December 2010 Grocery Challenge

kippers

Just updated my signature as we needed some last minute xmas things. Adsa wasn't excessively busy at 10.30 today, i was surprised

larmy16

It was with great wisdom, I insisted we do our big Aldi shop on Wednesday evening, as we are pretty much snowed in down here in Surrey.

I hope you are all doing well and keeping warm. there is not much you can do but potter around (my favourite thing ever) or snuggle down.

Anyway I joined you ladies on 3rd December. I am counting my budget up to 31 December.

My initial budget was £250 - of which I have spent £143.11.

This has included all groceries, but also some household goods and toileteries from a trip to Poundland.

We have more than enough in but not much in the way of fresh fruit but plenty of frozen veg. We will survive anyway with plenty of store cupboard and freezer stuff.

Feel quite contented today. Hope you all do too.

Hippeechiq

Well - we woke up to a hens nose full of snow this morning, but for Bournemouth, that's a lot! So I guess I should be grateful. It certainly made for a beautiful walk to Te$cos and back.

My daughter has just grumbled that "it's going to be Christmas a week from today for goodness sake, and we still haven't got our tree or the decorations up" - and that pretty much sums up the enthusiasm OH & I have for the big event.

I've never known a year when I've felt so un-Christmassy - then again, it truly has been a bl00dy awful year, as was the year before it (although at least then, I had a job and money and a car) - so it's hardly surprising.

Anyway - on the GC front, I'm currently standing at spends of £189.00 with £86.00 remaining in the budget, but have a delivery coming Monday of roughly £52. Don't think I'll make the budget this month, as I'm struggling to keep organised and focused, but I'll keep trying.

Hope everyone's managing with their budget and above all, keeping warm.

Big hugs to Billy Jo and wssla0 :grouphug:

Have a nice weekend

jintyb

Spent a bit today at the great butcher we go to near my MIL's in Glasgow. It's a good old fashioned one, where the butcher can give you good advice etc. Got loads of sausages, burgers, black pud and a couple of smashing steaks for tomorrow. I'm still £19 under budget and apart from a couple of things I need tomorrow at Lid£, I should scrape in with something to spare.:j
My month ends on Monday.
My GC didnt include any Christmas buys, as I had a savings card for that.;)

Moniker

Well, it hasn't stopped snowing here since daybreak and we have about 10cms - not much compared to some I know but enough to make our country roads almost impassable. We popped out this morning to drive the one and a half miles to the next village as MIL needed milk and while I was in Bud8ens I bought some celery, a parsnip and some shower gel for DH who forgot to tell me he was running out when I did my big shop on Wednesday night! I have updated my sig. I am over budget but not by much and considering the change of plans and the weather problems I am not going to get in a stress about it!

Have made a batch of veg soup which we had for lunch with enough leftovers for tomorrow. Have also made 20 mince-pies and some shortbread biscuits in the shape of Christmas trees, angels and bells - they are cooling in the kitchen as I write. The house smells lovely and Christmassy!

We won't be driving to Surrey for the family get-together tomorrow, so I am doing a slow cooker beef pot-roast. I am hoping also to make some 'Christmas muffins' - a recipe from the BBC website which makes muffins with mincemeat and chocolate in - I'll let you know how they turn out.

Have a good evening everyone and keep warm.

Love Moniker

Long_tall_sally

I went to Tesco today. Well I actually went to two Tescos today! The first one I went to said that they weren't accepting the £10 when you spend £50 Waitrose voucher from a newspaper so I went to the 2nd one which was only a mile away & the Customer Services there told me they were accepting it & so should the other branch have done! It drives me mad with Tescos why they cant stick to one national policy instead of messing customers around all the time. That & the fact that they are so expensive on a lot of things makes me go there less & less. The benefit of the £10 off was negated though by having to buy some gluten free Genius bread at an insane cost of £2.89 for a loaf! This was because my DS's bread that I get free on prescription hasn't come through in time despite it being ordered nearly 2 weeks ago. The annoying thing is that even though the Genius bread is actually pretty nice, he doesn't actually like it much but as he has 2 more days left at school, I had to get him something for his packups. Anyway, I am rambling a bit!

