December 2022 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

January 2023 GC Now Live!

diminua

Well that could have been a lot worse. A much weaker positive Christmas Day and negative lfts yesterday and today. Christmas was quiet - a wander through the local industrial estate, which I was confident would be empty of other pedestrians, and kindly aunts left me gin, wine, mince pies, fruit, sparkly tealights and Christmas presents in the porch. 
I said I would blow the budget but I have been recording so: Delivery pizza, olives and strawberries with nutella on Friday. Baileys, bread and milk on Christmas Eve (no supermarket slots, so JE delivery - I thought there might be an id issue but they can see I'm over 18 from some distance). Today I was able to shop in person and picked up a reduced wodge of stilton, cheddar and crusty bread and salad veg for a small cheeseboard for dinner today with some wine. Other than that normal groceries including unexciting things like marg and broccoli. £230.83 spent but I won't declare just yet. 

ancientmum

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas.

 I did the rounds of visiting family and the Santa run before Christmas and was at one son for lunch and present opening on the Day. Yesterday was warm and sunny here so I packed up sandwiches and flask and went for a long walk on the beach. It was lovely to see so many folk out and about: lots of families, dogs, even swimmers in the sea.  I was very tempted to treat myself to a festive mulled wine, but resisted and had coffee with Baileys (a present) when I got home. mmm. 

I'm still under budget for December but am doing a buffet lunch for family on NYE, so will probably blow most of what remains on that.  

JingsMyBucket

elsiepac said:

January 2023 GC Now Live!

Thank you @elsiepac !

Soontobeoap

Still going strong in December. We arrived home at 2 a.m this morning! No fresh food in house so as soon as we woke up today we headed off to Sainsburys for fruit juice and milk. I had hoped for some reduced veggies too but they had mostly gone up to their usual prices so did not buy. Did however manage to get reduced mushrooms and white potatoes, a huge joint of beef at half price for £11.00, a large smoked gammon half price  £5.59, 2 reduced scotch eggs and some reduced cooked chicken for lunch. Along with lemonade, bread, butter and oven chips our total came to £42.82.
We headed home to unpack and then I nipped to Aldi to check out the bargains. Managed to get some beef mince reduced by 30%, 2 bottles of lacto free milk (still at £1.05), more ordinary milk by mistake🤦‍♀️. (I checked and we will get through it all thankfully) , 4 packs of mini potatoes and some curly kale at 30% off. Total £9.41.

We still dont know if Dd and family are coming on Friday untill the day after new years day! If they do manage to get a ferry at least I have some food in for the gluten, dairy and soya free boys but we will need to go shopping again tomorrow. If they dont come the beef will be cut into 2 joints and frozen along with the large gammon. Meat takes up a huge part of our budget so pleased with my bargains even if I have gone over budget again this month.

Couldnt find a store brand non bio washing powder today in either store. Dont know why they didnt have any. Not signing out of December until New years eve. 

Pastry making tommorow for Chicken and bacon pies and gluten free pastys.  Also I will make up 2 shepherds pies  with the reduced mince. Hopefully i will also have time to make oat biscuits. 

Wishing you all a happy new year. 

KajiKita

@PipneyJane - that stress with your purse sounds horrendous. Hoping you are recovered from all that now!

KK

mumtoomany

Needed milk, and dog biscuits but they are a different budget as she is a working dog, so went to Aldi. Spent £6.80 on two bottles of milk and some reduced bread, fruit loaf and hot cross buns. However OH has decided the larger he bought (two 12 packs) for Christmas, is not very tasty! DS didn't like it either when he came. So OH took it back for a refund, £11.99 back. So total spend is -£5.19.

Total spend for the year is now £3013.57/£2640. I am declaring now. Won't need anything else till next year.

Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

herebeme

December now at £123.2/£150

Spent £4.49 on bread and ice-cream today. 

JingsMyBucket

Hi all, a couple spends to declare. 

Roughly £3.00 by OH on Christmas Eve for milk and a couple chocolates. He went to a corner store, paid cash and can't remember the exact amount. Meh!

£43.99 yesterday in M & S yesterday after we had lunch in town at a local coffee shop. £7 of that were two bouquets of flowers. We got 2 bags of YS easy peelers, YS bell peppers, red chilis, strawberries, bananas, arugula, yoghurt, cheddar, shredded mozzarella, milk, single cream, pasta, coconut milk, oat cakes, Worcestershire sauce, compost bags, and a small smoked gammon.

About the gammon: I would normally buy sliced ham cold cuts but we picked up a 200g pack for £4.50 then I looked across the aisle and they had small 750g gammons for £5.25. I asked Mr. Jings if we should just get the actual gammon for only 75p more and he said, yeah, let's do it. Let's see if I can slice it wafer thin like we prefer. 

£384.20 / £400.00 spent so far. £15.80 remaining. 

We were supposed to stop at Savers after M & S to also get powdered detergent but it was raining so badly we decided to cut it short and walk home. The weather here has been crap for the past week but we've managed to get out every other day even in the rain for some kind of walk or outing to keep our brains alive. Today is a pottering at home day and tomorrow (Friday) we're going to walk to Morrison's. We may go over our budget when there but I'll try to contain it. 

joedenise

@JingsMyBucket - I always buy gammon to cook and slice myself and decided it would be a good investment to buy a slicer.  Started off with a cheap one from Argos which did the job but decided as we regularly buy and slice gammon joints it was a worthwhile investment to buy a better one so now have a good stainless steel electric slicer.  Have to admit it frightens we a bit so I just let DH do the slicing and I pack into usable portions and freeze some!