December 2025 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

@Finstickle I’ve got you updated on the list. @Nelliegrace, I hope you’re starting to feel better and are on the mend. There are lots of poxes going around right now. Please wrap up tightly. Also, thank you for sharing about the pensioners’ Christmas allowance and the equivalent inflation-based amount. I told Mr. Jings about it and we were just aghast at the difference of it being 19 times more than the original £10. 

Yesterday I went shopping in my usual haunts: 

£35.78 spent at Lidl for a bag of bell peppers, snack tomatoes, bagged spinach, loose carrots, fresh parsley, ginger, strawberries, sliced mozzarella, sliced ham, Polish sausages, 3 cups of fancy flavoured yoghurt, a wedge of Parmesan, 30 eggs, 2 boxes of frozen gyoza, and 2 180g of frozen uncooked jumbo prawns. 

One of my Advent calendar wins in the Lidl Plus app was a £5 of £40 spend coupon. I used that towards my grocery shop above and got the two bags of frozen shrimp for free. 

£17.88 spent at M & S for clementines, bananas, 1 kg onions, garlic, 2 for £6.50 sausages (chipolatas & Italian sausages), 550g block of extra mature cheddar, 2 cans of coconut milk, and 2 cans of baked beans. 

Oh and £42.09 on Amazon earlier this week on 2 bulk boxes of snack bars, a couple packs of pasta, and a 1kg tub of peanut butter. 

£117.44 / £500 spent. £382.56 remaining. 

I’ve got a £110 Tesco order coming on Monday that has 4 different hunks of meat in it. They range from 30% to 60% off the regular price. I’m also stocking up on items like toilet paper, canned fruit, frozen vegetables, cleaning products, etc. Pretty much everything I’m buying is on sale and most of it will count towards the Tesco Challenges as well. 

AnotherNewDay

AnotherNewDay said:

Just realised I have done my second weekly shop of the month, but yet to post any update. Currently at £161.12/£400 - cats = £19.01/£60 and the humans are up to £142.11/£340, the grocery/household/toiletries shop did include more cleaning products and toiletries than usual. So far we are still on track

Top-up shop done today and we are now at £196.62/£400 = cats at £19.01/£60 and humans £176.71/£340

carboot_karaoke

Evening all, 

Just reporting my weekend spends a total of £94.76. Over my planned £75 budget but l did take advantage of some offers buying a leg of lamb and a side of salmon which l had budgeted for Xmas week so I'm hoping it will balance out over the month. I also brought a litre of olive oil, bleach and a toilet rim freshener all paid for from the bulk fund. 

New Totals 

Grocery Budget £157.97 / £450 

Bulk Fund £32.68 / £50

Grocery Challenge £ 190.65 / £500

I also received a £30 Tesco voucher as compensation this week. A welcome bonus l wasn't expecting.  This will help cover extra treats or if its not needed will be used in January. 


This weeks food plan

Chicken Traybake (we had cottage pie on Friday instead)
Sausage and Mash
Lasagne, garlic bread, salad
Jerk Chicken rice and veg
Hunters Chicken
Eating out
Muffin Top stew

whitecatcreamsofaDOH

Hi everyone! Back in for another month - please can you update my target to:

£450

Thank you Jings ☺️ 

I was really torn about this! I spent around £456 last month, so it made sense to reduce my target to £450, but December is a super tough month to cut back. However if I can do it now, I can do it any month!! 

Spends so far come to £113.52. 

I’ve averaged out spend per day, and I’m currently tracking over. To get back on track I need to spend £14.02 a day max 🙂

JingsMyBucket

@whitecatcreamsofaDOH I’ve got your new amount updated. ☺️

Savingthepennies1788

I need to get control of our food spending as it is currently very scary so I have just booked the last three online deliveries for 2025 as i am unable to go physically shopping due to health issues.

Total amount available is £175 for the remained of the month.

Delivery one - 09/12/25 -  Total spend £54.15 (Total savings £11.59)
Delivery two - 16/12/25 
Delivery three - 23/12/25

DH also pops into the local shops so i will have to try and monitor his spending as well 

Suffolk_lass

I have spent £8.07 so far this month, thanks to using an £18 off £60 at Sainsbugs when buying for an event I was running, and £35 off my Morries shop - and £7.75 of that is the milk we will have delivered on Thursday and Saturday. I must not feel smug though. I need to keep with the food plan!!

Can anyone remember what date veg wars usually start in the Christmas run-up?

joedenise

Aldi Christmas veg starts 18th @8p each.  Suspect the other SMs will be the same time.

Suffolk_lass

joedenise said:

Aldi Christmas veg starts 18th @8p each.  Suspect the other SMs will be the same time.

Thank you @joedenise - I so nearly tagged you as I knew you would know. My mission is to wait until then with the exception of carrots

joedenise

Suffolk_lass said:

joedenise said:

Aldi Christmas veg starts 18th @8p each.  Suspect the other SMs will be the same time.

Thank you @joedenise - I so nearly tagged you as I knew you would know. My mission is to wait until then with the exception of carrots

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to take advantage this year as we're off on holiday next week until after Christmas.