August 2025 Grocery Challenge

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon all,

I found myself back in the shops again yesterday 🤦‍♀️getting things for our dinner party l needed limes for Mojitos to go with dinner. But what l actually brought from Asda was, vanilla cheesecake, YS raspberries, carrots for the houmous and a multipack of Areo chocolate puddings £6.10. They didn't have limes so l went to Lidl and brought limes, lemons and salad £2.46.

Apart from the Areo's everything else was for entertaining. 

New totals  

Grocery Budget £183.09 / £380
Entertaining £83.83 / £70
Total £ 266.92 /£450

Tomorrow i'm going to do the pre holiday shop but most of that will be out of another budget. 

@littleacceb Welcome to this friendly community 😊 no judgment here just lots of helpful support.  

PipneyJane

Welcome @littleacceb.  I found the most helpful thing was to work my way through all the links at the start of the thread - it took a couple of months - and to make notes/bookmark the bits that appealed to me, as I went.    

I hear you about meat.  I buy most of mine from our local butcher and it makes a big difference to the quality.  No chicken breasts plumped up with water from him.  Also, gristly meat is meant for stews and long, slow cooking where the gristle will dissolve; it needs several hours (3+).

I have a spend to declare from today:  £22.11 spent in L!dl.  I went in to collect four freebies:  2 bakery “prizes” (a toffee filled yum-yum and a pain au chocolate); and two L!dl+ coupon rewards (free vegetable for spending >£50 on the app - I chose a family pack of mushrooms - and a free packet of crisps for crossing the >£100 threshold.  I chose the multipack of cheese curls, since it didn’t contain any packets with prawn flavouring (I’m allergic to prawns).  Also in the shop were a Dustpan & Brush set (£1.79), Gold instant coffee (£2.69), 1kg soft dark sugar (£2.15), 1kg cooking bacon (£1.99), pack 30 effervescent vitamin C (4x99p), Peppered Mackerel (2x£2.29), Shortcrust pastry on offer (2x98p), and smoked salmon (£2.99).

The above brings our total spend to £97.99/£176.40 leaving £78.41 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Soontobeoap

So now we have really gone mad! Another shop done. I am really hoping that a lot of it goes over to when the girls come to stay! £97.00!

thriftwizard

Welcome, @littleacceb! Speaking as another who has trodden the waters of utter confusion on the family catering front, this thread, and the stalwart individuals who frequent it, have helped me keep my head above said water and our budget (and diets) relatively healthy for many years!

This weekend's butcher/supermarket/street market spend came to £81.90, taking me up to £374.16/£550; there was another small "family contingency" spend yesterday for bits of a picnic lunch to celebrate OH & DGS's birthdays at a local attraction, which I may or may not add at the end of the month. I'd baked ham & chicken pies and a sweet potato & red pepper quiche so the spend was basically just crisps, a bought cake (thinking a HM effort might melt down in the heat) and salad leaves - well under £20. However I've forgotten eggs this morning & am kicking myself; my Girls have gone into moult now so it's bought eggs for the next few months. They're cheapest & freshest at the market, but I've already been up there & really don't want to gallop up there again, as I have an urgent quilt to make; DGD2 will be arriving at some point in the next 7 days! (Planned section, she's very big & DDiL had a very bad time with DGS, who was also on the large side.)

remmie

Hi everyone

Apologies for being missing. We have had a busy start to the month with family staying, and lots of planning and shopping to do. Now hopefully we're back to normal I will tally up all the receipts I have carefully filed away and report back on how good (or bad) the result is.

Changeyourlife25

£222.38/£600

Couple bits in Iceland. 

Does anyone do meal plans for the whole month? Or are you just weekly meal planners ? 

joedenise

I'm a monthly meal planner but doesn't mean we stick to it vigorously!  Meals often get moved around within the month if, for example, I've put something on the plan and I'm short of an ingredient and no plans to go shopping then I'll swap it for something later in the month which is likely to be a HM ready meal.  I always cook double and freeze another meal for later in the month.

It works pretty well most of the time.

I've tried weekly planning and it just doesn't work as well for me.

Soontobeoap

When I am running down the freezer or trying to do a much cheaper month I meal plan for as long as I can get to without buying more. Them I just buy the fresh stuff I need for the first 2-3 weeks.

PipneyJane

Changeyourlife25 said:

£222.38/£600

Couple bits in Iceland. 

Does anyone do meal plans for the whole month? Or are you just weekly meal planners ? 

I have to confess that I am a very ad-hoc meal planner.  I tend to buy basic ingredients which I can transform into multiple different meals. I usually only plan a few days ahead and that is driven by a) what meat in the freezer and how long it will take to defrost, b) what’s lurking  in the fridge and needs to be used up, c) what is scheduled to happen in the evenings after work (no point planning to spend 2 hours cooking a roast, when I’ll only have an hour at home before going to choir) and d) what we haven’t eaten recently.  For example, 250g of minced beef can become a Keema Curry, Bolognese Sauce or a Beef Chilli.  I only decide when I take it out of the freezer to defrost.

Having said that, it’s also important to think beyond the next meal and consider what can be done with the leftovers.  For example, the leftovers from a roast chicken could become a risotto one night and a stir fry the next, or a pasta dish, or some sort of curry.  The one guarantee is that the carcass will (eventually) be simmered up into stock.

Yes, I am only cooking for 2 adults, but almost every meal I cook gives at least 4 portions and I always dish them all up at the same time as serving that night’s dinner.  It’s the one way of ensuring that we have enough for our lunchboxes the next day, because my DH will happily eat double what I give him (and that’s after me giving him at least 50% more than I’m having).  

Hope this helps @Changeyourlife25

- Pip


PS:  I’m now sitting here debating what I’m cooking for the next few days.  We’re at the football tomorrow, so dinner will have to be fairly simple to cook.  I’d originally planned a stew in the slow cooker, but our next door neighbour gave me a load of fresh cherry tomatoes, which I could bake with feta and turn into a pasta sauce…Hmm…. There’s also the mussels I purchased in L!dl on Monday and had planned to eat on Thursday, before she presented us with a pot full of stew and another of rice, leftover from her brother’s birthday meal earlier that day.  

WickedLady4

I feel some of the pain, as I'd bought fresh food at Lidl when we got back from holiday but was then unwell. DH got to do my Community Larder shop and returned home with smoked salmon, mince, scotch eggs, melon and various other goodies so the mince has gone in the freezer and the rest is being consumed in vague date order. 
The Lidl shop has been put on the back burner for a bit!