December 2025 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Evening folks. 

Budgets updated to here! 

I'm still trying to figure out what ours should be for the next month... 

diminua

Hi JingsMyBucket,

could you put me down for 250 again please?

Food for Christmas day at my cousin's (we all buy different bits) and the Christmas meal at work will come out of a different budget, but mince pies and so on to scoff at home come out of that £250.

thanks,

TravelCrystal

So decided to go shopping today as I wanted to get my last freebie for the month, mayonnaise,  as I seem to be having a hankering for my homemade coronation chicken with jacket potatoes at the mo.

Managed to get 3 x 6 rolls YS @ 22p each and 2 x YS loaves @ 87p each
Bought loads of fruit and vegetables as I don’t plan to go shopping for at least 10 days so made sure I also bought 2 x milk.
Cheese, cream, yogurt, salami, more cranberry sauce, discounted, cause I’d hate to run out 🤭 and whole grain mustard.

Also eggs, toilet cleaner, anchovies and coffee. 

Whilst I was shopping DS2 sent a WhatsApp to tell me he had just bought a rosemary and salt focaccia. He’s always saying how nice they are so he made me spend more money 🤣 we will have them for our lunch with pate I think.
Also had to buy tomatoes today. Just finished up using our home grown ones. We must have had several hundred from just 4 plants.

Total first spend for December £41.30/£200

Hope everyone’s month goes well 

T.C

PipneyJane

Good afternoon All

Woke up this morning to find a note from DH:  “please can you go to MrT’s and get the Clubcard points added from my petrol purchase.”  (He’s off with some mates today.).  His Clubcard had refused to load on the app last night, when he was filling up.  Dragged myself reluctantly to MrT’s and discovered that he wasn’t the only person to suffer this fate last night.

Since I was there, I had a look for the few things that I can’t purchase in L!dl and, as a result, have my first shop of December to declare.   £16.13 spent on a YS Pukka chicken & bacon slice £1.36, a large YS Cheeseboard Quiche £2.52, 3-pack Blitz kitchen roll £3.25 (half price), 400ml coconut milk 2x75p, and a 4-pack Energiser CR2025 batteries £7.50.  (NO, they had no half-price beef, despite adverts.)

This brings our GC spend to £16.13/£180 leaving £163.87 for the rest of December.

While he was out filling up the car last night, DH also popped to L!dl and bought a bottle of their honey bourbon - different budget - together with several bars of his favourite chocolate*, which was enough for us to cross the £250 L!dl+ in-month spend threshold and earn a 10% off voucher.    My biggest challenge is working out how to maximise that while not having much time to shop before next Friday.  This is one shop I do not want to do without DH present and tomorrow is already fully booked.  (We have a Christening and a football match to attend.).  < sigh >

My other issue is that we have to provide all the food for Christmas Day at my MIL’s and I have to ensure we have enough freezer space to oblige, since nothing can be delivered to hers and we’re a 3.5 hour drive away.  MIL is not well and not up for cooking.  (She lives local to my SIL, where we’ll stay.)  MIL wants roast beef, and I should be able to squeeze a joint into the freezer.  I’ll try and find a nice one in L!dl, as part of that shop.

Meanwhile, I have to plan dinners for the week based on whatever we have in stock and fulfilling the need for leftovers for lunch boxes, so here goes:

Today:  salt-&-chilli pork belly accompanied by stir-fried rice
Sunday: that YS quiche possibly with broccoli on the side
Monday:  Macaroni Chicken which will use our last remaining home-grown tomato - it’s finally ripe - plus a tub of HM tomato sauce from the freezer
Tuesday:  Toad in the Hole
Wednesday:  something with chicken liver (we have 3 tubs in the freezer)
Thursday:  we’re out with friends, having our first “Christmas Dinner” of the season

Hmmm….

- Pip



* ETA As the resident chocoholic, he buys his own chocolate bars.

Changeyourlife25

An ambitious £600 for us please.

thriftwizard

I'm logging our first combined weekend spend (butcher, fishmonger & supermarket) of December at £90.97 even though it's still November! I'll be doing the non-perishables early next week, to try to avoid the worst of the rush, but most of it will be from the festive budget as we're reasonably well-stocked with tins, packets, coffee etc. After that I'll stay out of the city until halfway through January, if at all possible! I managed to score several Christmas presents on Black Friday deals online, so the Festive fund is still looking quite healthy. (Hopefully our tyres are too - two years ago I had to replace all the tyres on the family car at the end of November, which cost £500 & had to come out of the Christmas fund due to other expenses like a new kitchen roof, a new fuseboard, and a new boiler - all within a couple of months. A couple of weeks later the gearbox disintegrated & she had to be scrapped... the Christmas fund was a bit depleted that year, but we did cope & still had fun - thank you MSE!)

LotsOfTea

Hi, can you put me down for 

£400

please? We're going to visit relatives for Xmas day so don't need to plan for that (apart from me making something vegetarian to take along) but we're also doing a fair bit of hosting friends over the month so I'll be trying to use up stuff we already have on normal days to leave the budget for buying extra bits for entertaining. 

JingsMyBucket

Budgets updated to here. 

You're all very welcome re: maintaining the thread. We're a fun bunch and I like hanging out with y'all. 🙂

AnotherNewDay

My brother has come to stay for some months, resulting in a big change to the budget as not only an extra person, but one who mainly eats meat - whereas I tend to only eat meat 1 or 2 times a week, he eats meat or fish at every meal. He joined me last week, so still a bit of trial and error, I had also decided to increase the cat budget from this month, as they have firmly put on their winter stomachs.
Since it is also Christmas this month going to go for overall budget of £400 for the month - £60 for the cats and £340 for groceries, toiletries & household for two humans

carboot_karaoke

Morning all,  

I have my first spends of December to declare.  My strategy is to have three low spend weeks about £75 each then, blow the budget Xmas week and live off leftovers the final week 😂. My MIL will be cooking normally, enough for about 3/4 meals - no joke. Plus I'm trying (failing miserably) to reduce snacking so l think its do able...just.

Total spent  so far was £61.82 I tried as much as possible to stick to just fruit, veg, salad and ingredients for this weeks food plan. I did buy quite a few toiletries on offer and toilet roll from the bulk fund totalling £22.25. 

This week's food plan 

Burrito 

Caribbean Chicken Stew with salad, rice and coleslaw

Roast Chicken, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, sweetcorn, yorkshire pudding and gravy.

Special fried rice

Pulled chicken and black bean chilli, with tiger rolls and salad

Chicken curry, rice, salad and naan 

Chicken Traybake, 

New Totals 

Grocery Budget £61.82 / £450

Bulk Fund £22.25 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 84.07/ £500