December 2011 - Grocery Challenge

PaddyPaws

oooo! December GC! Please put me down for my usual £250

Just need to finish off Nov, will be over here from 1st Dec

And, as always, thank you to all who make this thread possible, it's made a real difference in our house

PP
xxx

Spiggle

PennyGrabber wrote: »

... I will also be spending the month putting some serious thought into next year. ...

Hi PennyGrabber and all,

I too have to spend some time this month on next year's budget overall. At the end of 2010 I used the budget planner on here to estimate all my spends (not just GC) and then transferred them into my spreadsheet. Headings like petrol, mobiles, car, insurance, etc and now a few of the allocated totals are turning red so will need to be reassessed for next year. Surprisingly, I hugely over estimated how much petrol spend would be so have a large positive balance in there with maybe two or three tank fills still to go. The car budget has been blown completely out of the water by £500+ over but I have had four new premium tyres, the rear brake discs changed and my wing mirror just dropped off one day whilst driving which cost £81 to get replaced! :eek:

I allowed for a Miscellaneous column and allocated £500 to it but we're over by about £245 on that so I'll need to unpack that a bit and give certain spends their own budget. There are things like bicycle repairs in there and dry cleaning which I didn't consider when setting up the budget. Having had some very large (108"x90") curtains cleaned which were very expensive, (and I still have two pairs to be done arrrgh!) I need to give this an allocation for 2012.

Pleased with all the piggy banking columns though we have gone over a little bit on one or two so I'll increase the monthly direct debits on those for next year.

You people on here have taught me so much I have to once again say thank you, you're all fantastic! :j

Anyway, should sign off now and say sorry if that was off topic.

See you later,
Spigs

westlothianlass

Hi all, I can't believe its nearly December. Could I please be put down for £450 this month. Think we may have a few extra mouths to feed later on so think its safer to bump up my total from last month.
As ever a big Thankyou to all the lovely peeps that put this thread together as well as all who contribute, I never thought I would benefit as much as I do, so am most grateful.
Off now to finish an essay and stop playing on MSE .
Hugs x

LavenderBees

I'm like the cow's tail...always at the back But can I join in please? I was going to wait until January but why put it off?

December is going to be a funny month for me as I'm currently running down my freezer (it's nearly killed me not being able to get whoopsied stuff for freezing for weeks now!) and either next weekend or the one after will be filling it back up again, so very difficult to decide what I might have to spend.

But I think if I go for £300 that should be more than enough I hope, and then a drastic reduction in January while I eat out of my store cupboard and freezer again

many thanks

Lavvy x

ETA - my month will run from 01/12 to 31/12

Nimeth

Can I please be put down for £220 again this month. Hopefully in the new year I can reduce it further, but not gonna try it yet with Christmas and two birthdays coming up in December. Would you believe both birthdays are on Christmas Day?:rotfl:

I should be starting the month on the 1st of Dec.

tracey12_2

Thanks to everyone who runs this thread :T

Can you put me down for £350 for this month. This will include all food and drink, cleaning, toiletries, school, nursery funds and magazines. I am a sucker for those expensive christmas magazines with the lovely recipes that I never get around to doing. So maybe I will let myself have one this year as I am normally under my grocery budget.

I can't believe how my spending habits have changed over the year, it wasn't so long ago that I would have spent £450+ per month just on food and drink and I am ashamed to say that a lot of food was wasted but no more.

I bought some food and drink for christmas this morning such as pickled beetroot, schloer (BOGOF), peanuts, small christmas cake so have already spent £18.50 of December budget.

Have a good month everyone :beer:

Tracey

[Deleted User]

Hi All
Please can you put me down for £150 again this month. I am hoping to reduce this so I only spend around £120 but want to set aside the whole amount just in case.
Thanks
Allie x

Gracie_1827

Can you please put me down for £150 for Dec. I've come well under this month, but only because son has been spending a lot of time at girlfriends :T:T

[Deleted User]

Hi, all,
my new month started Wednesday and i have spent 28.65 on a tesco shop i also spent 80p in marks and spence yesterday on

4 x brie cheese
1 x large milk
3 of their lovely moose type things

all reduced to 10p each, was very pleased with that. Does anyone know if brie freezes successcully, there is different opinions on the internet.

ms_night_ryder

Hey guys!

Can you please put me down for £40 for month of december please.

I know it seems like i have reduced it by 20% which seems quite drastic for christmas month, but i have just had a mr t order today £81 worth of stuff for £21.50 which is in dec budget and there is alot of stuff, plu i won't include any vouchers i may use, as i am expecting maybe £5 or 10's worth to drop through my door soon.

So already i am £21.50 in and i havent even been paid lol, but its all good, done most of my shopping for this single person house.

Received a huge pork joint by mistake from t's which i will cut into 2 or 3 and freeze a side of salmon 6-7 fillets, chicken breast chunks and a gammon, most going in my freezer, so that will be nice and full, i still have in the freezer, salmon trmmings, kippers, rack of new zealand lamb, 8 rashers of bacon and mini chicken fillets, so i am stocked up, will only be buying the odd whoopsie and a few bottles of shloer and some veg.

Hopefully lol.