November 2025 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

LiveSimply said:

@PipneyJane and @JingsMyBucket thank you both!

So, another question for people. When you talk about “Christmas food” or “Christmas budget” what are you talking about? I will have Christmas Day with another adult, and won’t be hosting any large meals, so my Christmas food will be nicer things, but not a vast amount of food, basically a bit more, slightly more expensive, and some extras eg chocolate. And maybe three days over Christmas and one day over the New Year, and the rest of the time budgeting and eating will be fairly normal. This will be the first Christmas I’ve been checking on my spending, my usual method is “buy what you like and watch it slowly and gently go off” which I’m aiming to change this year 🥴. 

So what is included in your Christmas budget? A few days like mine? Huge feasts for lots of family? Or some paring down to counter all the excess and ‘gluttony’?

@LiveSmply good question.  I guess everyone is different.  My typical Christmas is catering for 4 or 6 people.  We’ll have a large roast bird on Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Pudding; on Christmas Day at midday, we’ll have leftover meat with a fresh batch of roasted veggies and a Carrot & Nut Roast.  On Boxing Day, I’ll bag and freeze any leftover meat for use later in the year in any recipe for which we’d normally use leftover chicken.  I’ll also turn the carcass into stock.

Every month, we set aside £20 in the Christmas Fund, so £240/year.  It’s to cover  the Christmas bird, chestnut puree for the stuffing, the Christmas tree and wreath, a Christmas Pudding, minced pies and (sometimes) additional booze.  This money goes into its own savings account and, usually, we don’t spend everything, so there should be a small cushion in there.  (That was helpful last year, when I was off sick for 9 months and DH unemployed for 5 months, so we only had part of the usual contributions.)

I usually buy the largest bird I can afford/fit into the oven, preferably a goose.  This year we’ve ordered a 6kg goose from the butcher and he’s quoted £160 for it.  They have gone up a lot in price since the pandemic.  Pre-pandemic, we’d spend £80-odd on a goose.  In 2020, we paid £108.   In 2022, at the height of the bird-flu epidemic, we paid £180.

We spend about £40 on the Christmas tree and wreath.  

HTH

- Pip

ETA:  DH tells me we currently have £210 in the Christmas Fund savings account.  Since most of that has been spent on the goose already, things may be tight.  We’ve been saving the same amount for 20-odd years, so reluctantly, after discussion, we’ve decided that we’ll increase our contributions to £30/month (£15 each) from payday.  (20 years ago, my Christmas goose cost £70.)

weenancyinAmerica

@JingsMyBucket - How do you doctor the ramen noodles? Can you really make them taste good for a meal? I have a supply here and the young people in the house just eat them straight.  I would like to find a way to give them "more nutritional value"

Suffolk_lass

@LiveSimply we host a few above the two in the household for Christmas dinner (we are at 8 so far this year, plus a take-away for the nurse working 8-8). The big one is New Year when we have resident guests for 3-4 days and there is a considerable amount of food and drink consumed. I run an annual budget of £3000 and try to keep an extra £150 or £200 in the remainder for December. This year, that is less, but my Mum has given us £100, which will buy the meat. 

I had to go to M&S for coffee yesterday. I wanted to have the number 4 Italian blend in the house this month as the shopping area where it is located is a complete no-go area for me in December.  We used to go on the afternoon of Christmas Eve (a tradition my Mum started, when she would cycle to the market and M&S in the town eight miles away on Christmas Eve at 3.30pm). However, the last time we went, around 2019, the manager held back all the meat that was time expiring on 26th as she resented people looking for reductions. She apparently tried to foist it onto the staff working there after the store closed - no notice - and seemed surprised when they pointed out they had used their staff discount and ordered early, and now had no space for massive lumps of meat. It literally all went to waste. She refused to put it out until the store reopened so no skip diving and many families missed out. I wrote to their Head Office. I felt her behaviour was completely at odds with M&S values. 

I may go once more this month as they only had 30 coffee bags (I did get a large and a small bag of loose too). Of course, I bought fruit too, and some veg. I can't see the itemised entries but I have subtracted the treat bits I can read before the till roll scrunched up into a black line (a dip, some tortillas, some soured cream - bought for when some friends are here next week) - I've subtracted these and added £36.85 so I am at £182.96 with plenty of Christmas prep in there; for example, four Christmas cakes (- one each for us and my Mum, one to donate and one to be reimbursed for by neighbours who requested one). Four eggs and a packet of butter alone in each batch, along with brandy and nuts with the fruits. Not cheap!

leftatthetrafficlights

£7 spent today on 2 litres oat milk, a bottle of fizzy orange and some flowers 

£41.46/£350

thriftwizard

Sigh... a combined spend of £68.38, neatly split between the butcher & the supermarket, has taken me up to £311.06, and there'll be a bit more at the market tomorrow. That's going to leave the rest of the month quite tight at around £50 per week - but that's do-able, with good planning & efficient use of resources, and more than many have got.

