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

Tiglath

Declaring my total for the December Grocery Challenge - £149.67/£180 so under budget by £30.33. Looking forward to the January one as my January will start on Wednesday 19th December.

Bluegreen143

Well Oh has finally confirmed his spends from the other day, £1.50 on milk and cream. he also bought two free range pork loin steaks for £3.54 from Mr W yesterday. Not planned but so lovely as it's the first time I've been able to eat pork since I started eating meat again (Mr T, A and M don't seem to do free range or organic pork for some reason).

Made a lovely pork, apple and onion thing with mustard mash and cider gravy was absolutely delicious!



Going to get the shopping today from Mr M, trying to keep it minimal!!

pinkypig

Managed to get by with just a few bits this week. Had to get some bread, juice, milk, squash and fruit plus a few other baking ingredients that I needed to get some Christmas stuff ready and in the freezer.
Total spend £13.22.
So, unless I go bonkers next weekend with the Christmas food shop I should be under budget . I have written a list and I'm determined to stick. I hope my self discipline doesn't desert me!

Have a good week everyone

PPXX

fedupandskint

Up to £94/120 now and I've done most of the Christmas shop leaving only a little bit for next weekend so should be able to come in on budget I hope with £27 left until Friday 21 when this month ends and the marathon Jan month begins and boy will that be tight. I will be determined to eat up most of whats in the freezer and try and stretch the budget across 5.5 weeks

pinchingpenny

Hello everyone, hope you're all well!
I am so tired this evening but I must stay awake a little longer as I have promised my sister I will fix her dress which has a wonky hem- very old style!
I used my Waitrose voucher-feeling smug because of course they sent it to get me through the doors and do my weekly shop in there, but I spent £6.18 and got it for £1.18, teehee. I feel a little guilty as I do like waitrose, but needs must. I bought tissues (2 for £2.50) plus peppermint tea which I know costs the same in all the big supermarkets so a very fruitful saving.
My December is almost over (off to see the rents for the rest of it) and I am well under budget so I can't wait to see how I do in January when it will actually be a full month
Now my mission is to use up my perishables before I go. It will be eggs for breakfast for the next couple of days and I have cooked some mince up cottage-pie style to have with mashed potatoes tomorrow.
Best of luck to you all for the rest of the month!

meg72

pinchingpenny wrote: »

I used my Waitrose voucher-feeling smug because of course they sent it to get me through the doors and do my weekly shop in there, but I spent £6.18 and got it for £1.18, teehee. I feel a little guilty as I do like waitrose, but needs must. /QUOTE]

Well done and please dont feel even a little bitty bit guilty. Supermarkets pull every trick in the book to make us part with hard earned cash. I just love it when I walk out with a bag of reduced and thinking well theyve not made any profit out of me.

After years of having very litle money and struggling I am now fortunate in having more than enough for my needs but I just love
being frugal, Its a great game to me and a lot of fun to see just how little I can give the Supermarkets :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Bluegreen143

Well I've had a busy OS afternoon! Went to Mr M to get the shopping, spent £42.45 as follows:

Pepsi £1
Milk £1.49
Carrots £1
S frozen peas £1
S salsa 69p
Sugar 88p
Brown bread flour £1.27
Extra virgin olive oil £2.09
Black olives 99p
Maple syrup £2.50
S pasta 30p
S butter £1
S food bags 42p
Table salt 29p
Shower gel 94p
Antibacterial spray £1.40
S mozzarella 44p
Greek yoghurt £1
Gillette disposable razors x2 £4
S mushrooms 80p
Passata 29p
Blueberries £1
YS Raspberries x2 £3
Cat food £1.05
Red onion 10p
Lemons £1
Cheddar £1.80
Ginger 13p
Bananas 72p
Green beans 50p
Prosciutto £1
Toothpaste 50p
Round lettuce 57p
Smoked sausage £1
Courgettes £1
Romaine lettuce £1
Walkers crisps £1.58
Free range eggs £1.48
S cocoa pops 83p
YS rolls 40p

The raspberries and half the sugar were used to make 3 jars of jam for Christmas hampers, so only £39.05 went towards GC budget.

Made calzones for dinner, wraps for tomorrow's fajitas, and mince pinwheels using my first-ever attempt at puff pastry. As you can imagine, my kitchen was SO floury afterwards :rotfl: the mince pinwheels turned out pretty well though (used mincemeat I made and jarred a few weeks ago).

XSpender

2 small bottles of Luckozaade in B00ts for a hungover DH today and that was it:D

I am officially, for the first time ever under budget as my January starts tomorrow:j:j:j

I will need to visit Mr S on the way home from work for bits to last us until the 23rd. DH will be in very late Mon and Tue as working about 2 hours away and I am away Wed and back late Thurs before we travel down to stay with DM Fri and Sat and we are out for a pre booked meal Christmas Eve lunch and then it is the big day. I am doing my Christmas shop on the early morning of Christmas Eve and what they aint got left we wont be having;)

Tomorrow's list is dog food, a couple of bits as a contribution towards a buffet on Tuesday at work, a couple of bits for lunches and that's about it.

Made a big coffee cake today so that will feed us all week and finally made my last Christmas cake.:T

I'm off for a quick snoop around the threads then bed.

njk2125

Added another £47.75 to my total which was spent in Mr A on milk and J F on yet more christmas frozen stuff. So were over budget so far but it was expected and hopefully will be recouped in January. There now is not one useable inch left in the freezer and tonights tea was omlettes as I couldn't face taking out all the party food to find real food for tea, I'll have to brave that tomorrow I just hope it all fits back in!

Shortie

evening everyone! So, I get paid early this month, I'm getting paid tomorrow instead of Thursday which is great as we have run out of some bits, but but makes next month a longer one. Plus the budget has gone down as the children now want school dinners, so I've decided to add their school lunch money to the grocery budget and increase the overall budget. That leaves us with about £200 pm for the griceries now instead of £250, but I'd like to really see if we can manage it as I'm trying to shave as much off our debts this year and hadn't budgetted an extra £80/100 for school lunches !