December 2012 Grocery Challenge!!!!! REALLLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

lottie3000

Another spend today from Al$i, I think that should keep us going now until a shop i've ordered to be delivered on the Friday before Christmas and then all of that should keep us going through the festive times So i'm thinking another £40 then i'm into January's budget, which as i'm being paid early will run 21/12 - 31/01 I'm going to go for another £400 then though and then try to get this down by 100 - 150 throughout the year, everyone on here makes there money go further than I seem to, but i've got the bug now and feel quite determined.

keepcalmanddrinktea

Good (late) morning!
My December chanllenge will start from Saturday, I have updated my siggy for November as I don't need to buy anything more out of that budget - I came in just a little under, quite please for my first attempt, but I know I can do better!

Really thought I would loose track and give up before the month was out but by reading all your posts has given me the motivation, sometimes I'm more of a lurker than a poster but i will get better

I've downloaded the EEBA app that someone on here mentioned, hopefully it will help me keep track of things as soon as i spend them instead of waiting until i get home to write spends down. It will also help in separating things like cat food and cleaning products so i see how much i'm spending on individual items, an awful lot of my budget seems to go on cleaning products.

Extras for Christmas won't be included in my December budget, i want to calculate that seperatly and i've been saving my Tesco vouchers for those

Phew, for someone who is generally a lurker i think i've said enough

liz-paul

I've spent bloomin ages looking online for an instruction manual for an old breadmaker that I've got. I want to buy an electric slicer & start doing my own sandwich meats in the New Year & just thought I might give breadmaking a go too. I refuse to buy one new though as I'm not convinced I'll make it that much.... Am even thinking of persauding OH to build a home made smoker so I can make things like pastrami - might be a step too far though

I really want to bring our budget down while still eating well so am doing lots of planning over Christmas about what to buy, what to make & bake etc....

Spent approx half of my £550 budget so far this month.

she_who_can_not_cook

sorting_myself_out wrote: »

Welcome Mamjak!!

thanks for all the comments on meal planning & buying a slow cooker..thats my next two goals, living by myself and having 3 jobs think they will make my life alot easier!! xx

i love my slow cooker it a great piece of equipment i just do not like cleaning it so do one thing after another like soak the pulses over night then cook they leave to cool then rinse out and start all over again with a different pulse

she_who_can_not_cook

XSpender wrote: »

NSD today though seriously tempted to get fish and chips on the way home but DH had the jackets in and I had no cash in my purse.

Only 4 days left of my GC....I can't quite believe I will achieve my GC for the first time ever this month....I feel so chuffed:D. I am sure no one in RL would understand but I am sure you guys do:)

I am working on my Jan budget figure. I think I will try and maintain £100 week for Jan with a view to cutting it by £20 in Feb. I will have a ponder over the weekend.

well done you 2013 will be under budget gc every month

Make-it-3

My last weekly grocery shop of the year today - yeh! The assistant asked if I wanted to use my nectar points which they never do, so I said ok and it halved my grocery bill :j. So I'm counting that as free shopping.

My new total stands at £79.29/£120 and I will only have a few top up spends over the coming days - so surely I'm going to be a good bit under for December.

Just realising what a battle GC is tho - like swimming against the tide - a lot of stuff I buy seems to have had huge price hikes lately (ie breadsticks I get for my LO were 65p in summer and now 90p!).

pamsdish

Originally Posted by sorting myself out
Welcome Mamjak!!

thanks for all the comments on meal planning & buying a slow cooker..thats my next two goals, living by myself and having 3 jobs think they will make my life alot easier!! xx

I like to make meals for myself and freeze some, late afternoon I am going out, so have put a portion of de-frosted frozen lasagne I made in slow cooker, turn it on low as I go out, when I get back lovely hot meal waiting.

Mamjak

Never thought of using it for heating things up, what good idea, will have to try that!

Solstice_3

Afternoon everyone Feeling quite chuffed about the plums I bought last week bought 3 punnets for £1 (YS) and cooked them up with 2 dessertspoons of demerara sugar. Have made stir fry sauce, breakfast and pudding out of the compote so far and still have some in my freezer. Feels like it was a good buy and I shall do it again if I see any YS plums

Spend for today £14 on dairy and meat from vegbox company and £3.36 yesterday on bread, milk (forgot it was coming today ), and baking margerine.

Off to update signature

Shortie

Afternoon all

Here to update my final spends last night of £7 odd - £2-3 over budget now whoops. Not toooo bas though as I suspect in the months before this I've been was over budget, but it's been buried under misc payments coming out of my account that I've not paid any attention to..

This total budget amount did include a £13 FR chook for Christmas dinner (the MIL will bring a piece of ham) and all the chocolate, biccies and extra-nice crisps for over the festive holidays so I'm not beating myself up over that too much as it's something we won't normally spend on. We haven't had tonnes in the freezer to get us through the month either as we recently moved so the freezers were run down in approach to the big day, and we only plugged the chest freezer back in last week to take more stocks of food


Oh, and this month also included the ingredients to cook up some foodie hamper bits for Christmas. Well, that was the plan, but we were due to have Cal0r over tomorrow to run LPG and piping etc to the property (we have no gas supply where we are) and after Mr Shortie ripped the kitchen out (breaking parts of on walll of work surfaces in the process as they wouldn't come out otherwise) to make space to put our old range cooker in, they called today to say they were cancelling tomorrow and could next fit us in at the end of January :eek::mad::eek::mad::eek::mad: Needless to say Mr Shortie has told them that's not acceptable and they are due to call back - hopefully they will still be coming out asap! We will at the bare minimum have no hob at this rate as it's one of the ones that sits supported in the work surface.... That'd be the work surface that's now in bits... It wouldn't be so bad if they'd called yesterday before Mr Shortie ripped the kitchen out in prep for them coming tomorrow, but to cancel the afternoon before they're due, and then tell me I have to wait another 6 weeks? I don't think so..!