August 2025 Grocery Challenge

littleacceb

Hello, wise folks. I am starting from absolute scratch here so I'm just going to say hello as we're so far through the month and join in properly next month.

I'm Becca. We're a blended family of 8 - three full-time; two four days a week; one half time (can't eat wheat, eggs, dairy or chicken) and two three days a week.

We tend to use Ocado because the local Tesco is one of those small superstores that doesn't keep as many own brand foods or bulk packages in stock, and the only other choice within ten miles is Waitrose. Everything we buy is own-brand apart from Whole Earth peanut butter, Walkers crisps and Vadasz kimchi.

I'm very fussy when it comes to buying meat - I can't stand gristle, or when a load of water leaks out as soon as you start cooking, or when chickens haven't been plucked properly and you still get feathers in the skin. So I end up spending a bit more to avoid those things. I'm happy to eat plant-based food most of the time, but the big kids in particular expect meals to be meat-centric. In fact, we've got a lot of pickiness to contend with, so meals tend to be different components (one protein, two or three veg, one starch) in the middle of the table and serve yourself. The adults and toddler tend to eat whatever leftovers there are for breakfast and/or lunch the following day.

I think this is probably a judgement-free place but I'm still feeling vulnerable admitting that over the past year our household has spent, on average, £380 per week on a combination of supermarket shopping and eating out. This needs to come down.

I look forward to learning from you all.

t14cy_t

C_J said:

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.

love the long list of goodies...well done!!

Naturelover22

@t14cy_t how annoying about the water, is he going to live on water and not food at that amount of money.
My husband is a pepsi max obsessive and it drives me mad. I added up how much he spend on energy drinks and pepsi max and he was quite shocked!
When i do the shop I buy 1 own brand bottle for the week and any more and named brand he can pay for himself!
I also hate the volume of plastic it brings through the house and need to recycle! 

@Changeyourlife25 dishwasher is very exciting, i have not had one in 9 years and miss it so much.

@littleacceb welcome to the thread.
I have only been here a few months.
You sound like you have your hands full with keeping track of the food shop.
The good thing here is to only compare to yourself, everyone has different families, diets etc which affects their shop.
We used to spend alot on takeaways and this is our real downfall, I am slowly trying to get away from them as much but it can be challenging.
There are quite a few people with big families so I'm sure there are lots of tips and tricks to learn from.

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.