December 2021 Grocery Challenge

joedenise

@carolinerunner - do you have a Lidl nearby?  If so their maple syrup is very good and a great price too, much cheaper than the main SMs.

thriftwizard

£83.65 added this morning after a run down to L!dls, as my van needed a quick pit-stop at the garage next door. It would have been daft not to do the monthly non-perishables shop at the same time; there was also some festive spending, as they still had plenty of Liebküchen, unlike this time last year, and they're DS2's Favourite Thing, but that comes out of the Festive savings account.

Feeling a little more in control so far this month & am managing to stick to meal-plans. I've hauled the breadmaker back into service to make "overnight" loaves, which is cutting the bakery bill back a little & might prevent a few supermarket dashes to pick up a sliced loaf for OH, whose teeth object to "real" bread with lovely crispy crusts. A compromise...

QueenJess

Somehow DH still managed to spend too much money on the shop. Another £41.64 spent mainly on milk, meat and some other junk.

Spending total: £155.29 / £600

Its_time

Lidl shop of £43.85, all necessities except 2 bars of chocolate £1.38 ...naughty, fruit and nut as well 😋

Finstickle

So I've mucked up already 

I placed a discounted order with Allplants for £45 last week, moving the delivery date from 7 to 14 and presumed this overwrote the previous date of 7th for them to deliver on.  No, instead of replacing that order they're trying to send me a £60 order tomorrow (which includes things we didn't like, hence part of the update) and the updated order next week 
I've WhatsApp'd and submitted a form, hopefully at worst case scenario I can cancel next week's order.  If I can't we're eating vegan food for the next month (bar Christmas) and possibly having to speed up the buying of the spare freezer to store it in 
Not a good start to my week.

I also did a Lidl shop, mostly on list which gives me a 

total of £201/£515 to date

Blackcats

A shop at As*a - spent £77.14 but this includes posh cat food for the fussy boys.
I've started building a meal plan for the month of December which uses up freezer, cupboard and fridge supplies.  I can swop meals around if necessary but I already feel more organised.

£77.14 spent BALANCE £372.86

Smoosh

Finally did a big shop today. We spent £39.45 on 6 ready meals, strudel, Quorn chicken, 2 flatbread pizzas, mayonnaise, 1l of juice, 6 pints of milk, honey, ketchup, bubble bath, razor blades, 4 tins of sweetcorn, 2 kitchen rolls, 4 tins of beans, goats cheese, camembert, ready roll pastry, yoghurt, 8 croissants, sushi, 3 dairylea stye dunkers, 14 bags of crisps, 2 baking potatoes and a basil plant.

Definitely some things we didn't need, and the ready meals are a bit naughty, but they make last minute lunches so easy.

Meal plan:

1. Flatbread pizzas
2. Vegetarian chicken noodle soup
3. OH is out. I'll have vegan katsu curry 
4. Camembert tagliatelle 
5. Dinner at my parents
6. Dinner out with OH's parents
7. Jacket potatoes, beans and cheese

Only £66.27 left but should only be 2 shops left and we will be spending some time with family over Christmas. 

Suffolk_lass

QueenJess said:

Somehow DH still managed to spend too much money on the shop. Another £41.64 spent mainly on milk, meat and some other junk.

Spending total: £155.29 / £600

It's a struggle when they go off-spec, isn't it!? We had "that" conversation and now I get calls if there is temptation and he rarely takes a "that will be nice" view without first speaking

MissRikkiC

All up to date and accurate and now at £128.77 spent to date. This is almost 2 weeks into the budget and just over half way, having taken spends from bulk for those type of items as well as funding 2 huge roast dinners (with good birds too!) made for 4/5 people. There was indeed leftovers which I’ve either portioned for another dinner (and subsequently ate!) or made into something else. This Sunday’s left over meat became chicken pie for 2 and a little one last night with a nice portion left over today (OH scored that for work!). 

Meals are planned for the week with using up fridge leftovers - mostly from the veg box we had almost a fortnight ago and actually could easily get into next week too with only having to buy staple items (fruit, milk etc). 

Meals are 
T- Squash laksa (JO recipe)
W- sweet potato falafel and pittas 
T- bolognese and garlic bread 
F- quote chicken fajitas
S- Thai fish cakes lunch - Quorn chicken curry for dinner 
S- breakfast sandwiches (at brunch) with Stuffed quorn mince and rice peppers for dinner 

A question for those in the know - I purchased from quite a reputable ‘green - less waste’ shop a whole load of dried beans and pulses. And have now attempted to use both the butter beans and kidney beans having soaked them over night but they’re still so hard even after cooking and the butter beans had an almost a detergent taste to them! Are they just not good quality or did I do something wrong?! 

Finstickle

I spoke to AllPlants today and as they didn't respond to my messages yesterday they not only refunded the additional order value of £60 I also got the box as it would have gone to food wastage   As I really don't have space, sharing with a friend, but should cover dinner tonight for me and DH and dinner tomorrow for DH & DSS as I'm away with work and he will also have the toddler so not having to actively cook will be a bonus

Total updated: £141/£515