December 2022 Grocery Challenge

Gettingmyshiztogether

Ooh yes I popped in here update you all.

L!dl shop today and I was very pleased at how little we spent... £62! I couldnt get everything needed there, so had to pop to Sainos... THREE bags of food..  £73!! 😱😱 left feeling rather sick at the price despite the fact we are still within our budget. I really shouldn't need anything else bar eggs this year so we are still within budget, but still... crazy prices! 

To date £443.74/ £460
= £16.26 left available to spend. 

mumtoomany

Big spends on Tuesday. Aldi, home bargains, and vegetable shop. Total spent was £143.47! I'm going into town tomorrow with DD3 and again on Christmas eve to look for bargains in Aldi. So more will be spent. Total for the year to date is £2783.47/£2640, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

Caroby

Our last shop of the month yesterday, £43.44 in Aldi, £45.72 in Tesco inc food bank stuff and £7.23 in Lidl. We've now got everything for Christmas so no more shopping, thankfully. Declaring at £237.45, just £2.55 under budget.
Wishing you all a lovely Christmas!

weenancyinAmerica

Haven't bought eggs this week - they are $6.49 a dozen (5.40 pounds). The chickens are holding us hostage I guess. No 19p vegetable deals here, even at Aldi's. I am always amazed at the food deals available in England. Everything here has almost doubled or more - especially bread prices and the eggs. 

Soontobeoap

@weenancyinAmerica that is a lot for eggs. I guess we are lucky although we are finding eggs a little harder to get over here. 

otb666

@EssexHebridean with our veg box we can put 3 types of veg   we dont want Also i do fortnighly boxes and can skip weeks Which i do quite alot so then only get monthly box

EssexHebridean

Mr Boss dispatched me away from the office at 3.30pm today so I decided to brave thr T’s shop on the way back. It was busy, but not as busy as I feared it might be, so a good decision I think. £66.65 spent but that included a large lump of gammon at just under £12 (thank you to whoever mentioned the club card price outdoor reared ones - a great tip!)  a bottle of Prosecco, 3 for 2 “party food” bits for picky teas in the days after Christmas, the chipolatas for the pigs in blankets and sausages to use for sausage rolls, pancetta - also for the PiB’s - I couldn’t get ordinary dry cured streaky - plus other Christmas odds and ends and some normal food bits too - milk, yogurts, cheese, tinned soup, veg…

So that now leaves me on £173.96/£250 - but I think we’re pretty much there for Christmas food now - aside from the Turkey of course but that’s a different budget! The plan for the turkey is that it will do Christmas dinner - then we’ll carve some more off for Mum and the rest will come back with us. I’m actually looking forward to having the leftovers to play with as usually we don’t - Mum’s always bought the bird previously so this will be quite exciting! 

JingsMyBucket

Hello folks. What a December. We went away on the 6th for sunnier climes in Portugal but turns out it was record and historic raining and flooding the entire time we were there. Plus, half way through the trip I got sick with the cold / flu bug that's been going around. Everyone was hacking our entire time in Portugal, both tourists and city residents. We retuned last Thursday and today was the first day I felt vaguely okay enough to leave the house. Bleah.

Almost all our spends for this month have been online and stocking up on various snacks as well as flours and sugar alternatives to help with lower carb baking in the new year. I've strayed from lower carb and my health is starting to reflect it, unfortunately. Let's see how I can reintegrate healthier eating in the coming few months. 

Amazon — £36.98 for KIND snack bars and Sukrin sugar alternative 

Local fruit and veg box — £20.00

Tesco — £101.48 for a monthly grocery shop. We didn't get much for our money.

Holland & Barrett — £30.05 for almond flour (for baking), tea, porridge, almond butter, peanut butter, and lozenges 

iHerb — £22.42 for almond flour

M & S — £47.75 today for easy food over the next few days. Bananas, berries, tangerines, nuts, sliced ham, quiche, chipolatas as a treat for Mr. Jings, yoghurt, butter, bread, and a nice dessert. I'll use the nuts to make spiced nuts to take over for Christmas 

Local cheese shop — £13.16 today for chocolate after Christmas dinner at the cousins 

Poundland — £1.00 today for parchment paper

Holland & Barrett — £4.99 today for a bottle of Rochester ginger drink. It looked really good and gingery so decided to try it out for after Christmas dinner at the cousins. The reviews look great and others have said they drink at Christmas too. 

£277.83 / £400.00 spent so far. £122.17 remaining. 

Tomorrow Mr. Jings will collect the Boxing Day roast from the local farm shop along with some sausages, pork chops, and ox tails. We paid a £10 deposit back in November and will pay the balance tomorrow. That should be about £60.00 but I'll call them in the morning to verify the cost before he sets off on his bike. I'll head to Tesco in the morning for cranberries to make cranberry sauce. We may need only milk and a few bits going forward so we're in a pretty good state for the rest of the month. Have a lovely evening all!

Suffolk_lass

DH snacked some of the Christmas snacks (!) so I feel one more trip is needed. I might go local and just pay the premium as I don't think I can bear the prospect of the queue to park and then pay at the SM! I did the butcher collection at 06.15 this morning (timed slots) and I was out by 06.30 but unfortunately the SM was not yet open in our local town. I might need some more New year cards and stamps so could go to the small town the other way which has a PO in the SM.

I am tracking (as always) but it isn't written up yet so not saying what my running total is. We are almost certainly going into the contingency though, despite Christmas meat being bought with our Christmas money from my lovely Mum.

I think I have been doing this challenge continuously for 11 years now (but it might be 12). My goodness I was smug when I started. I had just been spending almost £200 a week, accounted for monthly, I had exceeded £900 for two adults, a teenager and two cats. Oh boy, have things changed here!

diminua

I've decided to step back from this challenge for the rest of December. I tested positive for covid yesterday, which a) means someone else is picking up the food I ordered for Christmas and I won't be eating it so need more food here and b) I won't be seeing anyone over Christmas so have decided to blow the budget and order whatever I fancy (I can tell them to leave it outside the flat door so there's no contact). 
At the moment it seems much milder than my first lot of covid, and I'm lucky to live in a place food delivery is really easy - it's just being stuck indoors again that is getting me down. 
I'll be joining again in January.