August 2025 Grocery Challenge

GSDMum

Love reading everyone's posts, thank you everyone for sharing.

It's a battle for sure keeping to budget. I'm aiming to average £350 a month for the whole of 2025, and I'm quite close to grasping it. My actual spend on groceries so far is £353.28 a month, so I'm nearly there. We're mostly living off the freezer for dinners, with the occasional fresh meal thrown in, usually at the request of himself. At this present time I've just got £33.30 left to spend out of £175 budget, 

Today hubby suggested he'd like fresh sardines with a French stick for dinner. As I was going to the dentist in a town that's not too familiar, I thought I'd pop into Sainsburys there, only to find that the store was too small to have fishmongers's stall. So on the way home I called into Morrisons. This mornings sardines delivery of 4kg was all bought by a pike fisherman for bait. The fish monger couldn't tell me when more sardines will be in as he doesn't know what the supplier will deliver. Alternatively we enjoyed slices of gammon bought from Morrison's deli. 

From Sainsburys I bought large pot of Greek yoghurt, fresh peaches, huge South African oranges, red onions = £7.70.

From Morrisons, sparling water, baguettes, dog treats, large baps, tonic water, Oykos raspberry Greek yoghurts, and Oykos blueberry Greek yoghurts. 5x cartons of milk = £31.12.

Hopefully I can stretch 7 days before I need to shop again. Following this shop I hope to stretch until a booked Tesco delivery on the 29th, this delivery will be written into September's budget. 

Mrs_Cheshire

Small spends over the weekend and yesterday doing a small top up. Now up to £301.40/£550 
Meal plan is done for the rest of the week and then we're heading to my parents for a few days. Going to do a online home delivery for the day we come back. 

Soontobeoap

Another quick shop in Sainsbury's today. Needed flora ( doesn't contain dairy) , plant based cheesy dippers, bacon and gf bread . £13.00 altogether. GC requested pasta salad.for their lunch today which was an easy fix as everything was in the house already. It wasn't on the meal plan but made a reasonably.cheap meal and has stretched the food a bit further. Yesterday I had bought pizza bases and they enjoyed showing me how to top their own pizzas. I have never done that before and they were delicious
 I have a couple of bases left that I will put into the freezer for meals when I am on my own. I had bought loyd Grossman pizza.sauce.on offer last month  in Sainsbury's and definitely over bought. They were much tastier and cheaper.than buying a decent pizza and were a great activity for the kids as well. 

weenancyinAmerica

@Jingsmybucket - Sending hugs from across the Americas. We are all worried too. What next?

Quantaqa

@JingsMyBucket sorry to hear.  Sending hugs and fingers crossed things get better soon xx

Pennypincin

£9.23 spent in Sainsbury's and Tesco on free range eggs, cheese, cucumber, budget apples, budget fat free yoghurt, cheap tomatoes, easy peelers, lettuce, baking potatoes, a couple of loose carrots, and some loose bananas.
I'm hoping to not need to do more food shopping until Thursday or Friday.

TravelCrystal

Sending 🤗 @JingsMyBucket, we live in worrying times all around. Hope the world sorts itself out soon 

My first shopping expedition to Lidl since the lurg

For some reason the app isn’t working properly so I was unable to get my free cake, no bad thing I guess

Had to stock up on laundry liquid, tomato sauce and ice cream cones 🤣
Added fresh fruit and veg, snaffled a £1.50 box which contained peaces, grapes, onions, one pear, tomatoes, oranges and swedes. And one lonely basil plant 🪴 now reviving.
Had to cook the pear and peaches straight away. They can go in the freezer for a pudding in the future.

Also had reduced price muffins, milk, frozen peas, baked beans, marmalade and yogurts 


Total spend today £25.81

Hoping to have prawn pizza for tea, pizza dough made earlier out of the freezer, raw prawns from farm foods, mozzarella ball which is past the date but hopefully still alive and tomatoes from the garden will be added together with a few leaves of the reviving basil.
DH about to dig up some of our potatoes to go with it. Oh and salad.

