July 2026 Grocery Challenge

TravelCrystal

Thanks for the new thread @JingsMyBucket

£200 for me please.

It has been ridiculously hot as many of you have said and I had run out of a few salad bits so went down to our local Asda at the bottom of the road in the car £4.42 spent.

However, the engine management light came on so car now out of action until later this week when hopefully it will be fixed and not too expensive. Luckily I had considered another Ocado order, so that will be here on Wednesday. Just to add to the drama’s. DS number 1 would like us to house and pet sit later in July so I’m concocting some sort of list of food I can take to keep costs down. They have moved recently to somewhere slightly distant from a general supermarket. So we shall see how close I can get to budget this month.
I have also seen blackberries on a bush just near us, end of June that is crazy, and like yourself @Suffolk_lass our strawberries this year are quite poor, they were crazy last year and I think DH who is in charge of the f and v in the garden may have planted new runners

Anyway have a good July everybody

T.C

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here.

Evening folks, I've been keeping really weird hours lately and so here I am updating the thread after 12am. 🙃

@whitecatcreamsofaDOH welcome back! Do you want to keep £420 as your amount for the month?

Suffolk_lass

Like @PipneyJane I have spent every penny of my June budget (£225) and my spend, year to date is less than half my annual budget of £3000 - at £1355.74 - I usually hope for about a hundred less than this. I start with July a bit early as June is my "13th" monthly state pension, with the second one arriving this morning. And very welcome it is too, as we had the timing belt changed on our old campervan this month, along with a service and MOT. So I mustn't start feeling rich or anything!!

I do plan to replenish ice lollies today or tomorrow, they are a refreshing dessert after lunch!

cowboymum

I'm in again for July - trying for £500.

Hopefully I won't crash and burn like I did at the end of June! Trying cash for groceries this month but it's much more difficult to buy with cash. My tescos only has 3 self service tills that take cash. However when I shopped yesterday I went to the cashier's like the old days and it was quite refreshing! Stocked up on some monthly things - olive oil, flour etc as well as regular spending.

Spent the following;

Aldi - £41.28

Sainsburys £23.95

Tesco £29.10

Total - £94.33 / £500

t14cy_t

please put me down for £100 for july. we are fully loaded in fridge, freezer and cupboards! this is mainly thanks to olio. i have the community larder tomorrow which costs £18 per month which is included in the budget. this is for 2 adults, 1 dog and 5 chickens and a rooster!

Elizabeth49

£350.00 for July please.

For all food and household items for two people.

mandco

thanks @JingsMyBucket for running the thread

Provisionally I’m going for £800 again for July please

With more hot days predicted and the kids breaking up at the end of the month I’m going to try and pre empt some the inevitable extras but might need to adjust the budget later

.

path_to_1m

hi! Thank you for running the thread
Newbie account but not a newbie to the forum. I need a ginormous kick up the bum.
I have a lot of food in the cupboard and the freezers, plus we have some good Olio distributers near us so I can often get a good chunk of free food, my usual budget is about £5-600 for a month with 4 adult kids in the house, but July we are going to aim for

£350

We are away for a couple of days and I am not including the food we buy then as it comes out of a different budget, so lets see if I can get a handle on my spending!!

K9sandFelines

I've seen more bulk buys than I've anticipated, so I'm probably going to have to adjust, or go over. I'm trying to decide whether to bake my own cookies, bearing in mind that a baking block is between £1.20-1.50 or buy some off TGTG. There are some Callebaut choc chips on offer, so if I buy them I'd have some nice homemade. Whereas really I want to stay away from UPF and naughty treats and focus more on healthy stuff. So perhaps in itself there I've talked myself out of a purchase. Plus half the TGTG ones are chocolate orange which I'm not keen on.

@JingsMyBucket can you please up the bulk buy fund by £30? I'm already over and there's a few more purchases like I said. But after this month these things should last me a good while. I'll drop it it down again then.

Thanks.

Greying_Pilgrim

First day of July, first shopping day of the month. I went to Leedle and Sainsbugs today.

I was lucky that a fair few green boxes had been set out in Leedles this morning, I'd guess about 10. There were 2 that were definitely of no use to me as they had kiwi fruit in them, and I'm…… intolerant? of kiwi. I wouldn't say allergic, but it does make me feel sick. There was one box with some liquifying tomatoes in it, so I left them. There were 2 boxes of interest. One had one of the 'tomato selection' boxes in it - I think they retail for £4+?? That had bananas in it too (I needed bananas), but not alot else. So I went for the 'best of the rest box' - which had; 3 x various cherry/plum tomatoes packets, a 3 pack of peppers, 2 cucumbers and a pack of 'snack' cucumbers, a net of unwaxed lemons (one looks ropey), 2 iceberg lettuces, a punnet of crimson plums, a bag of radish and a random either chili pepper, or sweet, small pointy pepper. Although don't nobody keel over, right, but I LEFT the box that had avocados in it……. 🫨 Think it was the one that also had the liquifying tommies in it.

I used up 3 of my 15% coupons in leedle, on coriander, an aubergine and a bag of baby tatties. Plus I bought 2 x tinned lentils, as Aldee had them on offer and leedle price matched. I think they're good for making salads. My shop was very salads/store cupboard heavy today. On food, in Leedle (inc the green box), I spent £23.17.

In Sains, again I got our 'normal' foodstuffs (the cheese, milk, eggs etc), and again got stuff that would support making salads, and I also splashed out on some 'condiments', which again, are pretty much salad orientated. I got light & dark soy, sesame oil, some rice vinegar and lemon & lime juice. Sains groceries total came to £26.86

In addition, I spent £4.11 on 'non-food' (suncream, tv guide & kitchen roll).

So groceries came in at £50.03, which bust my 'daily' target that i had left for the first seven days. Not good in a 5 week month, but if I add up the condiments, they would swallow up the £4.45 odd that I was over. I did ponder about putting the condiments in bulk purchases, but whilst I won't use every last drop in July, it'd get too complicated to divvy it up. Please feel free to remind me of my cavalier approach when I'm running on vapours in my purse come the middle/end of the month…….. 🤣

Greying X