June 2026 Grocery Challenge

wishus

…and that's my final June purchases done!

£7.14, brings my total to £127.75/£150

Yes, I had £22.25 left, but my other pots have been treated rather less well, so let's get that belt nice and tight for July. See you on the July thread!

Soontobeoap

Aldi spend of £31.04 today to restock milk juice, cereal etc. Also bought a large pk of chicken and some washing powder to restock. .we only ate what we took with us in the camper van this weekend, so no extra food bought then. We are doing really well this month and I don't think we will need anything else tomorrow. Won't declare until then though.

diminua

Declaring at £38.37 over.

cowboymum

Giving up with June as I've lost track this last week. Onwards to the July thread!

Elizabeth49

Declaring for June at £349.42/£350.

That was a bit of an accident to be honest as my last Sainsbugs delivery for the month was £58.34, but it would have been about £3.00 over if they had the cheese I ordered, but they didn't, so I'm a whole 59p under budget!

Quite happy with June though. I've managed to cut my M&S food spend from about £110.00 in May down to £35.00 ish this month. And I've tried A*da and A*di, both are a bit of a trek, but I will either repeat the A*di one or try L*dl, which is slightly nearer, in July.

Greying_Pilgrim

Morning GC'rs

I'm declaring for June at £225.39. I'll take a 39p overspend, even though it's hot on the heels of a £25.53p overspend in May (but my starting budget was smaller at £200). What's important is that maybe - just maybe, I'm finding my 'sweet spot' for a grocery budget, in emulating @Nelliegrace's £2.50pppd, I'm closer to spending 'enough' but not too much. We've not starved, had variety and eaten different fruit and veg and had some treats.

Because we all calculate our grocery budgets differently - I don't include toiletries, cleaning stuff and household items (inc haircuts) in my grocery money, it has a separate 'non-food' budget of £80pm - it's difficult to know if I'm doing 'ok'. I actually think i am, and even if the bulk food budget is included (£120 annually), my daily rate for food is £7.83 for our household, for 3 meals for 3 people, per day. That's not a bad average.

I think one of the ways in which i could reduce/stabilise my food spending is to really have a good, hard, look at my store cupboards. They are not groaning per se, but I do have alot of pulses and rice. Everything does get used, and I try very hard with stock rotation to avoid chucking anything, and I hope I apply 'commonsense' to use by/BB dates etc But (rhetorical question), what is the 'sweet spot' for stores - too much is an issue, too little is an issue. I still think I could possibly run a slightly 'leaner' store, without us immediately feeling hard done to, or hungry. Something to think on, as we enter the second half of the year.

I have already invested spent £7.05 of July's budget, but I'm looking forward to trying to keep to my grocery budget, whilst prepping weather appropriate food (and let's just skirt over the impending summer hols, where grocery budgets always go 📈 😬).

Greying X

remmie

We have spent a whopping £524.33 this month. I know some of the extra was on food for the dogs new diet, but we also over indulged ourselves with ice cream and drinks in the recent heatwave.

This brings our half yearly total to £2363.58/£3000. I will continue for the rest of this year to see how much we really spend, everything is included in this budget, dog food, toiletries, cleaning and alcohol. I won't split it up as I know I won't be able to keep up with it.

Onwards and upwards to July.

mandco

Various shops since my last post totalling £262.61 this did include lots of extras like f&v/icreams/lollies due to the ridiculously hot weather and having the the grandkids over extra days due to school closures and items for a contribution to a bbq.. There was also an unexpected trip to Tesco where I stocked up on some offers - I’d been to Sainsbury’s and all the fridges & freezers were empty due to breakdown and aldi don’t do what I needed so it was either Tesco or Asda & my local Asda isn’t great thoughwith hindsight I’d have probably come in much closer to budget had I gone there instead.

Declaring for June @ £891.35 a huge £91.35 over budget 😳. I could tweak the figures and adjust for some bulk buys etc which would see me closer to budget but I spent it this month so I’m including it and can start July with a £0 balance and hopefully get a clearer idea of what I actually spend.

K9sandFelines

£13.89 on fruit and veg yesterday, which means I'm definitely over this month I have another 12 days to go 🫣😯

Suffolk_lass

@mandco I feel for you but being brutally honest with yourself is the best way to find out what you do when you shop (and why you spend outside your list). You are not alone. There are still people on here who will remember the woman who basically insulated her loft with Bogof toilet rolls (she once ran out and as a result, always bought bogof when she saw them) - for others it is yellow sticker food. We all (except Nelliegrace) have our failings when it comes to shopping. I call the over-stockers (it includes me) "paying the supermarket to store their food for them" - is that YS joint you don't have a plan for really still a bargain after it has lived in your freezer for six months or more, if you add the cost of running a meat freezer (I do, but my excuse is buying half a lamb every year from a friend [whether I need it or not]).

I do separate mine out into Groceries, DD & Subscriptions and stores within GC but I separate Pets and Livestock (we keep bees - I have just ordered and paid for winter feed in bulk [eek]) and I don't include treats and entertainment as we separately budget to keep these reasonable. Also cosmetics and meds are outside, unless I buy them in the SM - it all goes into a spreadsheet and after 15 years or so it just does get tracked, the morning after. I think it helps me expose what I spend it on, having the categories.

Keep going, it does get better!