December 2019 Grocery Challenge

XSpender · 21 November 2019 at 5:53PM

Please can you put me down for £300 for December (28th Nov to 26th Dec). I am still on November's challenge but have been crunching my numbers and have decided on my budget.

December budget is lower than usual as we are at various events and I have a separate budget for Christmas food as we are entertaining the masses.

boultdj · 22 November 2019 at 12:10PM

Still on November budget, but can I be put down for £300 again, 2 people and one very fussy cat and all cleaning stuff is in that.

debbiedodge1737 · 23 November 2019 at 8:49AM

Hello ,
Have not done one of these with you all in years, but it will be nice to get back to it.

I would like to set my budget for December to £500 (I shop weekly on a Sunday , so 5wks for me) My normal budget is £110 a week. Now £100

The Plan (3 Adults , 1 7yr coming on 15yr old lol, 3 Cats and a Hamster)

Wk 1 Probably £100
Wk 2 Probably £100
Wk 3 Probably £125 (Entertaining Family)
Wk 4 Hopefully £50 (Away but feeding Adult son at home)
Wk 5 Probably £125 (Entertaining Family)

Fingers crossed its cheaper as making ends meet is tough at the moment, especially over Christmas ..... but foods got super expensive to buy lately and we don't want to live on soley porridge lol.

This budget takes in cat food and litter (seems endless), Toiletries (minimum spend), Cleaning (Minimum Spend), Hamster food (Very minimum spend), Food and soft drinks for 3 adults and one growing lad (plus daughter when she visits through the week), Packed lunches for all and alcohol as husband and I don't go out so a drink at home on movie night is our lot.

mrs_motivated · 23 November 2019 at 3:25PM

Hi all and thank you Elsiepac for running the thread.

My budget looks huge this month, but it's a five week months for me, starting on 29th Nov and the last shop being 30th December. So please put me down for £600 please. Writing that down made me gulp, looks like a massive budget, but it includes Christmas drinks , a Christmas Eve buffet for 8 of us and a couple of extra mouths to feed for 4 days over the Christmas period. Fortunately I get my Christmas bonus on payday, which covers the budget.

Good luck with this months challenge everyone.

[Deleted User] · 23 November 2019 at 8:35PM

Back in....I'm on annual but have lost the plot with that year - this is the last month before I get a total grip on the budgets again so I'm going for as little as possible and a maximum of £200 - that won't include solstice food as that has a separate budget

....roll on January when I feel back in control! :rotfl:

Hettyhound · 24 November 2019 at 9:25AM

Hi,

I’ve never done a grocery challenge before but as it’s christmas hoping it will stop me from buying unnecessary stuff. I normally budget £150 a month for me and my forever hungry 6 year old son plus a dog and two cats. This covers all toiletries, cleaning, pet food and our food. My son is still on the free school meals at the moment but I get pack up things for me. As it’s christmas I’m budgeting £200 in December but I’m conscious not to buy things that won’t get eaten. I also normally don’t buy alcohol to keep in budget but have allocated for a couple of bottles of wine in the extra. I’m also planning on buying the meat from the local butcher and stretching it to the ends of the earth!

Barbeduk · 24 November 2019 at 2:00PM

Hi all

I have my first spends to declare, an emergency £3.30 on the daughter, £9.33 in lidi and £8.44 in Morrisuns. I am going to have to hide food away from the teenage son as everytime I bring treats into the house he sniffs them out and they disappear!

I've got enough food to last the week, apart from bread and fruit. It would be nice to have a mid week roast so that would be another spend. I might try and put that off until Thursday. Hopefully I will spend under £50 for my first week which gives me a little extra to put towards the Christmas food.

So that's me on £21.07/£250

jam2019 · 24 November 2019 at 3:39PM

Hi all!

Please put me down for £40 again this month

[Deleted User] · 25 November 2019 at 10:29AM

First spend of £50 - needed quite a bit of fruit and veg as having a mini detox week. I've got salads for the week - along with juice stuff so I'm going to be eating plenty of pulses and grains from the store cupboards- hopefully I won't need anything else this week!

PurpleJay · 25 November 2019 at 1:48PM

Hi, can I join in please?

My month will run from 1st - 31st December. My budget for December is £350 for myself, my 13 year old and our collie.

The budget includes food (including Xmas treats), cleaning products, toiletries and dog food. I will need to buy dry food for him this month which is a £70 outlay for 2 sacks which lasts 2 months. We mix it with tinned. I am budgetting separately for alcohol as I want to keep track of how much this is costing me. I aim for £50 max in December (will be having friends round at some point) and will then be doing dry January. Gosh £400 total sounds a lot. I will be working on getting it under £300 next year.

I do have a lot of food in the house and in particular have a couple of 'brexit cupboards' upstairs which are full. If we ate our way though that lot we could have a very cheap month. For now, I am just going to filter out anything with a shortish date on it and add that to the kitchen. Assuming Brexit happens at the end of Jan (or is cancelled altogether), we should be having a cheap month around Feb/March. Of course it may just jingle on, the end seems far from in sight... Think I will go and tackle those cupboards now. then do my inventory of food downstairs and make a meal plan for the next week or two. I don't want to spend much during the rest of December as I have already spent over £300. I have been saving my receipts in readiness for the December challenge

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December 2019 Grocery Challenge

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