December 2024 Grocery Challenge

Nelliegrace

Aldi have dried fruit half price in the baking section.

JingsMyBucket

Hello all! I hope everyone has had an easy holiday week. Since my last post, I’ve spent the following:

£91.68 on the Tesco order

£31.04 at Aldi. I finally got a meaty ham hock!! 

£23.80 at M & S

£14.38 again at M & S on Christmas Eve for some last minute items and quite a few yellow sticker bargains. 

£341.36 / £400.00 spent. £58.64 remaining. 

I’m heading out today to buy some items for a dinner we’re hosting tomorrow evening. I’ll try to keep that to £30, roughly. Our freezer has several meat options in it but I’m about to exhaust all our chicken supplies for this dinner tomorrow night. I’ll see what I feel like carrying and if there are any YS deals 

thriftwizard

I actually managed to score a couple of YS items at W8rose this morning! So as the next few days' menus are sorted out, mostly with leftovers, and OH has gone off for a couple of days with DS2 & family to inspect the new arrival, today's moderate spend of £15.55 leaves me in a position to declare for December at £428.90, leaving me £70-odd for the bulk-buy fund (i.e. flour direct from the mill, plus a sack of oats) plus lots of food in the freezer to help us through January. Happy with that! (Although acknowledging that the Festive Food Fund took a big battering and has carried us over the last week, but it will start to refill again in January...)

JingsMyBucket

Back from shopping and I have my last spends of the year to declare. 

£2.88 at the Middle Eastern shop for plantain and hot peppers 

£43.73 at M & S for bananas, YS lemons, limes, strawberries, YS cabbage, 2 packs of YS asparagus, 2 bunches of YS scallions, cilantro, tomatoes, cream, 2 cans of coconut cream, coconut milk, basmati rice, ketchup, ice cream (£6! I thought it was £4 due to misreading the labels), various chocolate gifts for our guests tomorrow, shortbread, a bar of chocolate for us, and a 90% off Genoa cake (£1.05!) that was so beautiful I couldn’t resist. 

£387.97 / £400.00 spent. £12.03 remaining. 

It was the ice cream, the chocolate gifts & the bar of chocolate for us that tipped us over into the £40-something category. Otherwise we could’ve gotten out of there for £26. I was doing so well until I hit the “treats” section! 😂 Oh well. We have plenty of food in the house and won’t need to go shopping until later this week when we’re going to some friends’ house for a homemade crêpe breakfast. We’ll get some cheese and ham to contribute to the savoury portion. 

Have a wonderful new year everyone and take care! x

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon everyone, 

My final spends to declare for Dec come to £28.41 l brought various bits and pieces including ice cream, bread, milk, custard, cling film and BBQ sauce to mention a few.

My final total is £545 exactly a whole £5 underbudget 

See you on the January thread

Doom_and_Gloom

We have spent £100.09 since I last posted (last post was on the 10th!).

£159.00/£248.
£89.00 left.

OH went to Waitr*se as he needed milk, bread and yogurt and I wanted a few bananas. He managed to pick up that and also got a load of beef joints that were 75% off and then had an additional 20% off due to an offer they have on the counter items on Saturdays! £18.22 for 4 joints that were worth £91.16! OH was very pleased with that as you can imagine. 
This means we are going to be under budget for December, as there are only a few items we may need before our December ends, which is nice as we were over by £62.94 in November. So in all it has equalled out nicely.

We were sent home from my parents with lots of food after being there at Christmas. My ma bought many of the cheap vegetables with the knowledge she would send them back with us. Also quite a lot of treat items that they know we rarely buy due to price. 

MissRikkiC

Great bargains @Doom_and_Gloom I’ve had a few of those myself this week and loved it! 

LadyWithAPlan

@PipneyJane I do claim it back when I am working for another company  - or rather have a per diem amount but I am often in very expensive hotel conferences/places so I always opt for airbnb etc so I can have a kitchen to save what I can
I do like your colleagues focus on money not spent goes to mortgage Great way to focus

When I am travelling for my own ltd company  (which is 50% of the travel at least) I strive to spend as little as poss - again  its  offset as an expense of the business however I dont set a daily amount.

I do count it though in my food budget even if it doesnt cost as much.

Well done @Doom_and_Gloom on the bargains..

I am striving to not buy food before Jan 1st but I am aware I need eggs and I am craving crisps (big bday bash yesterday)
I do have loads frozen meat, veg and home takeaways as well as pulses etc though  and often food/meat  is reduced this time of year so I may pop out to have a look,.
I am also eating up all the treats for Xmas 

Still  Dec food/entertaining ... ouch £407.2
Grocery spend  £222.69 
London entertaining spend (had 2 xmas dinner parties) plus food etc for family inc the £59  FR turkey  I bought for xmas day  £184.51
Total spent on food in 2024 £2,662.57

diminua

Quick trip to JS for eggs, fruit and other basics. I am now up to £221.99 spent. I will be buying a pastry on the way to work tomorrow, making a mackerel salad sandwich for lunch and filling a little pot with nuts and raisins and two chocolate truffles (left over from Christmas) as a snack. I may need coffee and milk before the new year so won't declare just yet. 

Suffolk_lass

Ready to declare for this year - I do need to go and buy salmon but that is tomorrow, and for pescatarian visitors on 1st Jan, and falls within the Christmas entertaining budget that is separate. So my annual spend is £2970.11 out of £3000.00.

I split it into three categories; groceries (mostly fresh),  stores and direct debits & subscriptions (these cover storecupboard, big river and the milkman), and outside of the grocery challenge I have budgets for treats & entertainment, livestock & pets, and fuel. I still track credit cards (paid in full each month) but these are not counted as they get used for some of the aforementioned headings. I'm feeling quite relieved it is not more, and thanks to storecupboard and freezers being well stocked, we have plenty for the first half of January, and hopefully longer. Over to January and a new year with the same budget, for me.