December 2017 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Katieowl wrote: »

There! And I was going to suggest disposable coasters or spraying them silver and hanging them on your Christmas tree!!! :rotfl:

They probably would make great long lasting ornaments, probably! :rotfl:

@Mrs_Chesire, glad you found it useful. Some jam, peanut butter with honey or other things will perk them right up for him.

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I've had a funky couple of days, btw. I was hit by food poisoning yesterday around 3:00am and was ill all day. I somehow survived off three oatcakes, a bit of cheese and a couple cups of vegetable bouillon the whole day until OH returned home from work and made me some cheese on toast around 8pm. I had him pick up some bread, a few bottles of a Lucozade-type drink and some other bits on the way home. He got some beer for himself. Supposedly it came to €15 but he still hasn't given me the receipt. I'll take the number as is.

And can you believe, after all that horrible intestinal distress, I didn't lose any weight?!? My scale hates me. :rotfl:

Today we spent €9.80 at the organic market refilling our olive oil bottle and getting some bananas and clementines. I'll refill another couple bottles before the market closes for the holidays.

TOTALS SO FAR:

€74.60 / €350.00 for groceries
2 NSD
£179.86 / £200 London stocking up fund

I still don't know what to buy myself for Christmas dinner yet. I'm waffling between a big prime rib (rib of beef) or a turkey leg and thigh to roast. What are y'all having?

short_bird

Evening, all, what with the inclement weather and the excitement of the new Central Heating boiler, I forgot to check in. Spent £36.10 so far as I've been eating down the contents of the freezer and there's an online delivery from Mr A on Friday for £44.58. That contains veg, Xmas goodies, top ups for the store cupboard. No idea what I'm doing for Xmas Day itself (apart from watching Doctor Who)

I am in need of a stock of Mince Pies from Gregg$ :rotfl:

JingsMyBucket

Actually, is there a Christmas meal planning thread somewhere on MSE I can join? I'd like to bounce a few ideas off people but don't want to clog up this thread.

Please and thanks.

Mrs_Cheshire

JingsMyBucket wrote: »

Actually, is there a Christmas meal planning thread somewhere on MSE I can join? I'd like to bounce a few ideas off people but don't want to clog up this thread.

Please and thanks.

I had a read through this thread the other day
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5755731
There are a couple of others on the old style thread

Highland_Fling

Good morning everyone.
Starting to feel a bit better. Ventured out to local town last night for the first time in weeks. Spent £10 bringing total up to £115.
Friends have helped me with my tree and decorations so my little house is now all Chrismasfied.
Now I feel a bit more human I will begin to organise gifts. I try to buy clutter free gifts or gifts that can be used up. People have so many "things" now. How many umbrellas, scarfs or handbags can one person use?

YorksLass

End of Week 2, another small spend of £2.19 today at the C!op for milk, x2 bananas (I only ever buy 2 at a time as I'm the only one who eats them; I'm not keen once they've gone too soft and I've already got some banana loaf in the freezer), a packet of crumpets (on promotion) and x8 mini tortilla wraps (ys at 25p and now in the freezer). Total spend for the week: £19.84 and x5 NSDs.

That leaves the balance of the December budget at £93.97 with two weeks to go. A fair amount of this will cover next week's online delivery that will include some Christmassy bits as well as stocking up on stores. The remainder will buy a joint of pork for The Day (we don't do turkey) and a small gammon for NY. Not planning on going overboard with food this year and I'm hoping there might even be some cash left over.

Thanks to using stuff from the freezer for meals I have quite a bit of space in there now, so must get a wriggle on at prepping what we need for the festive season. I have some mince (both beef and lamb) for batch cooking but I don't particularly want to do anything with it until real life returns to normal as the resultant hm meals will take up more room than the mince itself.

PipneyJane

DH went to the farm shop yesterday and spent £5.40, bringing our total so far to £83.16/£162.70 leaving a balance remaining of £79.54.

