December 2019 Grocery Challenge

CFAF

Thank you for starting a new thread elsiepac

I’ve just posted my final budget on the November thread and we’ve come under by £39.25. I must say that meal planning has really helped with keeping inside the budget. It takes the stress out of trying to decide what to have for tea when you’ve had a long day, you’re tired and hungry.

I’m going to keep the budget at £150 as we may have a few treats for Christmas. This is for two adults and a pooch (the dogs food isn’t included).

Optimistic_Saver

I’d love to join the GC please, Elsiepac. Could you put me down for £100 for December. That’s for all supermarket shopping for two adults and a very hungry cat. 😃 Lots in the freezer and cupboards, so hoping that helps keep the spend down.

zafiro1984

Can you put me down for £300 for this month please. I've increased it just for this month because it's Christmas so there should be enough wriggle room for a few luxuries at Christmas.

Already spent 41.80/300 - order arrives Monday cost £1 to deliver so I reckon the saving on petrol can justify a delivery and it's also saved time. - win win situation.

franby64

Thank you Elsiepac!

We are going to stay with family over Christmas and New Year so my only Xmas food spends are a couple of things I'll make and take. I'm going to put those in the Xmas budget.
So please could you put me down for £200 this month, this will be just for December basics.
I've run the freezer down quite a bit so I'm going to just buy what I need this month day to day (apart from a Tesco stock up tomorrow) and concentrate on using up some jars of dried peas, beans and lentils I have. I think I know what most of them are!

boultdj

I've got my first shop of the month coming today and I've even done a rough meal plan, which is something I'm not good at, so £41.76 spent so far.
Good luck every one with the December challenge.

Bake-a-Cake

Not a good start to the month £36.91 spent. I`m aiming to do a meal plan for the week to curb the spending.

pamsdish

£21.53 in Aldi, needed eggs and a cauli, got some chicken to boost the dogs supply, 4 bars of 85% Moser Roth, 2 packs cream cheese for sauces, 2 packs of nan breads, some sweetener.

jam2019

Starting the month with a £6.14 spend in asda, including (gasp) some chocolate! Somehow ended up with loads of quorn leftover from last month, so still living mostly out of the freezer.

[Deleted User]

Hi folks declaring £59 spent so far this month which leaves me £91. Should be doable. I have most things in that I need for meals in the first half of this week and I only need a few bits towards the end of the week. It might seem that we've sent a lot at the start of the month but we stocked the freezer with mince, diced beef and chicken to use in various recipes during the month

OH has made my lunches for Mon - Wed which will be filled baked potatoes and dinners are all planned in advance for the week. Finally feeling like I am getting back on track.

thriftwizard

Well, I've spent another £6 on fresh food at the market today, having popped down there to buy an aerial-cable connector! That bought me 2 pineapples, 10 bananas, 3 huge pomegranates, a big bag of lovely fresh Cox's Pippins, and 10 large punnets of raspberries, which showed early signs of going over.

I tackled the raspberries as soon as I got home & ended up with 1 punnet of rejects & 9 of usable ones. So I made a batch of raspberry ice-cream, and 6 jars of raspberry & lime jam, using 1:¾ sugar instead of 1:1. Zingy, but it set well. I also made 9 jars of medlar jam, which hasn't set quite so well - I may re-boil it tomorrow - but is unexpectedly delicious. The pineapples will be chopped up & popped into the dehydrator tomorrow evening.

So - I'll have to try for 5 NSDs this week! But will need to restock with sugar shortly... I didn't really expect to be making jam in December!