July 2025 Grocery Challenge

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.

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