Total spend this month £144.46/£200

Hope everyone’s month is going well 
T.C

C_J

Hello fellow Grocery Challengers, I love reading all your posts 

A visit to my favourite community fridge again today, £1 spent and I have:

Salad potatoes
Baking potatoes
Large red onions
Mangetout peas
Pak choi
Mushrooms
Asparagus
Broccoli
Avocado
Tomatoes (lots!)
Bananas
Ruby grapefruit
Bag of mixed baby salad leaves
Spring onions
Celery
Spinach
Red cabbage
Courgettes
Carrot
1 Pret chicken and avocado sandwich
1 Pret coronation chicken sandwich
1 large box of fresh noodles
6 duck spring rolls
1 small loaf Hovis granary sliced bread
1 small loaf Warburton's Toastie sliced bread
1 pack pikelets
3 chocolate iced doughnuts
2 pots of Oykos apple and cinnamon yogurt
2 packs plain crisps
2 Pret bircher muesli breakfast pots
1 pack Waitrose chicken souvlaki pastries
1 pack M&S chickpeas and chorizo
1 pack M&S butter beans in tomato sauce
1 litre cranberry juice
1 pack M&S barbecue cooked sliced chicken
1 pack Waitrose thin sliced Wiltshire ham
1 bouquet of white roses

The ruby grapefruit, toasted bread and bircher muesli pots will be breakfasts. The sandwiches and the three tapas dishes (souvlaki, chickpeas and butterbeans) will be for lunches in the coming few days, and I will turn the tomatoes into gazpacho using other ingredients I already have (perfect on these hot days).

I'll cook the salad potatoes and make into potato salad with the spring onions, and will use the red cabbage. carrot and onion to make some coleslaw. This, along with some of the celery, tomatoes, spinach and baby salad leaves and the ham will make a nice salad (maybe using one of the baking potatoes to make some cheeky air fried chips alongside it).

The asparagus will be made into risotto, and the stems added to the noodles/pak choi/spring onions/ mangetout/ mushrooms/courgette to make a stir fry (probably enough for two nights esp if I add a duck spring roll or two as a side dish).  A lighter dinner if it's very hot can be avocado on toast, and one of the volunteers said that the pikelets air fried and then topped with grated cheese and air fried again are delicious so I might try that one night.

Plenty of meals there, and I have enough milk, butter and eggs plus dog food to last several days so can probably keep out of the shops until after the weekend.


August total so far £39.14/£150.

PipneyJane

t14cy_t said:

budget now £83/£100!! this is down to my DH deciding he must have bottled highland spring water for a month as friend down the pub says he shouldnt drink tap water its bad for him, so £18 spent on water.....i could cry!! i myself are quite happy with tap water..also all those 1.5l bottles going in recycling.....so just told DH we now have £17 left for the month so he can forego any cheese purchases..  she says tightening the boots straps once again!!

@t14cy_t  in your shoes, I’d insist that my DH paid for the water out of his own pocket.  Take the £18 back off him.  (Also, most impressed by your haul of freebies.)

@JingsMyBucket I appreciate why you are worried.  Hope your family is safe.  Ditto @weenancyinAmerica.

@Nelliegrace you inspired me to use my bread maker this afternoon.  I’m not impressed by the loaf I made - it didn’t rise a lot. I used new yeast, but I am wondering if the problem is that the flour isn’t strong enough.  Only 3-ish kilos to go before I have to buy more flour.

Is anyone else really glad that it turned a bit cooler this afternoon?  I was a zombie this morning, from last night’s heat.  (It also made it much easier to proceed with my original dinner plan of broccoli-and-chorizo pasta.)

I have two spends to declare - my first spends of the month!  £16.03 in Sainsbugs on Sunday (mainly on fresh veg and four 450ml Yeo Valley Greek Yoghurts with Honey at £1.62 each), followed by a big shop in L!dl on Monday, where I spent £59.85.

A word of warning:  if you do a Smart Shop in Sainsbugs, in order to get the special Nectar prices, make sure that you’ve activated all the offers before you start ths shop and double check them.  I thought I had done so on my phone, but DH used his phone for the smart shop and none of them came up.  Fortunately, the girl on the self-service checkouts could cancel everything and apply the correct, discounted prices.

The above brings my total spend for August to £75.88/£176.40, leaving £100.52 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Naturelover22

Hello all, what a hot one today! 
Walked to the co-op to get milk at lunchtime today, it seemed further than usual in this heat!
Co-op £7.71
4pints milk
2x raspberries YS
Pack of 6 cornettos

Total now £169.32/£310