LotsOfTea

weenancyinAmerica said:

@LotsOfTea - has the water where you work been tested and found to be bad to drink? Or do you not have access to water there? I have never understood why my roommates won't drink our water but will drink the water bottled here.

The tap water is absolutely fine, it's more that I didn't have anything to put it in! I usually take my own refillable water bottle but had forgotten. I don't like to buy bottled water at all if I can help it. 

I know you asked someone else about adding things to packets of noodles but I'm going to answer too because I do this for an easy meal sometimes. I tend to quickly stir fry whatever veggies I have e.g. onion, mushroom, broccoli, peppers and also some protein like tofu, peanuts, cashews or edamame and then add that to the rehydrated noodles. It's still quick and easy but it's much nicer and more nutritious than just noodles.

PipneyJane

Good evening All

I definitely think the meat fumes got to me, when I popped into L!dl on my way home from work today.  They had so much YS chicken, that I had to fight myself to not buy it all. Everything was marked down at 50% off.  Seriously, 1kg packs of chicken breasts going for £3.49 each (4 large chicken breasts per pack), down from £6.50.  I bought 2 packs.  Also purchased some YS turkey mince (500g for £1.27, after a coupon was applied), a YS tray of 10 Honey & Mustard sausages (£1.84), a large baguette and a chocolate bar for my DH.  £11.87 spent. 

Interestingly, one thing I learned from this shop is that L!dl apply their money-off coupons first, before giving the YS discount.  According to my receipt, we used a 15% off voucher for minced turkey.  The original price for the turkey was £2.99, then they deducted the 45p from the voucher, and we paid 50% of the remaining balance.

So far, I’ve managed to bag-and-tag the chicken breasts into individual portions and shoehorn those into the freezer, but it really is grit-your-teeth time in there.  (There’s virtually no space.). I’ll have to cook something with the mince tomorrow.  As for the sausages, hopefully I can fit them in once the chicken has frozen solid.

I also have a shop from Sunday to declare:  £6.60 spent in Sainsbugs.

The above brings our total spend to £156.50/£193.60 leaving £37.10 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Finstickle

  My last total was how much I had left to spend, not how much I had spent 

Needless to say I have only realised this after doing much more spending this week!

£9.57 on veg at the greengrocers.  This is going up but I have been trying to cut meat consumption so even though it doesn't feel like it when I can happily eat a whole butternut squash a day, I am sure I am spending less than if I was eating meat at every meal.

£6.95 - Delivery Pass - Asda (think I normally forget to count that and should come out of this budget really)
£85.34 - Started at £114, dropped £98.58 with multibuys and then dropped again to £85.34 when they didn't deliver everything.  Not usual, my delivery is normally good so OK with that, especially considering my overspend.  £43.40 was wine and nibbles as I am hosting friends on Saturday night.  I don't expect it all to be eaten/drunk but I went for 25% off 6 bottles and a 3 for £7 on antipasto.

However I am now have £45.81 for the rest of the month!  This close to Christmas I don't want to go over if possible so will be focusing on eating what I have and being a bit inventive to keep the shop down as much as possible.

£314.19/£360

K9sandFelines

@JingsMyBucket please can you add me in for £180 for the month. Thanks. 

( I thought I'd already posted)

First spends were £6.21 (I had a gift card aswell) at Am@zon on Aksoy Bulgur wheat. - 10kg. So, should keep me going a while 😄. Got two x 5kg bags; as no doubt next time, it will have gone up in price.

I also spent at the international food shops and Waitrose.
I got soya chunks, soya mince, rock sugar (to make liege waffles), potato starch and cornmeal in the first shop. Then 100% jam and a vanilla extract in the second one.
In Waitrose, I got 3 x YS 540g Jason's sourdough. I'd have got more, but I don't have room in the freezer and it also needs defrosting  
I will find my receipts and update tomorrow.

I should be good until next week now and need minimal items.

moginstein

@weenancyinAmerica I  also used to do similar to @LotsOfTea for ramen. At its most basic, I've microwaved some frozen mixed veg, and defrosted some cooked chicken to add in (I have some little bags frozen in portion size). I've also added any roast veg I've had in the fridge from when I've cooked other meals. A few roasted cherry tomatoes really make the flavour zing.
There are a few sites that say to throw away the flavour packets, and if you had chicken or veg stock to add that would give flavour without the additives. An egg cooked in a microwave poacher (yolks pricked so it doesn't explode) is a lovely addition, but I  found the timing a bit tricky (to get a set white and slightly runny yolk).
I did this dish quite often as a quick comforting meal when ramen were cheap (around 10p a pack at one time!) but when they went up overnight to 35p I sulked and stopped buying.
Oh, and a dash of piri piri sauce on top (or whatever you like).