December 2018 Grocery Challenge

Graciefields

Did a shop at Aldi yesterday to buy, milk bread, oranges, eggs, bacon and some more veg as it was dirt cheap. Spent £14.30 which takes me to £87.84/125. I have £37.16 left to spend. I have loads of stuff in but may need to buy a few basics before next month. I'm very pleased so far and if all goes well, this will be my second successful month with the Grocery Challenge. Merry Christmas all.

Rachiedabbler70

Hope everyone had a good day yesterday
I've done an online shop for Saturday which will take me over budget by £12 but will last into January so I'm happy declaring £262 for the month. Don't need any further food before Saturday.

thriftwizard

I'm a bit late to mention £47.12 spent on Christmas Eve on last-minute cream, salad and assorted treats! So now I have just over £20 left for December, but as things stand at the moment we don't really need anything much at all, except the usual bananas, bread and a little fresh veg. So I should make it through under budget, though feeding 8 is always on a wing & a prayer; you quite never know what'll still be there when you open the fridge. However January should be a very inexpensive month as we eat our way through the festive leftovers and freezer contents.

After that I will have to review things. The market butcher has now retired and it'll be a struggle to find the high-quality treats that we've been used to at affordable prices, like haunch of venison cheaper than topside of beef; I doubt that any other butcher will want to come into a market that's - not exactly thriving. So I shall probably need to do a monthly stock-up at one of the farm shop butchers. They are more expensive than the supermarkets but I can get "offbeat" cuts like skirt of beef or chicken carcasses (for making stocks & soups) and mostly the meat is locally & responsibly raised, outdoors; in some cases all but organic (necessary medical treatment excepted) and usually very good. We'll just have to eat less of it, those of us who do! The thing about living with two young pescatarians (who refuse mass-produced veggie food) is we're learning all the time just how delicious & satisfying a mostly-vegetarian diet can be.

So - I hope you all had a lovely Christmas/Yule/Hannukah or whatever you celebrate at the turning of the year. And that we will all be successful at sticking to our budgets in a happy & prosperous 2019, come what may!

Mrs_Cheshire

I'm well over budget, need to gather the last few days receipts. I am well stocked with meat for January though. Will update once I've added everything up!
Hope everyone's had a lovely festive time and you're able to stay on track to finish the year on a high.

K9sandFelines

£61.92 to report since last update.

Hope you've all had a nice Christmas

selloptape

Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas

I've spent a few days away, and a few days too ill to leave the house which seems to have cancelled out the spendiness of Christmas groceries... Did pop to the shops for post Christmas food bargains but nothing really caught my eye, just a lot of overpackaged cheese boards that didn't look very exciting. Just need to meal plan for the last couple of days of the year x

Vanlady

Monthly budget will aim for £300 £290.30/£300To include all food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, cat food and cat litter, non alcoholic drinks.
NSD will aim for at least 15 16/15

Hope everyone had a lovely Xmas
Needed milk today and had a £5 morris ons voucher which I like to use asap in case I forget about them. So ended up buying more than I needed just to use the voucher up! Ker-ching morrisons! Spent £5.50 on milk, cat food and yoghurt but I'm only going to add 50p to my total as £5 was free, tho I may add it to my total later.
Will declare my totals on new years eve as I will probably need to top up with milk and potatoes in a few days time.

Matron_Midge

Overall, I'm very pleased with my grocery spends for 2018
December declaration is £338.81/£400.00
AND my annual declaration is, £4,485.33/££5,200

I will keep the same budget for 2019. Thanks for running this thread and all good wishes for the coming year.

pamsdish

I am going to call December a draw, may have a few £s showing, but I want to finish the year off, need some coffee which will use that up. Hopefully can live from freezers and cupboards until spring anyway, my first spend of Jan will be dog food just waiting for a discount code to be offered.

Doom_and_Gloom

We've spent £22.18 since last post.

In that got 3 500g bags of brussel sprouts for 2p each :beer::j, 2 different flavours of houmous (200g pots) for 10p each, mushroom punnet 24p, 2.5kg potatoes 70p, 3 sharon fruits for 39p, cauliflower (large though not one of the ones stated as large) for 50p. OH got fresh custard for 10p, chicken slices 40p. Did get more foods and other bargains but these were the most saving and great ones I think.

OH had a fry up for a late lunch. He won't have a proper dinner later, maybe soup with bread or instant noodles.
I'm still trying to work out what I'll have for dinner. Again with too much choice but it would have been rude to pass up those kind of bargains right?:o

£182.39/£200.
£17.61 left.