December 2008 Grocery Challenge

cw18

It's up to individuals what they include. I didn't include toiletries or pet food in mine -- just food for human consumption

mardatha

Can I come in for £200 please ??

Lucycat

Posted this over on the Nov thread, but it looks like everyone is over here already!

I'm a grocery challege thread newbie too, but would love to join you for December - am going to set budget at £350 for the four of us and two mogs. Seems high but I'd rather not be too ambitious my first month, it'll spur me on to keep cutting back!

Lots in the freezer & store-cupboard, and me & the slow-cooker are on good terms at the moment, so hopefully will be keeping fingers crossed, eyes peeled...and purse shut!

Sorry for the double-post - and looking forward to joining you all for the challenge! :beer:

Blairweech

Hi guys,

As you can probably tell....I fell off the wagon in November. Again.

Basically, I am fed up with falling off the wagon - no matter how many times I try with the GC, I never seem to manage to complete a whole month properly. I really want to.

So, I need some help and avice. It's not in terms of the budget I am setting myself - that is the easy part. The main problems are a) Not sticking to my menu plan b) Not being bothered to cook when I come home from work (or just having cereal or something) and c) waste - LOTS of.

I do try planning in leftovers to my menus (failing that, have an 'easy tea' like beans on toast)

PLEASE help. Everyone else can manage this, why can't I???

cw18

I buy very little "fresh" that won't freeze -- even most of our vegetables are bought frozen since I started working on reducing our grocery spends.

I do find that cooking double quantities and freezing half (either meal sized if I know how many I'll be feeding next time I serve it, or portion sized if not) helps too -- much quicker to defrost and heat through something like a bolognese or chille sauce than to prepare and cook from scratch. The pasta/rice cooks while I sort the sauce..... or I just do a jacket potato in my combi to go with it instead.

carolt2

Evening everyone, have already set may budget and i am hoping we manage this month.
Have got some tesco voucher/gift cards that are going to be used for or shopping this month;)
Pretty well stocked up on most items so hoping to go to the shops towards the middle of next week.

Good luck everyone with Decembers challenge:D

nickynoo08

Hiya after miserably failing last months challenge can you please put me down for £130. I must try harder this month!

1HANNAH

Hello all, I am new to this and this is my first post (although have been lurking for a while!!)
I am guessing that my budget is £250 for the month of December. (I hope that real figure isn't too much of a shock!)

belfastgirl23

I would like to give myself a target of £200 for December please MrsM. This allows £40 extra for all the Xmas stuff. While we don't have christmas dinner at home we do contribute groceries etc to parents households and while I've managed to get some put by there's still the fresh stuff to get. And we have a family party on boxing day as well that I'll need to bring some stuff for. Even with this I would hopefully be comfortably under my £2k grocery budget spend for the year

Good luck to everyone else.

tessie_bear

blairweech im new to this but i would think the way ahead would be to build on any sucess that u have had such as
*dont plan to have any left overs if u struggle to use them eg if u eat sausages split the pack when u buy and freeze in 3's or however many u eat and then trere is just one meal nothing to waste
*think about your schedule and plan for beans on toast on busy days
*really try and eat what u have planned....i find this so difficult i often fancy something else when ive cooked something but try and go with the original and think what u are saving and that might make it taste better
*is your budget enough are u being too hard on yourself ....are u having a small odd treat with the money u have saved ??
*if u want excitement ditch the meal plan and have a few options on offer everynight such as soup pasta bake chilli occassional takeaway jacket pot and filling frozen chips and something u wont waste the others they will sit their for another night...i think it is daunting planning loads of meals in one go......do u have a master list of meals u like to refer to ? HTH tess