All in all about another £50 spent today so yet again I have gone over target even though I increased it for this month! I could cheat I suppose as none of the beer that I bought today will actually be consumed before Friday which is payday but I can't really see the point.

We have no snow here in the East Midlands despite the forecast saying we would get loads today so hoping that this continues. Hoping everyone is managing to stay safe & warm.

hex2

Long_tall_sally wrote: »

We have no snow here in the East Midlands

Maybe not in Luffbra, but we have had some on the hills. Snowed on and off all day here. I was in the multi story parking Mr T in L this morning - and bought a bottle of wine and three half price bottles of comfort rather than pay £2.50 parking. Surely it didn't used to be that much? Didn't get a chance to go to the decent greengrocers, humph.

I had a S delivery booked for next week but I am going to cancel it and do a farm shop visit for the last of the veg. We are having a c'mas dinner tomorrow for in laws, then again on the day for MIL.

MRSMCAWBER

Good evening all

Hex2 -had to smile at "luffbra" -Im from the notts area and when we are on our way home from out here I get excited when I see "loogabarooga" (loughborough) on the signs as it means Im nearly home :j

Well folks -better late than never popping in - my thoughts go out to those facing tough times right now..... especially those who have lossed loved ones or have poorly ones.
We now have about 18" of snow -and that has fallen in the last day and a half :eek: -luckily I haven't lost my "hoarding mentality" -hubby suddenly isn't as sceptical of my stockpiling fettish as we can now feed ourselves for at least 3-4 weeks with a little creative thought -and we can go for longer with a little more fruit/veg :j so we have the luxury of picking n choosing if/when we brave the weather!

Luckily we had allready decided to have this xmas at home -someone was smiling on us when we made that decission me thinks..... so its just me n hubby so it will be a quiet one, and as Im still on slimming world (6st 8.5lb off so far ) I have not made or brought any mince pies, pud or cake -well hubby isn't bothered by it and I will only eat it because its there.... so its a very economical year for us :T.....
Anyway -enough waffle from me, keep safe n warm everyone and hope we are all set for a nice restfull christmas :snow_grin

pepsi-kins

Hi All, I have had a really lovely day, we have a little snow, but can still get around easily. I went to see the folks, and helped put up the Christmas tree, then back home, and made a tub of extra rich vanilla ice-cream, a tub of lemon and lime sorbet, meringues, quiche lorraine and white chocolate and cranberry fudge, oh and a chilli in the slow cooker (I cooled it down and then put in a bowl, and left on the window sil, as I ran out of room... when i picked the bowl up, it took the varnish off the window sil, had to do some grovelling to DH, but he was surprising OK about it)

I haven't spent much this week in cash, but my very nice boss gave us all a £50 sainsbugs voucher, so I have spent most of that, on the ingredients for all my baking. I still have Mr M and Mr. T vouchers to use, so I am going to se them up, still got to pay for the turkey in hte week, but I don't think I will be that much over, not a complete disaster anyway.

Keep safe and warm everyone xx

Hippeechiq

Am noticing that £idls are not having their offers on Chicken & Chicken Thighs anywhere near as often as they used to - which means for the first time in about 4 months, I'm going to have to pay full price for them next week .......actually, I've worked it out, and it will be cheaper to get the chicken breast from Ice£and, than buy it full price from £idls. I'm not sure what the price comparison for thighs is though, I'll have to check next week.

Also, they currently have an offer on of a block of 500g Pilgr!ms Choice Extra Mature Cheddar for £2.99.....they had the same cheese, same size on offer at £1.99 on the 25th October. Making the offer £5.98kg now as opposed to £3.98kg then!

I know £2.99 for 500g is still cheap as far as the cost of cheese goes (compared to other SMs) but it's also a one pound increase on ½ a kilo of cheese in less than 8 weeks - not good. I normally buy 2 blocks of cheese when it's on offer, and if I bought that (which I wont) I'd be paying £2 more for the same amount of cheese I was buying a few weeks ago!

They do have blocks of 600g Wyke F@rms Rich & Creamy Mature Cheddar on offer at £2.89 instead of £3.99 making it £4.82kg, which is a good offer - but even that is still a pound per kilo more than I've been paying for my cheese from there.

Anyone else noticed any massive price hikes of the last few weeks?