that are loaded with fruit for this year.

carboot_karaoke

wishus said:

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.

Thanks @wishus 😊. 

Good idea @naturelover22 I will have a look on the library website to see if l can reserve it. 

Suffolk_lass

GSDMum said:

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.

@GSDMum you could try a cup of washing soda crystals (Dri-pac) in the green bags in most sm - if you put white towels or T-Towels in (without other detergents) and use a hot wash at the same time it works really well. As does white (clear) vinegar as a water softener, to stop the limescale building up. I buy the white vinegar in 5L container as it is my go-to cleaning product, with soda crystals, and a bit of citric acid (de-furs kettles) and lemon

TravelCrystal

Love the chicken recipe @wishus will definitely give this a go, I have 2 large chicken breasts in the freezer that can be chopped up and used and plenty of dried tarragon. Just need the cream cheese, will add to next week’s shopping list. Trying to stall shopping for as long as possible and making salads at the moment in this heat

T.C

Suffolk_lass

TravelCrystal said:

Love the chicken recipe @wishus will definitely give this a go, I have 2 large chicken breasts in the freezer that can be chopped up and used and plenty of dried tarragon. Just need the cream cheese, will add to next week’s shopping list. Trying to stall shopping for as long as possible and making salads at the moment in this heat

T.C

Stalling shopping and substituting from what you have in, are the strongest tools for keeping (y)our spends low

Soontobeoap

I agree with you @Suffolk_lass. It's stalling DH going shopping I have a problem with!!!!! 🤣

GSDMum

Suffolk_lass said:

GSDMum said:

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.

@GSDMum you could try a cup of washing soda crystals (Dri-pac) in the green bags in most sm - if you put white towels or T-Towels in (without other detergents) and use a hot wash at the same time it works really well. As does white (clear) vinegar as a water softener, to stop the limescale building up. I buy the white vinegar in 5L container as it is my go-to cleaning product, with soda crystals, and a bit of citric acid (de-furs kettles) and lemon

Thank you for the tips @Suffolk_lass, I live in a really hard water area so I think it's a good idea to protect the washing machine. But... I've also got this feeling that maybe I'm falling for what the advertisers are pushing. Unless the machine breaks down then I've got no idea if anything works.

I've got a white wash with t-towels to do, so I'll defo try the wash with the soda crystals and without detergent. I'm a big fan of white vinegar too, it's an amazing product and cheap to-boot. 

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass said:

@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

Errr..... It was probably because I had butter on the shopping list for L!dl @Suffolk_lass and not against Sainsbugs.  Butter has been £1.99 for 250g at Lidl for at least 6 months. (I just checked my records.  In November I paid £1.69.)

I have a small shop to declare.  £3 spent at the local greengrocer on 4kg of brown onions.  Not as good value as they have been - in May the same shop sold me 4kg onions for £2.49 - but still cheaper than at most shops.

The above brings our total spend to £47.70/£162.50 leaving £114.80 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

t14cy_t

£200 budget for July. spent £29 today for chickens food and icecreams .so £29/£200.