December 2023 Grocery Challenge

joedenise

Got a Morrisons TGTG bag today but not paid for from the GC budget as had money in our Paypal account from Prolific transferred over at the end of month.  Was a great bag with all fruit and veg and no bread.  The bag contained a box of clementines which actually cost £3.50 in store and the bag only cost £3.09 so was definitely worth the money.

[Deleted User]

Still doing well here.  £18.18 spent today in Mr L and Iceland.  That covers us until Thursday's dinner including all lunches as well.  Finally feel like I am getting back on track.

Food this week:
Beef with port and Stilton (recipe from index at start of this thread) - slow cooker
Chicken curry - slow cooker
Baked potatoes.  Filling tbd.
Chilli - from the freezer
Beef Strog

nannygladys

No money spent this month yet, but that will change this week. I have to decide on how I'm going to manage my grocery spends as I'm hoping to take advantage of the cheap veggies they have just before Xmas in the supermarkets to I want to buy lots to freeze for the coming months, it'll just be my luck for it not to happen this year!!!🙂 I'll be saving all I can do I don't go over my grocery budget to pay for it I hope!!

Soontobeoap

@nannygladys you are amazing! You were saving for a canopy last year. Did you manage it or did the cost of living crisis get in the way?

Chicken did 2 more meals last night. Simmered some sliced potatoes with half spoon of chopped garlic in half tin off chicken soup and a little milk. Fried an onion with a few button mushrooms from freezer and added to a shallow casserole dish with other half of tinned soup and some of the cooked chicken chopped up. When potatoes were tender i drained soup into casserole dish with other ingredients and arranged potatoe slices on top. Top off with grated cheese. I used plant based and cook in oven for half hour at 180degrees. Very easy and yummy too.

I still have another portion of cooked chicken but I have frozen that as we are a bit chickened out. Shepherds pie tonight. 

£10.00 spent at Aldi today. Money seems to be slipping through our fingers this month however hard we try!

I am saving tesco and nectar points for February. 

Frugalistamama

Started off badly, spent £105 in the first week so this leaves me a bit short for the rest of the month. As I've got £80 per week. Oh well, I've just rejoined the challenge so I'm going to allow myself some adjustment period! 

I need some motivation to get cooking again. How can I get my cooking mojo back!!??

CRANKY40

Thanks for running the challenge @elsiepac. My December total will be £320. I'm hoping that I will have enough food in to not have to go food shopping between Christmas and the New Year so the next 2 weeks will probably be more expensive than usual. I can go to the co-op rather than a big supermarket to top up on milk and bread if I need to. 

This weeks grocery shopping was £68.05 but I forgot to buy eggs. The Asda where I usually shop has moved all it's stuff around although instead of having one aisle for a certain type of thing they have moved stuff all over. Dried fruits and nuts for instance has a part of a row in one aisle near the back of the shop and the end of another aisle 3 rows down by the tills. Every time I go there are people asking staff where to find things and the move happened a couple of months ago. 

I have no cooking mojo either @Frugalistamama, mostly because it's so cold downstairs in our house. Last night the House Troll had pizza for dinner and I had avocado on toast. Fifteen minutes in the arctic wastes (the kitchen) and I was done and back upstairs with food. I need to liberate something from the freezer to make for dinner today yet. I think last night was our quickest option of the week so I'll have to suffer the cold tonight.I need to make biscuits though so if I leave that until later I can have the oven on a bit longer.  

Take care all of you (especially those of you with snow). 

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

joedenise

Couple of shops so far this month over Morrisons, Tesco & The Food Warehouse.  Have spent £31.31/£200 leaving me £168.69 for rest of month.

Have now bought everything for Christmas apart from the veg.  Any shopping this month will just be for eating the current week as the freezer are both fairly full but saving a little bit of space to be able to freeze some of the cheap veg once it appears in the SMs!

mumtoomany

Shopping yesterday. Spent £33.36. Total for year so far is £1767.72/£1860.00. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

Soontobeoap

Big shop delivered from tesco today. I dont often do online shop any more but with a flexi saver it was cheaper than driving into town and I was not tempted by anything not on list. £65.89 spent. Took advantage of half price beef. I spent half an hour preping veg and meat for the freezer and now we, are quite well stocked again. Still a few bits to get from Aldi though.