December 2025 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here. 

Quantaqa

Hello @JingsMyBucket, thank you for putting up the new thread. I hope you're feeling better soon.

Please put me down for £250 for December. 

This will include my contribution to our extended family Christmas dinner, a meal for DH's parents and Aunt and the usual monthly bits.  My month runs from the 25th tom the 25th.  No spends today thankfully.

otb666

Please put me down for £600 this month again. Thank you for running this.

thriftwizard

Let's see - we will be 4 adults with 3 different diets (pescatarian, plant-rich, and "obligate carnivore") for at least half of the month (DS3 will be coming home mid-month) not to mention the usual minor invasions at weekends, BUT we will coast through a lot of the last week on food (and drink!) bought from the Festive Fund, although there'll be anything up to 12 of us from time to time. It's technically a 5-week month, but that shouldn't impact too much. I think I'll aim for
£500
please, @JingsMyBucket. 

TheBees

Hello @JingsMyBucket please put TheBees down for £400. We have 16 for Christmas lunch and relatives staying for several days!

oceandreamer

Hello @JingsMyBucket can I stick to £300 please?  I'm not including Christmas specific food in with this as I have accounted for that elsewhere.  

carboot_karaoke

Morning all,

I cant believe we're into December 😱

I just updated my signature with Nov spend and added up our total for 2025 so far = £4296.12 roughly £90 a week for a family of 6. l honestly don't feel like we've eaten badly or gone without at all. Thank you all so much for your ideas and support over the last year 🥰. Thanks to your posts we have discovered Olio and adapted meals to include more veg, lentils and beans. We also regularly shop from home 😂.

The best thing is that the savings we've made are going to be spent towards a family holiday next year 😊

A special thank you to @JingsMyBucket for taking over the thread, hope you and Mr Jings feel better soon.x 

carboot_karaoke

I just realised that l forgot to include my grocery budget 🤣

This month I'm going for £450 and £50 bulk.

Working_Mum

I have been keeping an eye on my spends and love this challenge! 

There is myself, my adult son (who lives here half of the time) and a little well feed pooch - I eat meat and strive to do a low carb and very low fat diet which means it doesn't always come cheap. 

December budget £250 and £60 for household items including pet food.

Thanks everyone for keeping me on the straight and narrow recently - reading along has kept me motived!

((WM))

Report

mandco

@JingsMyBucket thanks for the new thread

£650 for December please 

I’m aiming lower as this only needs to cover just over 3 weeks and it’ll leave me some wiggle room from my usual budget if the Xmas shop goes over budget.  I have a separate budget saved of about £250 for the week of Xmas - new year which should be plenty for the food but the alcohol might push me over.
i currently working with about 1/4 of my usual fridge space so going to have to plan carefully to avoid unnecessary spends on top up shops and stay in budget.