July 2025 Grocery Challenge

Naturelover22

Took a bit of a risk today and popped into Aldi on the way back from giving husband a lift to town for the evening.
I went in for a little dessert to eat in the garden as it is sunny and was there as they reduced everything!
I came out with the below for £14.43 rather than £31.53!

2x german pork loin sandwich meats
Fancy chorizo macaroni cheese pasta
Scotch pancakes
227g Strawberries
Big pack of marinaded chicken wings
2x italian salad leaves
2 x asparagus bundles
2 x 250g raspberries
Kale
Spring onions
150g Blueberries

My lollies and chocolate pudding cost £3.75 full price.

Declaring £18.21 spend.
Total £73.21 out of £215 for month.

remmie

My first shops of the month are totalling £155.80, gulp. Although in my defence I do have a freezer full of meat to make meals from (with a bit of planning), and enough dry and tinned dog food for the month. Oh, and plenty of ice creams. Hopefully nothing needed until next week when I go to Lids to collect 2 freebies.

£155.80/£300

Changeyourlife25

@working_mum  @carboot_karaoke

Thank you so much.

So, basically the budget was always 450 but I had a dreadful take away habit on top (maybe around 300 a month but it would vary)

I’m going hardcore on the take away ban.
maybe I just need to see what our groceries would be with the ban then work on getting it down from there.

I'm so embarrassed, I used to be so good at this stuff but it’s been a long season of physical and mental health problems.

The main thing I’ll be cracking down with this month is the kids portion sizes (a box of cereal isn’t one meal 😝) and also the snacks. 
That’ll help. I need to keep track of what the actually eat, it’ll help me get more on track and figure out if they actually are starving to death or wether they are indeed just eating everything in sight 🤣

I’ve had a little check and I was indeed over charged for my Morrisons order, the actual spend was £192.07 but I’ve taken off household stuff so a total of £183.43
I’ll be doing a separate £20 budget for the household bits 

@elsiepac could I please change my GC to £600 !

£355.79 /£600 

Nelliegrace

I do feel for you @Changeyourlife25, I remember Mum buying an extra loaf just for my teenage brother and he would tear it into big pieces and eat it plain. 
Can you get the youngsters into making pizzas? Bread was our filler-upper when we were growing, doorsteps of bread and Mum’s jam. Now our breadmaker keeps us supplied with as much good, inexpensive bread as we need. With DH’s family it was huge portions of potatoes with their dinner. 

DH is as bad with his breakfast muesli, I gave him smaller and smaller bowls, and he would still pour out too much. Alpen gave away plastic pouring cereal containers to improve their sales. It is now in a sweetie jar with a measuring cup. I buy the basic muesli and add cheaper porridge to make it go further, and cut up fresh fruit to add, half an apple, half of a small banana, and half an orange each. I stopped buying cartons of juice. 
We don’t buy any extruded sugary cereals.

The only snack is a 59p pack of basic salted peanuts or mixed dried fruit and nuts to share each week. There is a jar of maize for popcorn in the pantry. 

Changeyourlife25

Nelliegrace said:

I do feel for you @Changeyourlife25, I remember Mum buying and extra loaf just for my teenage brother and he would tear it into big pieces and eat it plain. 

🤣🤣🤣 That sounds about right, great idea from your mum though! I might try it! 

PipneyJane

themsthebreaks said:

How do you all store onions?

I buy bags with around seven or eight onions in them, and store them in a dark bag, but as the house is warm, they can start to sprout if I don’t use them quick enough. We do use a lot of onion - with a bag often lasting less than a week - so, that isn’t usually a problem. Cost wise though, I would like to get a big sack of onions, but I already know they wouldn’t keep in the house.

If I was to store them in the shed, would they need to be off the floor? Would they stay in their original packaging? How long would they last in there? It is a spider haven in the shed, would that matter?

Sorry for all the questions. I would like to buy a big sack of onions, but don’t want to end up throwing half of them away, so would appreciate your thoughts 😊

@themsthebreaks I store my onions loose in a basket on the kitchen counter.  I was always told not to cover them because that encourages sprouting.

As you may have noticed from my post a couple of days ago, I tend to buy mine in 4kg "sacks" (mesh bags) from a local greengrocer.  One sack will last us about a month.  The important thing is to ensure your onions aren't sweating, so do not store them in plastic bags.  Preferably, only buy them if they are loose or in mesh bags.  Also, be aware that supermarkets onions are often sweaty when you get them home - even if sold loose - because they come from cold storage, so need to dry out before being put away. 

HTH

- Pip

Naturelover22

@Changeyourlife25 well done on working out what needs to change and how to do it. Other pressures and problems quickly pile up and things can get out of control so fast.
Sounds like the takeaways has been a big part of your family spend and food consumption. To help you avoid the temptation to just order one day when you are tired/stressed, try to make your meals as interesting to you as possible so you look forward to them. On the days you usually go for the takeaway try and do a favourite meal or extra dessert so you dont feel like you are missing out.
My weakness is being tired after work without an easy meal to hand.

If you have them as a treat or to cheer yourself up, maybe a planned few in the month would help you reduce them rather than cold turkey, however I know different methods work for different people.
You are off to a great start x

C_J

@themsthebreaks I store my onions loose in a wicker basket kept on a shelf in one of the kitchen base cupboards as they do better in the cool and dark. As Pip says, always ensure you take them out of their plastic bag before storing, and I was always told not to store them in the same box/bag as other veg particularly potatoes as they encourage each other to sprout.  In the past I have bought onions in the large mesh sacks and kept them in the garage, where they did keep well. I just don't need that many any more now that I am just cooking for (mostly) one.

If I end up with too many onions, and if I have room in the freezer, I chop a whole load of them, bag them up in small portions and freeze them. So handy.

A quick trip into Sainsbobs today for some Twinings Everyday teabags, a couple of packs of Ibuprofen for the medicine cupboard, and 12 sachets of cat food. I don't have a cat, but zhuzh-up the dog's worker-biscuit evening meal with a sachet of the fish flavoured cat sachets now and again as a treat, he loves it.

£7.67 spent, bringing my total for July to £8.67/£150.

otb666

300/600 I have switched to frozen chopped onions as so much easier to use and store. 
When i think back to my childhood my mum would send me to greengrocers to carry a sack of spuds home when i was a teenager and chips and mash went with everything I also picked up two loaves of bread a day (on my way home from school)but we were a large family.
When i looked after my own family of 4 I would often go to Maccys most days and had a large american fridge freezer that i would stuff with processed foods spending over 100 pounds a week on food.
This all went on credit cards when we retired had to pay of £40k plus of debt (which we did with severance money following redundancy) This does not include the additional remortgaging borrowing we used to do to incorporate the overspending every 5 years.
I used to argue with myself I went to work so I could shop like that. How deluded was I.  Now my shopping has changed thank goodness for my health and purse.

carboot_karaoke

@Changeyourlife25 Do you have a favourite takeaway/go to? 

During covid we made our own fake-aways and have never gone back.  
For example we like a Chinese curry.  l  buy Mayflower powder from B&M cook with chicken,  mushrooms, beansprout rice or chips. Sometimes we even have prawn crackers and spring rolls with chilli sauce as a starter. 

All at a fraction of the cost of a takeaway.