December 2024 Grocery Challenge

carboot_karaoke

Hi Everyone,

Thank you @elsiepac for this great thread 

Last month was a bit of a disaster +£126.. On the plus side lots of junk food, and alcohol brought, plus, washing power, dishwasher tabs and a few other stock items which should see us through to 2025. 

My OH is self funding his fuel from now on so my future total spend budget is £550 

Food £500
Petrol £50

This is for four adults and two children. 

thriftwizard

A bit late to the party, but please can you put me down for 

£500

for December? It's a complete stab in the dark, tbh, (which doesn't include the festive food, saved for throughout the year, along with the "present" fund) as I have slightly less than no clue how expensive it will be, having DS3 back home. He used to be a bit of a nightmare to feed, exceptionally fussy and addicted to W8rose ready-made food & snacks, but is definitely eating a lot more normally now and has lost weight too. Anyway, that's for 4 adults, food, cleaning stuff & other groceries. Plus visiting family, mostly at weekends; that said, we may be away for a few days, to meet our new grand-daughter, expected momentarily in Wales! 

carboot_karaoke

Afternoon Everyone,  

My first spend of December to declare before it's even December !!

I have a three week food plan which will take me up to Xmas week.  

I carefully wrote out my list, trying to focus on buying for the current week as much as possible. That said, l did pick up a joint of pork and a large chicken both on offer  at Tesco's that won't be eaten until later in the month. 

I spent £5.31 on 3kg chicken legs in Sainsbury's,  £6.93 on milk and cheese in Lidl,  £4.45 in Asda, on squash and something for the homeless man outside.  

My biggest spend was in Tesco l used the "scan and shop" option to keep an eye on the total. My budget was £70. I spent £70.12 😇. 

New totals £86.81 / £550

Food £86.81 / £500
Petrol 0 / £50 

@thriftwizard how exciting to be awaiting a new granddaughter 💖

PipneyJane

@thriftwizard you must be so excited to be getting a new granddaughter. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

I did my first shop yesterday from December’s money:  £10.62 spent in Sainsbug’s on a load of fresh veg and two 450ml pots of Yeo Valley lemon-curd flavoured yoghurt.  The latter was discounted to £1.85, using the SmartShop widget (which I did, then proceeded through the self-service till - not the SmartShop till - so I could pay by cash).

This brings my December GC spend to £10.62/£160, leaving £149.38 for the rest of the month.

@carboot_karaoke it’s very kind of you to give some cash to the homeless man.  I frequently do that, too, but out of my own money not the GC.  (Christmas a few years ago, I was shocked to discover that the homeless are expected to pay to stay in a shelter overnight.  On that particular occasion, the beggar was a well-presented young man who needed £3.50 more, so that he could get into a shelter for the night.  Needless to say, we gave it to him.)

- Pip. 

FoxFace

Hi everyone, I'm diving back into this for December and into 2025.

We complete on our house purchase this week (fingers crossed) and with this move to home ownership has come additional costs and contingency requirements. We waste a lot of money on food if left unchecked, so I'm here for accountability and motivation to stay on track.

We have a healthy £150 per week, for a family of 3 adults, a 17yr old and a dog.  I'm hoping this budget can include everthing including youngest's lunch money for college, and dog food etc.

I use a separate bank account, into which I'll be transferring the weekly budget. I've already transferred this week's £150 ready for tomorrow's big shop, we generally shop once a week so I'm hoping for lots of NSD's.

I've spent some of this morning running a full storecupboard and freezer inventory, and planned a meal plan for the week based on the things we already have in stock.  Hoping for a strong start, because if I can keep the bill low this week, it will give us a bit of breathing room for weeks that might cost a little more.

All the best to everyone for this month, may we manage the Christmas food shops within our respective budgets

thriftwizard

Oooh, @FoxFace, wishing you the very best for the purchase of your new home!

Having just given up keeping track for the last week of November, which somehow became insanely busy, I've made a modest start into December's budget with a top-up shop of £7.66 this morning, for milk & some extra veg from the W8rose up the road. There will be a big stock-up of non-perishables at some point this week but I'm going to take it a little easy over the next few days; having crammed the contents of DS3's 2-bed flat into our home, by driving an unfamiliar vehicle through heavy snow whilst going down with a nasty cold, then trying to finish a quilt whilst preparing for one of my best trading opportunities of the year, it's going to take a day or two for the energy levels to bounce back! However I want to get it done before there's too much festive insanity.

FoxFace

thriftwizard said:

Oooh, @FoxFace, wishing you the very best for the purchase of your new home!

Thank you It has been quite a stressful process by all accounts, so I just want to get the thing done now so we can relax a bit!

Food shop for this week done, £70.17p for the weekly shop and then £7.50p on advent calendars because my husband, teen and older child are actually massive kids. I was genuinely suprised at how much the blooming things cost now, they used to be £1, but we went to 4 different places and £2.50p was the cheapest we could find. Some of them were over £10! (I am in full on curmudgeon mode about this).

Didn't pick up any particular bargains, there was nothing YS'd that we would use, except a nice quiche that they had kindly reduced by 30p, but it was still almost £4 so I passed on that. Sadly we don't shop at the time of day where things are really reduced anyway.

So, we spent under £80 for the week, I'll take that. Account balance is now £72.90p, as there was a few pence in the account already when I transferred the week's budget

Good luck for the week ahead everyone .

diminua

First shop of the month: Eggs, white potatoes, parsnips, courgettes, red and green peppers, tomatoes, coffee, tea, tinned fish, tinned tomatoes, bread, milk, low(er) salt marmite, apples. Found most of my carrots were bruised (the veg drawer in my fridge is very narrow but deep and I suspect I'm piling things on top of one another and bruising them. Or the shop is before they even get to me), so I've peeled and chopped them and put them in water - I might make soup or chilli as I also had to rescue the chillies by cutting off the sorry looking bits, chopping and putting them in oil. 

Anyway £30.19 spent. I also completed the first JS challenge and got my extra points, so pleased about that too. 

Doom_and_Gloom

Today was busy; cleaning and cooking.

Porridge, Shepherdless pie mix, mashed potato all made while we had cheap electricity. I would liked to have made more when we had cheaper electricity however I'm having a bad day, so even slower than normal, so what was done was better than nothing. Where we used to live I would not have been able to do what I did on a bad day at all. Although we didn't plan on moving I have to admit this adapted home we were fortunate to get makes life much easier.

£3.50 on a TGTG bag from a well known coffee shop (OH said it wasn't as worth it vs the usual £3 one he gets from a local independent coffee place but he certainly enjoyed the cookie he got in the bag. It contained a cookie and two toasties so I agree with him saying not really worth it. At least now he knows) and £12.88 in Mr S.

£16.38/£248.
£231.62 left.

JingsMyBucket

Happy December, everyone. I can’t believe we’re at the end of the year already. It’s flown past so quickly. @thriftwizard congratulations on the new ankle biter who's soon to arrive! @FoxFace congrats on the new home too!

I have my first spend of the month to declare.  

£15.12 at M & S just now on bananas, clementines, cavalo nero, sliced ham, coffee beans, and a Where’s Wally advent calendar for Mr. Jings. 

That calendar only cost £1.38 so it may be a good present for someone if you’re looking for a last minute advent calendar. Hands back in pockets until later this week when we may need more milk. 

£15.12 / £400.00 spent. £384.88 remaining.