Christmas Dinner Shopping

[Sofarris]

Hi Everyone,
I did the dreaded shop for Christmas dinner last night & it was manic. There were people and trolleys everywhere!! As we went along my daughter kept throwing things into the trolley faster than I could keep count. It piled up and before I knew it, there was no space.
It costed just less than £200. I really thought I was going to keep cost down this year :(. I guess I can try again next year :)

Has anyone else got theirs yet or are you doing it tonight? What are you having and what did you spend on it?

Wow!

I bought a packet of paxo. Will go to the farm shop tomorrow for some F&V. If I spend £20 it will be stretching it. We don't eat meat [and they say being veggie is expensive].

I avoid doing a 'big' Christmas shop - and I certainly wouldn't take a child with me - or allow them to throw things into the trolley !

I buy a couple of things each week in the run up to Christmas so that this week all I had to buy was the turkey, some things I can just store and other bits go into the freezer. That way I also avoid the last minute crush - although when I got my turkey yesterday the shop was pleasantly quiet.

Sorry but you should have made your daughter take back OUT of the trolley anything that was not on the list.
Do not let yourself get caught up in the froth of it.

Make a list.
Stick to it.
Get child to tick things off list

After Christmas, avoid "bargains" as they rarely are

I have to go to the butcher tomorrow to collect my order, but I have a list with weights and amounts on it : no impulse buys

£202 in sainsburys today. That doesnt include the turkey or any drinks.

Used £140 worth of nectar points I had save though, which felt good.

I've spent about £150. Turkey bought separately last week but we won't necessarily eat it all and I needed normal stuff.

I've spent about £250. £98 in M&S on turkey, various party bits for the evening and two veggie options. £120 in Sainsburys on veg, christmas breakfast bits, chocolates, biscuits, dips, coleslaw, pickles, cheese, salad. The rest over the past couple of weeks picking up a few things gradually like the Christmas pudding

This is for Christmas breakfast, lunch and dinner for eleven though.

How many are you feeding for £200! My Christmas shop is being delivered tonight £85 that's to feed us Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, Day after boxing day plus a months worth of laundry stuff and cat litter and a massive toilet roll and we will probably have food left over for the freezer as well. I'm feeding 2 adults and 2 kids. Doesn't include alcohol though as we already have that in.

£190 from Ocado arriving tonight.

95 in morrisons this morning. That's everything, plus other stuff (dishwasher tablets, cat food etc). I'm feeding 10 and I expect there will be plenty of leftovers.
Although, I did get the beef and couple of weeks ago, but that was less than 10 at morrisons.

Wow, how many people are you feeding?

We went to butchers for beef, and duck and cheese -£65

Vegetables - £20

Ingredients for deserts -£5

= £90 for 12 people and x2 days

There's 11 of us in total. So it should be a wonderful Christmas (as always).

That also included some dinning room decorations and we had to get some pots and pans and some things for our pup.

I wouldn't make her take anything out of the trolley. We gave our children a choice this Christmas. They could either have a huge Christmas dinner with the finest of everything and not get any takeaways while they're off of school for Christmas. Or we would have a budget Christmas dinner and still get lots of Takeaway (which we've done for the past few years). They chose to go for a big Christmas dinner.
We got the idea after reading this article. Maybe it will help some of you girls make back some money from Christmas too.
www.campbellsoup.co.uk/news/christmas-dinner/

Is anyone doing anything really different/exciting this year?
I love Christmas so much !! X :D

£82 in Aldi (after the £15 voucher came off); £12 in Tesco and £39 for a Muscle Foods hamper (turkey, other meats & some veg, reduced from £102 with an online code). Total £133 for 8 adults.

About £250. That's between Sainsburys, M&S, Waitrose, and a few bits in Aldi. The fridge and cupboards are groaning with gorgeous food

There's three of us for Christmas dinner. We're having a take away tonight with friends, and lunch out on Boxing Day.

I've spent about €98 on shopping in the last two days. That's the roast with veg etc, nice drinks, prawns for a starter (expensive; we're nowhere near the sea), ice cream, nibbly bits, bread, mayonnaise, etc. Couple of packs of meat for eating on other days, bacon, sausages, eggs, nice coffee. Some wrapping paper made it into that total as well.

My total included wine beer and soft drinks. Also normal groceries, loo roll, tissues and dishwasher tablets.

