July 2026 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

I see I didn't actually get around to posting last week! Luckily I did keep receipts etc. so had kept track for once & have added £76.77 from last weekend & £91.91 from this week's accumulated grocery spends, leaving me with just under £20 for any topping-up that may be needed before payday next Friday. Phew - tight but basically I've stuck to my plan, so I'm happy! But have no idea at all what I'm going to aim for next month; the number of people here at any given point is unclear, and DD2 & I will be heading up to Pembrokeshire for a while towards the end of the month. It might be best to sit August out!

mandco

had to pick up a parcel and they had some 2good2go bags available - £3.39 for 2 packs of sushi, 2x fridge raiders, 2x walls jumbo vegan sausage rolls, 2 slightly worse for wear bananas, a pk Co-op Fresh Chicken & Pancetta Tortelloni, a Swiss roll & a choc Bakewell tart.

PipneyJane

Afternoon All

Two spends to declare from today: £10.26 in L!dl, (where I bought YS fishcakes 2x£1.14, Salmon en croute £4.99, 1kg frozen 4-berry medley £2.99) and £3.54 in Sainsbugs (on a packet of frozen potato croquettes discounted to £1.79 and 450ml Yeo Valley yoghurt £1.75).

The question I have to ask myself is “Given that money is tight this month, did I really need to buy everything?”. Here’s my reasoning:

• The yoghurt, yes. We both have yoghurt on work days and only had enough for three days next week. This pot will take us through until Friday.
• The potato croquettes? The discount offer was expiring today and I used the last of the potato croquettes yesterday, to accompany the salmon en croute I cooked when I went for the lazy option instead of cooking dinner from scratch. (What can I say? I’d just spent an hour at the dentist and was feeling rubbish.). We buy Sainsbug’s not L!dl’s because Sainsbug’s are bigger.
• The salmon en croute is to replace the one eaten yesterday. We normally have one in the freezer for evenings like that.
• The 4-berry medley is the cheapest frozen fruit and will be needed by Wednesday.
• The YS cod-and-chorizo fish cakes? Well, they were at 50% off and are DH’s favourite flavour.

This brings our total spend to £175.40/£180 leaving 4.60 for the rest of the month.

Now to do some serious meal-planning, to take us through until Friday.

• Pip

Soontobeoap

£18.00 spent by DH on 2 small Aldi shops. added to totals

Good accounting for extra spends Pip. I tried not.replacimg things a couple of months ago. Just did a big use up. It completely backfired when my usual things weren't in storage and I thought they were! I for one think you have done well.

RedRose61

Did a bulk shop at FFoods on Wednesday. I’ve separated the spend across two months because it will cover these at least. I bulk bought 3 cases of skimmed milk, 3x 2 litres of semi skimmed milk, 90 toilet rolls, 4 kitchen rolls, multibuy tuna, yoghurts, biscuits, tinned tomatoes and beans. Lot’s of other bits and pieces. I also got some Big eggs for 75pence! I’ve put £34 for this month and I’ll put £34 against August. I had a £5 coupon but the tills were on a go slow because of the heat apparently! And so I have to keep my receipt and get it back the next time that I go. This is irritating because it’s 36 miles away. We live in a rural area and I only visit when I need to go to a big town for something else. Otherwise it’s not worth the travelling costs.

Visited Aldo yesterday to buy fruit and vegetables, pasta, coke, chicken and bananas. £22.27 spent.

We have all of our meat for our meal plans and some homemade ready meals in the freezer.

Total spend £230.11. £59.89 remaining.

Should be within budget and we will have plenty of stores and freezer stock.

dollypeeps

week 4 of July GC ……holding on by a thread……new roof still underway ….who knew tradies drank SO much tea!?!?

