December 2020 Grocery Challenge

MazzieD

welshspendthrift said:

had a discussion about our Christmas meats, small Turkey and a gammon for roasting. I would like to support but for a small Turkey about 4.5 kg we are looking at over £70 as £11.25 a kg Gammon is £9 a kilo so about £15! We may well go to Lidl but conscience pricking at not buying local.looked at local Turkey farm too and as expensive, has to be free range and whole Turkey as we like brown meat as well.  Any tips or advice? 

I don't know if this is any help but Asd* are currently doing a 'when they're gone, they're gone' offer on frozen own brand extra special free range British bronze medium Turkeys 4.3kg @ £10 (reduced from £18). I have no links to Asd* but a leaflet came this morning.  It might be worth having a look online if you are not near one as other supermarkets are probably doing offers and i appreciate not everyone wants to buy frozen but they are cheaper!  HTH you or others.

MazzieD

Did an audit and re-arranged the contents of my freezer yesterday to try and clear a bit of room.  I've only got 2 and a half drawers so it's always a challenge to try and cram as much as possible in  particularly around Christmas!.  Got paid today but not shopping until tomorrow. 

Wish I had room for another freezer or a bigger one but it will have to wait until my current fridge/freezer needs replacing as I use the freezer far more than my fridge now which is really too large. 

Quite optimistic this month and really hoping to come in under Budget as I think I mentioned previously I've already bought everything for Christmas apart from fresh veg from previous two month's budget.  It's been interesting reading your comments about how you pay for Christmas, I'm going to have a think about how to spread the cost for next year.

quintwins

morning all. I have spent £59 of my December budget already! mostly on the usually lunch items and milk/bread I have a really large click and collect coming tomorrow so I will update then.

Smoosh

Bought some pancakes.
£68.79/300

goldfinches

Hi all, nipping over here to ask for December budget to be set to £152 for me please @elsiepac, thanks.
That's £4 per day plus an additional £4 per day for the 7 days from Christmas and the month runs from tomorrow until the end of the calendar month.
Am planning to eat up three of my four full freezer drawers over the next fortnight and make fridge clearout soups in order to make space for leftovers and advance prepared items to be stashed. Last Christmas I ended up throwing things out because I just couldn't get through them on my own and didn't have any space to freeze them but this year my new fridge freezer gives me more space so I hope to do better.

greent

I'm going to set my budget at £750 for the month for 6 of us (most of the time) -to include any takeaways we have (none planned at present but 1 on NYE is likely) We shall see how that goes....

Tahlullah.H

I am setting my December budget at £300, the same as last month.  This is to accommodate Christmas, but plan to reduce in January.

MazzieD

Monthly shop done at T*sco, stocked up with more toiletries, cat food and cleaning supplies than usual along with the usual meat. tins, fruit and veg.

This seems to be working quite well as I now know roughly how much food I need tor the month.  Might try changing this in January to a weekly shop or delay the monthly one until later as I don't always do batch cooking straight away and seem to have an overlap of meals each month, Might help with freezer space but will have to wait and see.

Rest of month will be the usual top ups of veg, salad, a bit of fruit  and eggs.  So glad I've already got all the Christmas food, unlike me to be that organised, it's normally a mid December job!.  Think lockdown has really concentrated my mind on planning ahead.

Total spent £66.00 so £24 left until month end.

Suffolk_lass

welshspendthrift you could get your turkey frozen from the SM and buy the trimmings from your local butcher so you do a some and some - we did that last year when money was a bit tighter and I was catering for more

welshspendthrift

Suffolk_lass said:

welshspendthrift you could get your turkey frozen from the SM and buy the trimmings from your local butcher so you do a some and some - we did that last year when money was a bit tighter and I was catering for more

Thank you Suffolk lass , will get a fresh Turkey from Lidl and ham joint but get other bits from butchers , thank you for that suggestion ,great compromise 😀
( preference for fresh rather than frozen)