June 2026 Grocery Challenge

Nelliegrace

I am a hoarder too @Suffolk_lass . I have enough tea and coffee, and pulses, a cupboard full of tinned stuff, and boxes of homemade jams, jellies, marmalades, and honey, and sugar bought in bulk for the bees. We used to liken the eggs from our hens, ducks and quail to a magic porridge pot, however many you used there were always more. I used to sell some jam, honey, and eggs at WI just to cover costs. We have only the 10 fruit trees in the smallish garden now and no livestock. With all of the manure the allotment overwhelmed us with produce in our Dig for Victory project. I never want to see a meat rabbit or prepare poultry for the table again.

We had no need to panic buy loo roll, a stock kept in reaction to memories of cutting and threading squares of newspaper onto a piece of string when the single roll Izal Medicated t p ran out.

Huge Tomcot apricots.

Some of last years apple harvest.

Soontobeoap

@nellieGrace it sounds like you ran a small holding your produce looks lovely.

I am declaring June at £148.09/£250 .made possible by making meal plans to suit stores from cupboards and freezer. This is possibly the first time that I have been under budget this year so I am very pleased. I have made up the frozen mince into meals and bought chicken though so I think I can keep going like this for another couple of weeks. First grandchildren stay is August 14th so I am hoping for a frugal July to prepare for a big budget in August. There will be 5 of us for the last 2 weeks! I will need energy for the children too so I like to have most meals prepared unless it is something that they can put together like pizza. Pasta is another cheap meal that they like. May have to have an Italian menu for those weeks. Oldest GS was 14 yesterday so not sure how much longer we will have them all together.we are making the most of it while we can

Nelliegrace

@Soontobeoap. We learnt a lot, and had a lot of fun, with the local Smallholders’ Association, and the Beekeepers’ Association, with their teaching apiary. We have just a small semi and rented an allotment (£24 a year). A farmer let us keep beehives out of sight in a secure paddock. We provided him with a bee proof suit incase he needed to go near the hives, and paid rent in honey. It was not a huge investment and we recouped a lot of the cost when we sold the hives and bee equipment when it got beyond us.

Blackcats

after a bit of jiggery pokery, a holiday and starting July grocery budget in June I had a whopping £90 underspend. This has flown across into my 2 savings pots that I'm focussing on and has given them a great boost.

Thanks everyone for your inspiration, wisdom and honesty!

dollypeeps

declaring June at £366.90 for 4 weeks of grocery shopping

Or £91.73 per week so not too bad against my budget of £90 per week.

Onwards to July now

K9sandFelines

Added a spend at Aldi £11.95 - soya milk, crisps, ginger ale ( often get nausea from my meds), plant menu chicken pieces for DD2, cereal, sweetcorn (need it for two recipes I want to try), and can't remember what else. I didn't really need anything except milk and chia seeds. Which I bought from HB. I need to add them £1.19 and whatever else I picked up. I only went out for cat food which is from a different budget. I'll locate my receipt once the cat has budged off my lap !

Edit - £1.53 to add - jammie dodgers and something else

Sallyp2

June went to pot

Combo of heat, extra small shifts at work, bad planning & temptation spending!

Its important to add spends and declare otherwise why take part

Sallyp2

grocery spends 1 to 30 June = £424.19

budget = £270

overspend = £154.19

shocking as this is nelliegrace's monthly spend. Am disgusted with my lack of discipline

Nelliegrace

With all the things the household has to juggle, the rising bills, the price of fuel, taxes, and incomprehensible online forms, etc. nobody should feel guilty about struggling with the food budget.

It has been decades since food prices of staples were controlled, now they change every week, and not by a penny or two on one item, but 10, 20, and 30p at a time on a variety of essentials, and pack sizes and contents change, budget lines disappear, and every trick is used to get more of our money for less of the real food we want.

Our local supermarket has had everything rearranged again so we take more time and hunt among all of the junk food, loose focus and make poorer choices.

Finstickle

I didn't really post in June, but did track everything.

Total for June:

£302.49/£350