Tesco and Lidl total £88.32

JingsMyBucket

August 2026 thread is now live:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6677622/august-2026-grocery-challenge

Evening all! I can't believe we're already into the August GC already. 😳 Add your budgets to the new thread and I'll update them for you. Bookmark the thread while we wait for a board mod to pin it for us.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080791#Comment_82080791

There’s a reason they call it “Builder’s”. 🤣

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080213#Comment_82080213

Thanks @Soontobeoap. I thought it might help someone else to read my inner dialogue.

DH and I did a round of the supermarkets yesterday, buying stuff for the kiosk of a games convention we help run. No GC spending involved but, once again, I was reminded about all the things that annoy me about each supermarket chain. For example, where you have to look in 5 different places in a shop in order to compare prices for the same basic product because brand A is over there, while brand B is 5 aisles away due to it being “ethnic”.

Sainsbugs lost our custom yesterday, because they have “internet only” offers, which aren’t labelled as such on the website, but you only find out when you go into a store. (DH had priced up everything in advance, using the various supermarket websites.). MrT did not commit this sin, so received the majority of the money spent, but were out of stock on a couple of items. On to A$da, where we had to visit every aisle in order to find the one containing confectionary - not labelled - and most soft drinks were in the aisle next to the one labelled “soft drinks”. Arrggghhhh!!!!!!

• Pip

TravelCrystal

Couldn’t agree more @PipneyJane regarding same product in different aisles. And you can bet the most expensive one is the one we are likely to see first. These supermarkets aren’t stupid and are really out for themselves and their profits. Rant over

T.C

JingsMyBucket

Morning folks, happy Sunday. I’ve actually been really good about staying out of the shops and shopping once a week for the past couple weeks. Regarding my big spend at Morrisons a week ago, that was rather profitable. 

£88.28 at Morrisons on Saturday, July 17th using the £14.25 off £95 shop voucher they sent me in the mail. With various discounts and the voucher, the original £119.78 total was discounted by £31.50. We stocked up on a lot of meat for the freezer, pantry staples such as pasta, coconut milk, Maldon salt, snack bars, etc and got a couple treats too. 

Mr. Jings took most of that back home on his bike then I went on to Lidl for another restock. £51.37 spent that time for eggplant, zucchini, loads of other veg, sausages, ham trimmings, mozzarella balls, eggs, granola, frozen mango, ice cream, etc. I also grabbed a couple pizzas because I was so tired at the end and knew I wouldn’t want to cook when I got home. 

I managed to stay out of the shops until yesterday when I did my regular Saturday shopping. Because I’ve accumulated a lot of points at Morrisons I was able to cash out £20 in vouchers there and had £14 in M & S vouchers to spend also. This means our spends were lower yesterday and I think we’re just about eking out our budget for the month. 

£11.42 at Morrisons after using my £20 off voucher. That paid for limes, sliced roast beef and ham, 2 for £3 packs of colorful tomatoes,  2x block butter, 3 avocados (48p each), bell peppers, skyr, 2 x grated mozzarella, red Leicester block cheese, some oat snack bars, 2 boxes of Mr. Freeze pops, bulk garlic powder. 

£15.94 at Lidl for apples (1.79), cherries (65p), 2 x strawberries (99p each), bananas (55p), a sourdough bakery loaf (1.99), 30 eggs (5.70), and some Italian sliced meats (1.99)

Lastly I spent £5.55 at M & S after using £14 in vouchers. Bananas (greener ones for later this week, 1.00), fresh basil (85p), pumpkin seeds (1.25), a pork pie (3.25), a jar of pesto (1.20), garlic bread baguette (1.00), 1kg Greek yoghurt (1.99), peanut butter (2.35), dark muscovado sugar (1.35), 4 croissants (2.00) and 4 pains au chocolat (2.80). 

Total £346.37 / £350 spent. £3.63 remaining. 

Woohoo!! 🥳 We’re just about sliding in under our budget. If we can stay out of the shops until Friday, I’ll be really happy. I surmise we may need more bananas and milk before then though, possibly Thursday.  The Morrisons vouchers have really helped this month. Hopefully they send us another mailer in August.