August 2025 Grocery Challenge

Changeyourlife25

£435.98 /£600

JingsMyBucket

Morning everyone. Thank you for the commiserations and warm thoughts. @weenancyinAmerica, hang in there. Sending you some hope as well. 

My current spends are up to £316.62 / £400 spent. £83.38 remaining since I last posted 10 days ago (!). 

I was in Glasgow earlier this week and got a few special items I can’t get in my town such as bagels, Finn Crisp rye crisp bread, good quality sriracha, and a couple other items. I’m going shopping this morning to replenish some basics and will update when I return. I’ll also catch up on the thread then too. 

JingsMyBucket

Back from shopping. It was nice to get back into my routine after being away for a while. 

£32.44 at Lidl for bananas, tomatoes, strawberries, regular sausages and chipolatas, XXL pack of smoked salmon they’re having in their sale right now (300g for £5.99), ham trimmings, Philly cream cheese, 2 blocks of butter, oatcakes, granola, and 2 bags of frozen gyoza. I also had two free bakery items — an apple turnover and a demi baguette. I’m going to make soup tomorrow and we’ll have the demi baguette with that slathered in butter. 

£23.14 at M & S for lemons, clementines, nectarines, garlic, 2 packs of Italian style sausages (£6.50), YS mozzarella balls, 4 pints of milk, a small cup of Greek yoghurt, 4 cans of baked beans, and coffee beans. 

£372.20 / £400 spent. £27.80 remaining for the rest of the month. 

We have a lot of vegetables since a friend of Mr. Jings gave him a load of harvested veg while I was away. Lots of beans, a pumpkin, a few zucchini, loads of potatoes, and some other items. We still have veg left from the past couple weeks too. I’ve just pulled out a pork shoulder roast from the freezer to cook for Sunday’s dinner. We can roast some of the gifted potatoes and quickly fry some of the runner beans to make a whole meal. 

C_J

I did a quick trip to Aldi this afternoon and stocked up with a month's supply of dog food tins, a sack of their worker dog dry food, and box of their cat food sachets which I use occasionally to zhuzh up the dog's evening dry food meals.  I treated myself to some camembert too as I had a hankering for cheese, and spent a total of £35.74.

August total is now £75.88/£150 but a lot of my purchases will be used in September.

JingsMyBucket

Annoyingly, as I started cooking this evening I realized we only have 3 onions left and I’ve already used half of one. 🙄 Arrgghh. I have some onion heavy cooking to do this weekend so I’ll need to head out tomorrow to M & S to get a kilo bag. At least I can combine that trip with a couple chores: glass recycling and soft plastic recycling. 

otb666

500/600 I am calling it for August as I go from 23rd to 23rd. I am surprised to have come in 100 under as this is so unlike me but as we have been very busy this month put it down to that. Also the farm shop has been shut as they went on holiday so had to use frozen veg up from freezer.
I must try and use food in my freezer more otherwise its pointless just sitting there happily costing electric to keep it frozen.  Hubby bought some chicken this week and I reminded him we had some in freezer but he said he always forgets to put in fridge night before. 

I will use up my frozen stores before buying fresh in going forward.

joedenise

@otb666 - to avoid things like that I keep of a copy of the menu plan on the fridge door so that I can see what I need to get out of the freezer, if anything, for the next day's meals.  Saves having to move things around too much or using the microwave to defrost things - not keen on nuking chicken though unless it's in one of my HM ready meals.

TravelCrystal

So, just back from Lidl with DH on bikes. He had to pick up a free cake and spend £3 so he could get free veg. Annoyingly they had the large bags of potatoes, had to get the smaller one as only basket on the bike, and that proved to be too heavy, light items only me thinks. 

I also had to get a free cake purchased with a small bottle of Prosecco for our guest tomorrow which she will drink with orange juice already purchased. Drank the fizz I had already purchased with the neighbours last night, hey ho.
Also bought a can of baked beans and some ginger ale.
Total spend £3.11
I am going to declare for August now as will not be going shopping anymore this month.
£191.21/£200 plus £108.07 bulk which will be added in to yearly total.

See you in September 

TC

K9sandFelines

£11.85 spent at Aldi over two shops.
Can't remember what was on the first shop apart from tofu, sourdough and YS salad

Second shop just now I got vegan mince, vegan cheese, wraps,.orange juice and coke.
Bought most of that to make burritos as just picked up mixed beans on olio, some nutmeg and a new to me shopping trolley. Just scrubbed it and hung it to dry outside.

Hopefully no spends now til Monday, when I have to go to get bloods done at the hospital 🤞🏻. I expect not many places will be open anyway or not til normal hours, with it being a Bank Holiday.

remmie

Another couple of spends to declare £42.31 in Al*I and £29.20 in Lids, bring my total to £270.24. I went to Lids for my free veg (broccoli) and scored a £1.50 fruit and veg box whilst there. The rest of the spend was on restocking for next month, although I will count it in this months spend. Next month I need to concentrate on meat bargains as the freezer is running down.