August 2025 Grocery Challenge

K9sandFelines

thriftwizard said:

Goodness, it's been mayhem here; a massive internet & phone "outage" starting last Friday & finally clearing half an hour ago means I'm struggling to make sense of what's gone out & where! Also a new grand-daughter arrived last Thursday & various family have come & gone, generally over mealtimes... anyway, best guess at the weekend's spend comes to £104.35, taking me up to £478.51, leaving me just over £70 until Friday. That's entirely do-able!

Congrats on your new granddaughter 🎉

K9sandFelines

I spent £20 odd pound today on an impulse buy that I'm now regretting. I saw a live on TT shop from a spice shop, selling a mix I used to order years ago from the takeaway. I've tried making myself and not as nice.Its Achari. 

I've done so well at avoiding buying anything from there, and completely stopped looking in Shein and Temu. My special interest though is food and I got hooked. Also, it was in a flash sale and discounted by £2 by  TT themselves. Although, I had to buy duplicate to not get charged postage too.

So I've got 8 x 300g spice blends on their way. One lot is an Achari bundle and the other the lovely seller said they'd choose a nice mix for me.
I mean I'll use them all, but did I need it right now - absolutely not!! 

I've spread the cost over three months to limit the damage a bit.
So, £7.32 to add to the total this month.

The dopamine hit didn't hit. I need to listen to my gut in future.

mandco

Going to have to rethink the budget for September as had a bit of a disaster yesterday when I found out my overflow chest freezer( I use it for bulk buys/seasonal stuff & larger items)has stopped working & had to bin an entire freezer full of food  :'(. None of it was salvageable it was literally warm to the touch & mushy so guessing its been off a while I think the last time I put something in it was about 2 weeks ago as been trying to run down the main freezer. Gutted as it’s such a waste of food and I had several joints of meat & party food for ds birthday in there too.

Changeyourlife25

£593.39/£600 

Close but under too much money spent in the corner shop for snacking purposes. Financing a sudden redbull addiction also, but still under and shouldn’t need anything these next few days really  

C_J

Oh no @mandco - that's awful about your freezer. It's happened to me in the past and although it was a very swift and brutal way to get rid of all the odds and ends I had been meaning to clear out, I also lost the expensive stuff too and it was heartbreaking. Clearing out the mush is so unpleasant too!

I braved the thunderstorms to visit my favourite community fridge, not as many people there today but also not quite as much on offer. However my £1 donation bought:

2 baking potatoes
Salad potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
Red onions
Shallots
Aubergines
Pak choi
Bag of beansprouts
1 bag soba noodles
Asparagus
Courgette
Tenderstem broccoli
2 handfuls of mangetout peas
1 bag jalapeno chillies
Tomatoes
White mushrooms
2 red peppers
1 bag of watercress and spinach salad leaves
2 little gem lettuce
Bunch of spring onions
4 oranges
Punnet of seedless black grapes
Carrots
2 M&S skinless boneless chicken breasts
4 ;pints semi skimmed milk
1 mozzarella topped flatbread/pizza type thing
1 Japanese "Menyu" chilli beef and rice ready meal with spring greens and veg pickles
1 pack M&S king prawn gyozas
1 small loaf sourdough bread
1 small loaf multigrain bread
1 pack 5 Sainsbury's oatmeal and raisin cookies
1 M&S cheese and onion sandwich
1 Waitrose roast chicken salad sandwich
1 litre cranberry juice
1 pack thin sliced Wiltshire ham
1 large (200g) pack goat's cheese
1 tub ricotta
1 pack mozzarella
1 bouquet pink roses

There are plenty of ingredients there for a chicken, noodle and veg stir fry which will easily stretch to two dinners, the asparagus and ricotta will go with other ingredients I already have to make Nigel Slater's Orechiette, vegetable and ricotta recipe which he cooked on telly recently and which I thought looked delicious. The aubergine and mozzarella will be turned into something which Jamie Oliver made which I also thought looked tasty, but maybe without the burger buns.  The sandwiches will be lunches tomorrow and Friday, and there are ingredients for a ham salad and some vegetable soups.  I picked up the sourdough as Nigel Slater (from his Simple Suppers programme) had cooked a recipe with steamed butternut squash mixed with chopped fried bacon, spring onion and red chilli with chunks of torn bread in it - I can't find it online but I still have the recording of that programme so I shall have to watch it again!

This brings my August total to £41.14/£150

C_J

I just found the Nigel Slater recipe (not on his site, but someone else had posted it) for the steamed squash that I will be trying this week (this recipe serves 4):

650g/1lb 7oz pumpkin or butternut squash
olive oil
6 rashers of streaky bacon
2 bushy rosemary sprigs
3 large garlic cloves
half a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
a small ciabatta loaf
a handful of parsley leaves

Preheat the oven at 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Peel, seed and roughly chop the pumpkin (or butternut squash). The pieces should be roughly 2cm/1in square.

Steam the pumpkin over boiling water until soft enough to take the point of a knife with ease (a matter of 15 minutes or so depending on the age of your pumpkin). Drain and set aside.

Warm a shallow layer of oil in a heavy-based pan. Cut the bacon into small pieces, about the size of a stamp, and fry until the fat is pale gold. Stir in the leaves of the rosemary sprigs.

Peel and lightly crush the garlic cloves and add to the frying pan with the chilli flakes.

Tip the cooked pumpkin into the frying pan and leave to colour lightly.

Tear up the ciabatta and add to the frying pan, adding more olive oil if necessary (there should be a thin layer in the bottom of the pan.) When the bread is golden in patches, roughly chop the parsley and add it to the pan.

Serve hot

K9sandFelines

Despite chastising myself above for spends. I had to go in Aldi for sourdough bread ( buying this over gluten free as it doesn't upset my stomach, and it's practically the same price as some gf ones). Need to learn to try and master it myself !!

Also, mushrooms to go with Bolognese on Friday for me, DD1 and DGD., tofu, bananas, cola and cheapy dark chocolate ( whilst it's finally in stock)

Also adding two loo rolls from my own stores. Total is £7.96.

I've done a week's meal plan, so praying I don't need anything.

Please come and post your meal plans. I'm on my own posting over there.

Sponge_pudding

Oh a meal planning thread? Where is that hiding then?

joedenise

Sponge_pudding said:

Oh a meal planning thread? Where is that hiding then?

Here it is:  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6356309/could-we-start-a-meal-plan-thread-again-so-its-not-lost-in-the-gc#latest

Naturelover22

Hello,
Did a big shop in A*di, on Tuesday, but does not seem like much for the money really, there were a few expensive things on there.

£62.49
Cat litter £2.19x2
cat food £2.59
Pepsi max, squash, chicken, fruit wheats, pizza, cheese, painkillers, chewing gum, lemon, ham, tuna, peppers, beef mince, yogurt, pasta, chopped tomatoes, corgettes, biscuits, noodles, crisps, deodorant, grapes,
Reduced pork steaks, brown rolls, flowers.

I'm also adding on £20 takeaway from last week as food is food wheather it was bought from the supermarket or not.


Updated spend is  £301.82 out of £310.