July 2025 Grocery Challenge

wishus

Good onion tips folks! I store mine in the top cupboard and potatoes in the bottom cupboard. Eggs are in a chicken-shaped pot and tomatoes are kept in a pot on the worksurface - they're best not refrigerated.

Tonight I went to make my green lentil-based chilli, and found the tin of kidney beans I thought I'd bought the other day wasn't there.

Go to the corner shop, said OH, and I was almost there when I thought, what am I doing? For the sake of another five minutes of walking, I can get a tin from the cheap German supermarket beginning with A. 
Kidney beans acquired with loose change, probably saving at least 70p.

t14cy_t

did an approved food shop yesterday so budget now standing at £68/£200.  olios been abit lean this week but hoping sunday may bring up some goodies!! strawberries in the garden have now finished, but blackerries are just starting to ripen

JingsMyBucket

Morning all. Yesterday I did a fair amount of shopping to get ready to make Mr. Jings’ birthday dinner of eggplant lasagna. I’ll make the large batch of Italian sausage base sauce this weekend and will assemble / cook the dish next week. His birthday is today but we’re getting together with folks early next week. 

£4.35 at Iceland for three tubes of Pringles. 2 for his birthday and one for me. 🙂

£35.00 even at Lidl for tomatoes, 7 eggplants, fresh basil and parsley, Babybels, sliced mozzarella, shaved Parmesan, 2 tubs of ricotta, sliced ham, pork belly slices, ground beef, butter, 2 cocktail cans (99p each). 

£90.11 at M & S for bananas, a big tray of strawberries, doughnut peaches, clementines, salad, garlic, chili peppers, 3 for £12 fish, 3 for £8 deli, 4 packs of sausages (3 Italian and 1 chipolatas for £13), 2 garlic baguettes, YS pasta meal, 3 bags shredded mozzarella, 2 YS burrata balls, coffee beans, seeded wraps, 2 bars of chocolate for Mr. Jings’ birthday, and 1 for me. 

£143.94 / £400 spent. £256.06 remaining.  

I didn’t get a few items because I was already weighed down like a pack mule and knew I couldn’t get a cab home. I’ll return to town on Sunday or Monday for more eggs and baked beans among other things. After that, I’ll ration out my budget for the rest of the month. 

Nelliegrace

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

We stopped at Lidl on the way home from a pleasant afternoon using our membership at a National Trust property. I took a flask of coffee and homemade cake, so no extra expense, not even in the second hand bookshop. 

Milk, a red pepper, radishes, cooked beetroot, small bananas, and oranges.

£5.90 spent.

Total £32.75

Soontobeoap

£23.40 spent at Aldi on essentials plus ice lollies today.DH does love his coffee so £8.00 of that was nescafe

Edit - have just done a meal plan and I can get another week at least from the freezer

Sunday - Lasagne
Monday - Lamb hot pot ( limited lamb leftovers but will bulk up with veg)
Tuesday - fish cakes ( made with tinned tuna from stores
Wednesday - sausage pasta
Thursday - Beans on toast
Friday - Beefburgers ( reformed meatballs)
saturday- a joint that the label has come off of! 🤣 I have narrowed it down to Gammon or pork!🤦

Fingers crossed it gammon as I can get so many more meals from that. If it's pork has anyone got any food recipes for leftovers?

mandco

Changeyourlife25 said:

£373.54 /£450 

😩 
I shouldn’t have posted last night , I didn’t realise I couldn’t edit my posts. 

The Morrisons order ended up being £202.09
although I’m not sure why…. I don’t know if some offer expired or it’s a hidden charge. 

Then ended up needing stuff in the corner shop £12.85

Only £76.46 left for the month….. and we are 2 days in.

maybe the budget needs to go up? 

My farm shop and Morrisons order were big ones and that’s a freezer full of meat and a lot of dairy! So I’m hoping that’ll do us well.
i just need to stay away from popping to the corner shop for little bits and actually plan properly and be ahead. 

Just waiting for Morrisons to arrive now! Will be sitting the kids down and having a long discussion about portion control and not swarming the fridge like a bunch of locusts. 

So I can actually make what we’ve got last
 
Thanks for the creamy tarragon chicken pasta recipe! Sounds lovely, I was looking for it online but couldn’t find it. I’ll try that this month.

Anyone feeding 5 adults? (1 adult and 4 big children 17,12,11,9) what would your budget be? 

When starting out go through your previous months average spends and start there with the aim of reducing gradually - if your spending £600 cutting that to £400 in a month is going to be incredibly difficult to achieve and you’ll get discouraged. 
my monthly target at £800 is significantly higher than most on here but I included everything food, household, toiletry’s petfood ect I’m feeding 5 adult sized eaters though we do have food some allergies/ intolerances Which bump up the costs a fair bit. I haven't come in on target yet but my target is lower than I was spending before I started and I’m definitely more conscious of what I’m buying so it’s still a win. 

Really must stop leaving oh in charge of the shopping - ended up in hospital having my gallbladder out - £33.80 in Sainsbury’s & £92.40 in Costco  I did ask if he’d pick me up a cooked chicken for when I came home so he decided to go to Costco on the way to pick me up as they had bumbu on offer £24 - its normally around £36. Granted he did pick up some of our usual buys like bacon,butter,wraps but pretty sure the approx £30 worth of Krispy kreme donuts, cupcakes & cookies from the bakery section really weren’t needed 

Changeyourlife25

Thanks so much everyone for all the love!

Yes thankfully I have a lot of food in the house and have been making a meal plan, just need to keep motivated everyday. I’ll do some fake aways too  
I’m trying to go completely cold turkey on the take aways, it’s hard but once I start then I just give in because I’ve already failed. Tbh no one even wants the take aways! I think we are all sick of it and half the time when it arrives it’s never good or there’s some other problem anyways 


for big bags of onions, I usually just chop and freeze everything. However with a sack that could take a while (I use a blender) if you have a big enough space dark and cool that should be fine, keep the bag shut and give them a rinse before you use them.

£358.17 / £600 

Just another £2.38 spend. Spring onions and a blue sports drink
I probably could’ve done without the sports drink but 🤷‍♀️ I was thirsty making dinner lol 

C_J

I made a trip up to a nearby town this morning, mainly to drop off some charity shop donations. I called into the small Saturday morning community fridge and picked up some shallots, a red onion, a green pepper, a tiny cauliflower, a large bag of French beans, a large courgette, a couple of leeks, two all butter croissants and a Lidl doughnut filled and covered with chocolate. They had loads of pastries to give away but I resisted 🤣

There are enough shallots to fill a Sarsons jar so they will get pickled tomorrow, the other veg will be frozen for later use, the French beans are going to my daughter (they’ll be excellent finger food for my 10 month old grandson), the croissants will be my breakfasts on Sunday and Monday, and I am just eating the naughty chocolate doughnut with a lovely and much needed cup of tea.

This community fridge doesn’t ask for donations, so my total for July remains at £8.67/£150

K9sandFelines

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 😊

I bought mine in September last year, and I ran out about April. I also use onions all the time. I stored mine outside in the yard in a spare recycling box. Albeit the weather was much colder then 

JingsMyBucket

Good news, everybody! I misread my M & S receipt yesterday and accidentally listed the pre-discount total of £90.11. The actual final amount was £81.20, a whole £8.91 less. So my revised numbers are actually: 

£135.03 / £400 spent. £264.97 total remaining.

That extra bit will come in handy when I buy drinks for the birthday dinner this week.