August 2026 Grocery Challenge

C_J

I visited my favourite Community Fridge today and came away with two Aldi bags of lovely stuff plus a huge bouquet of Waitrose flowers which are now on my dining table in the largest vase I possess. Today’s spend was the £1 donation they ask for.

I’ve worked out that today’s ‘shop’ will yield six lunches and seven evening meals plus plenty of fruit for snacks/desserts so I’m hoping I can stay out of the supermarket for much of the week. I will need some more milk before too long but I picked up a litre of semi skimmed oat milk today and am going to give that a try in coffee and on cereal.

Total spent so far this month is £2/£150.

K9sandFelines

I'm over here now, and I'm going to reduce by a small amount, and then a bit more next month, if it goes well.

I only really need toilet roll as a bulk buy this month.

I am going to aim for £110 and £20 bulk fund. Thanks

🤞🏻

Greying_Pilgrim

Grocery spends to update.

Went to Leedle and Sainsbugs today. No green boxes in Leedle and very few YS'd items, although I did get some wholemeal baps YS'd 50% for 22p. We didn't bother picking up our 'free' bakery item - we don't need the sugar of a jam doughnut and I find the demi baguettes too hard on the mouth to eat. I did use my voucher for 15% off wild rocket and black olives though. Total spend in L's was £21.91.

Sainsbugs, I didn't need alot. I didn't use any of my NP's and i think only one or perhaps 2 items attracted some extra points. I did get some more lettuce as it was SEL NP'd, and we might need a salad meal or two at the mo…… I did splash out and buy some mozzarella pearls for a change. £16.12 spent in Sainsbugs on food, and 85p on a TV mag. The staffed tills were knee deep in customers waiting, so I used the self-serve. I loathe using self-serve, my kiddo was putting the items through, but I wanted to pack as I went, and I confused the machine. Twice 🙄.

Food spend £37.18

non-food spend 85p.

Greying X

Nelliegrace

Grocery Budget for August for 2 Pensioners at £5 a day, £155.

I looked at the Aldi offers online and made shopping list for DH. It is much too hot for me. I leant on the side of the trolley for support last week and he kept pushihg it too fast.

Milk £1.65 x 2, yoghurt 1kg £1.49, evap 52p x 2, pork pie £1.99, fruit and nuts £1.35, Super 6 offer, sweetcorn 89p reduced to 62p, and easy peelers £1.09, cucumber 99p, oranges £1.39, strawberries £1.99, best grapes £1.89, bananas 88p, wonky blueberries £1.29.

The blueberries have gone up in price, I would have bought frozen ones.

Total £19.31

He went to M&S for an anniversary card and bought himself 2 boxes of malted wheats at £1.30, another £2.60 spent. (I am ignoring the biscuits he bought for the bowls club, Aldi cheapest would have done.)

Total spent £69.84.

PipneyJane

Thanks for the info about Black-eyed beans at FF, @Greying_Pilgrim. That’s a good price. There’s a branch about 2 miles away from me, which I really must explore.

I popped to L!dl on Monday, after a visit to the dentist. Noticed that they have 1kg Gold ground coffee for £8.99, which they’re claiming is the equivalent of 121g free. I’ve checked my records and, last time I purchased any, 4th July, it was £4.99 for 500g. Since a kilo will last us about 5 months, the Bulk Fund stocked up.

Today, I dropped into our local Icel4nd, after picking up a prescription at the pharmacy nearby. £7 spent on a packet of 8 ice creams (£3.50), a 350g pack of baby potatoes (£1.25) - to accompany dinner - and a tub of salad (£2.25). Scored a £2 in my change, which’ll go to the Running Away Fund moneybox.

This brings our total spend to £113.10/£180 leaving £66.90 for the rest of the month.

• Pip

K9sandFelines

£34.76 spent today. My little trolley to take it home, was fill for that. I bought mostly food, but did have to also get shampoo. I oil my hair, and my current shampoo hasn't washed the oil off yesterday; so I had to get some detox shampoo. That's ok, because I'll use any shampoo, and I was near the end of my current one, so just meant buying prematurely.

Everywhere is bulging so I hope I'm good til next week, apart from a few Amaz@n bits

I forgot orange juice to take my medication, but I've got some easy peelers, so will use them up. Not sure how juicy they will be, but they'll do for now.

Greying_Pilgrim

I've done some spending - unintentional, but I was in a market town across the way, and they have a h3r0n f00ds - need I say more? 😁 Today's bargains were from the L1nda Mckartnee frozen vegan range, and they had either 10 vegan sausages, or 500g vegan mince for £1 a bag. I bought 4 x the sausages and 2 x the mince. Both are BBD until the weather turns cold, and I do have rather alot of hot dog buns in the freezer, so they will come in for meals. I also got some r0binsons squash - the flavours supported the latest Wars of Star film? Anyway, my kiddo liked the 'green' flavour, so I got some at 4 for £1. Then from bee&eM, I got some of the BrewWoof seasonings - they are 29p. I love the smokey bbq, but I also bought 2 of the rubs based on the citrussy brew - should be good as the recipe ingredients are parsley, lemon and coriander. It'll be interesting to see if it makes a good mayo/dip flavouring.

Total spend was £8.25.

Greying X

dollypeeps

week 2 of august GC

£20.80 / £90…..

This looks fantastic until I realise that I’m out this evening at a concert - Hollywood Vampires in Cardiff

Then jumping on the FlixBus ( not so cheap anymore) to London to see Lenny Kravitz at Crystal Palace Bowl.

Dh is also away until Monday, golfing

And then we are all away to Tenerife and Barcelona from Wednesday ….hopefully this will boost the grocery fund/bulkbuy fund.

Looking forward to the time away, we’ve just had a new roof and also the final wall at the back of the house, hacked off and re rendered or whatever it’s called. Builders have finished this morning - yay!!
Rather a spendy month but needed doing . Hopefully that’s our last ‘big job’ and will outlast me.

£12350 for the roof and £1250 for the back wall. All materials and scaffolding included. Now time to save!!!

Blackcats

I'm very late joining the challenge this month as we've been hither and thither so we haven't been doing a regular once a week shop. We got back from a 3 day trip yesterday and I just couldn't face going to Lidlbobs so we found a good home made ready meal in the freezer plus some frozen fruit for today's breakfast and I did an online oc ar doh shop which is arriving later. I was conscious that it might be more expensive but i kept putting things in the trolley and then checking if I really needed them or if it was just because I was enjoying looking at a different range of products. We have nearly enough to last us until our next trip away on Friday. We will need milk, probably fruit and some salad bits but the freezer is currently serving us very well.

Balance remaining £188.26/£380

Suffolk_lass

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82102876#Comment_82102876

Oh well done on tacking the big infrastructure projects @dollypeeps. I was listening to a radio 4 programme today while delivering surplus produce to my friend and they were saying that future supply chain issues point us back to old style things - basic wooden shutters outside south facing windows to stop the sun hitting the glass, and doing proper house maintenance.