Christmas eats and treats!!

Christmas is a time for parties, get together's, company, and goodies. So how do you keep your food budget on track for the month of December with so many activities going on? Here are some ideas that have help us stay on our $62 a week food budget during the month of December.
The first thing to do is make a list of all the baked goods you make during the holiday season. For ours I made it on google doc. From the list I made an ingredient list of all the different ingredients that are needed in the house to make our holiday treats. Both list have been printed off and placed in my awesome Christmas planner; which I will blog about later this week!

In November I start looking at my ingredient list and picking up the ingredients needed for baking in my normal grocery pick up. For example they had chocolate chips (the good kind) on at a local grocery store 3 bags for $4. 98; so I picked up 6 bags. Also other things like Chip dip which is my hubby's favorite Christmas treat was on sale so I got a couple of those and put bright yellow stickers on them that say DO NOT EAT!!! So they would be around for the Christmas holidays.

Another way I save on food around the holidays is to keep meal planning so I am not running out and getting things. Having a meal plan to look ahead at helps me to buy my ingredients on sale. Another good things is in my calendar of events for the month I have the days booked off for parties that I need to bring something to; that way I could see how many things were needed for our nights out and pick up say bags of chips (which were on sale for 99cents!), chips dips, crackers or appetizers. For baking this year I am actually in a cookie swap (I think this will save on grocery money as well). I made 10 dozen cookies and get 10 dozen different kinds of treats. This will be used to take variety plates to parties with us, offer to guest when they come over and maybe even give away as gifts.

So what do you do to save on the grocery bill during the holidays