I've spent about £400 in total although £100 was alcohol. That's for Xmas eve, Xmas day and Boxing Day for 12 people for everything from coffee to cereal to the actual turkey dinner. Chocs and minx pies, loo roll and dishwasher tablets etc. am expecting some leftovers which will feed us for a few more days.

Where did you get your minx pies brie? They sound fun

Loving the competitiveness on this thread too.

We're away for Christmas so haven't done a special shop as such. Turkey which we're taking was £60 and the pudding I made seemed to cost about £15 in ingredients

I got my under £20 spend - £9.80 on fruit and veg in farm shop and £10.18 in coop. £19.98.

Most excellent. Now off to make lemon meringue pie.

£40 in aldi, £35 in m&s for Turkey, Christmas cake and a couple of wee bits, and £50 in sainsburys on booze. Will go to go co op later to replace the prosecco we drank last night and get some extra stuffing

£18 in the butchers
£5 in the greengrocers
£25 in Aldi
Total £48 including drink (actually that is shopping for the week, not just Christmas)

That's for 2 adults & 2DCs aged 13 and 10

I spend £200 - that was for 10 people. It was the first time I have ever cooked a Christmas dinner and I didn't want my first experience of hosting Christmas to be a disaster. I was really worried about not having enough.

I was careful though to buy stuff that could be kept in the cupboard or could go in the freezer. So for about the next 6 months DP will be making his own portions of crisps from the enormous packs rather than the normal individual packs. I'll be eating sausage rolls for lunch for the next 6 months.

The only thing that might go in the bin is a pot of cream - although if I buy DP another box of mince pies it will be used up!

€42 in Lidl on a free range bronze turkey (€35) and a couple of other bits added in.

€153 on an internet shop in Supervalu on 18th - which included meat for the week before, most of the fruit and veg and perishables with reasonable dates, lots of nibbles, and store cupboard needs.

I bought plenty of wine using coupons and a 25% off offer, for entertaining over Christmas and using up afterwards as needed: 20 bottles of wine, roughly €10 each, plus 4 cans of Guinness, 4 bottles of Peroni and a box of 20 bottles of Miller beers, cost me €57 cash in Dunnes Stores.

DH bought DD's birthday cake (26th) so I can't add that in.

This week, we spent €153 again in Supervalu (I have no idea how it was so close) as I've used up a lot of storecupboard things recently, and we needed quite a bit of meat, fruit and veg, and dairy. But I was happy to spend that to stock up, and make use of the last day I had a 15% off card.

I've gone through the cupboards, fridge and freezer (before that shopping trip) and made a list of over 50 dinners that I don't need much to make up. Between meals made and frozen, packets of sauces or mixes to be used, ideas to use up tins of coconut milk etc (regular use here) or other more exotic ingredients, and reminding myself of family favourites that we have the bones of the dish. I still need a certain amount of meat, fish, veggies and some other ingredients for some of those meals, but I have the start at least of them all.

The plan is that I will spend very little over the next month (or even 2!), and use up at least 3 of those ideas each week. And we'll make something nice but easy and homemade every Friday rather than going back to our takeaway habit.

I must go back to the MSE annual Grocery Challenge this year though, as I want to get the spending back on track. We can afford it, but I have been overspending in general a little and need to reign it in again.

I spent just over 300 total this year exclkuding wione which was DH's domain: covered everything including rock salt for the back step and fish food for 7 people for a week (13 people for two of those days) then four of us for a week with entertaining 5/7 days (ranging between 12 and 23 people each night or lunch).
Bought gradually as things came on offer over the previous three months and filled the freezer. Further we have lovely friends who tend to bring crisps or something when they come for the evening, so I didn't have to spend too much on nibbles and snacks but gave everyone a meal: we got through a bone in-gammon, a turkey, a 5-bird roast (lidl, awful), a 4-bird roast (tesco, better) three ducks, a turkey crown, a shoulder of pork, five brown crabs, more prawns than I can count, mince, lots and lots of cheese, 25Kg potatoes, lots of sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, red cabbage, bread, a net of onions, 4kg flour, 1kg ground almonds, very many eggs, mincemeat, fruit from the freezer, ice cream, brandy butter and lots of sandwich stuff. I normally spend about 60 a week on groceries so didn't think it was so bad, and the only thing we needed to buy in the Christmas week was the cream and extra milk as I'd bought and frozen so much in advance.