He phoned me at work to ask me what I wanted (carrots, potatoes, spinach and half a dozen eggs), then promptly challenged me when I got home, saying “we don’t need this many eggs! Why did you ask for more?”. :mad: I calmly picked up the bananas he keeps forgetting to take to work with him and said I’d use them to make banana bread.

Is there a “Life hacks for Living Old Style when you work really hard! Thread? If not, I may start one. Looking back at yesterday evening, it feels like all I did was cook. I got home at 6.45pm and sat down with dinner at 8.30pm. DH was grey with exhaustion, so I let him veg on the couch while I pottered around the kitchen (his temporary job at the postal depot is very physical - he clocked up nearly 25,000 steps). There was food that needed to be used up and, despite the fact that DH cooks quite often, I’m the “organiser of meals”, planning meals and allocating ingredients to them.

A lot of what I did last night can be classified as “Old Style Prep for busier days”. As part of cooking dinner - and to use up a YS windfall of mushrooms - I fried up a triple quantity of “base” (chopped onions, crushed garlic and sliced mushrooms), freezing two portions for nights when I get home even later and need to cook. Dinner was a chickpea and paneer curry cooked from (nearly) scratch*, into which I threw half the spinach, while steaming the other half and eventually freezing that. I cooked extra rice to go into the banana bread (my recipe uses 1 cup cooked rice), ate dinner while that was cooling and, at 9.30pm, made a double batch of the banana bread. (One loaf is now in the freezer and the other is in the cake tin.)

To whomever was asking about Christmas meals, we do “Polish Christmas” on Christmas Eve, having our big Christmas Dinner then. When DH’s dad was alive, I’d do a veggie soup starter in order to get some extra nutrition into him (he’d live on jam sandwiches), followed by roast turkey or goose and all the trimmings. On Christmas Day, I’d do a nut roast, accompanied by more roasted veggies (potatoes, onions, garlic, parsnips, pumpkin) and people could help themselves to meat from the bird. On Boxing Day evening, whatever remained of said bird would be bagged, tagged and frozen, with the carcass going straight into the stock pot. There’s a post or two on my blog, giving my recipes, etc.

HTH

- Pip
* The chickpeas were cooked weeks ago and frozen.

JingsMyBucket

Mrs_Cheshire wrote: »

I had a read through this thread the other day
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5755731
There are a couple of others on the old style thread

Thank you. I looked at that thread maybe on Monday or Tuesday and it didn't seem to be moving but the responses have picked up now. I'll probably add to it later tomorrow.

Today was a NSD for me. I made myself just skip going to the grocery store to have a break mentally from keeping track of stuff. That said, there's a good sale on mega packs of toilet paper and paper towels at one of my local grocery stores. I can't carry both huge things back at the same time so I'll space it out over Friday and Saturday.

TOTALS SO FAR:
3 NSD
€74.60 / €350.00 for groceries
£179.86 / £200 London stocking up fund

Need2bthrifty

Did an early trip to the supermarkets today and they were surprisingly quiet thank goodness. I managed to pick up a lot of the bits and pieces I need to keep me going for the next couple of weeks. Total Spend of £14.76
L!dl = £0.58p
@$da = £6.69
$ainsbugs = £7.49

My running total now is now £47.15, I still have meat, bread, dairy and softer veg to get next week; I'm also getting low on washing powder, fabric softener, bleach and toilet roll but for these I will avoid the SM and go to B&M/Home Bargains.

RedFraggle

Did a big Mr T shop yesterday £156.04 (eek!) but got most of the Xmas stuff (meat is on butchers order and should only need veg/fruit next week.
Had to buy the cats extortionate food £31.99 (he has bad skin issues) and the hamster needed foragey stuff £3.99.
Total so far £376.88

That leaves me £23.12 so I have zero chance of coming in at sub £400 but should hit £450.

Have spent getting on for £100 of pet food this month which is disproportionate as it's months of food for the ratties (and hamster) and about 8 weeks worth for the cat. I was tempted to buy the smaller bag of catfood to come in nearer budget but it is half the price per kg to get the big one.