Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE’S NO NEED to spend a fortune on food for the big day.
The main Christmas meal is actually relatively cheap to cook from scratch providing you plan ahead. Most supermarkets have fruit and vegetables on special this week. These will include brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes, onions and citrus fruits and more than likely won’t cost more than €5 in total.
Your meats can be as expensive as you choose. For example, if you have a small family and aren’t all that bothered with a full turkey you can choose a breast of turkey or a boned and rolled turkey. One small whole turkey will be on special for about €7 in some leading supermarkets during Christmas week. You’d pay that much for a decent chicken. Do you eat ham on the big day? A small ham fillet will set you back a fiver. All in, if you’re on a budget you can have a slap up Christmas Dinner for a family for under €20.
Actually if you look at a shopping list for Christmas it’s the extras that are going to cost you a fortune (if you choose to buy them). Tins of biscuits, cakes, sweets, minerals, crisps, nuts, crackers, wine/beer, it all adds up and could double, or even treble your shopping budget for the day.
I don’t know what it is about the Irish psyche where we buy up half the shop in a panic on Christmas Eve because (the horror) the shops will be closed for a few days. At most the shops will be closed for two days and you have plenty of opportunity to get to the supermarket to pick up anything you’ve missed.
So with two weeks to go, I’ll spread the cost of my Christmas grocery shopping over the next couple of weeks so I don’t have an almighty bill to deal with just before the New Year.
Week 1 (10th – 17th December)
Pick up your tubs of sweets/biscuits this week. They’ve been steadily reducing in price since Hallowe’en and are now around the €6 mark in most supermarkets. They’re probably not going to reduce much further at this stage. If you have lots to buy, get half this week and half the next.
I’ll collect my ham this week and pop it in the freezer until defrosting the day before Christmas Eve. Unlike turkey, it can sometimes be easier to collect now rather than later on in the month.
Spuds. We all love them on our plate and it’s just not the same without a nice bit of mash and roasters. Potatoes will keep well once they’re kept in a cool dark place (not in the fridge) but they are also a great prepare in advance vegetable. I’ll peel, cook and mash some of my potatoes and then freeze them before the big day.
Onions also keep for ages, so again buy them and store them beside the spuds – not in the fridge either.
Breadcrumbs, if you make your own or buy them – either way get them into the freezer now. They don’t take long to defrost.
Preserves, chutneys and crisps are also not something that needs to be bought fresh. None of these need to be kept chilled so find a cool dark place to pop them. Likewise with minerals and alcoholic drinks.
Week 2 (18th – 24th December)
At this stage I’ll run down my fridge contents as much as possible to use up what I have until the 23rd December. Where possible I don’t go shopping on Christmas Eve. It’s mental!
It also means I’ll have extra space for the turkey, fresh fruit, and veg all of which will be bought this week.
On my shopping list also are dairy products like cheese, milk and cream and batteries in various different sizes, not forgetting eggs, bread, and possibly a grill for Christmas morning.
Bonus Points
From St Stephen’s Day onwards, the supermarkets will reopen and, providing you are canny, you can pick up party food that’s reduced (but still in date), along with more hams and turkeys that are reduced even further. Most of these items can go straight into the freezer (or oven) and will keep you fed on a budget for far longer than just one main meal. The year I managed to pick up a massive leg of ham for just €7 resulted in 20 family meals worth of ham in my freezer. Again jars of preserves and chutneys often have long use-by dates so you can stock up for Christmas 2015.
Caitríona blogs at wholesomeireland.com with a particular focus on living on a tight grocery budget. Her first cookbook “Wholesome – Feed Your Family Well For Less” is published by Mercier Press.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I gave up on Three years ago due to a series of unsatisfactory phone calls to its customer care line. Their phone service was adequate but customer care was hopeless as a result I try avoid companies with call centres outside Ireland or UK, companies should realise, some corners should not be cut.
Customer Service jobs are moving back to Ireland, as stated above.
As one of the people who have lost their job over the merger, good luck to the lot of ye if youre looking for customer service, you wont find it here
Winding_down obviously works for 3 and wasn’t affected by job cuts.
It may have worked for them but their customer service is going to be come even worse than current for at least the next 6 months since its mainly 3 staff that got the boot so now any 3 customer is going to have to wade through 02 staff who have to be retrained
The 24/7 unlimited free calls between 3/O2 customers is pretty sweet. Nothing to laugh at free perks-wise!
Oh, I have to commend them on the originality of their “entire ad-break” radio adverts announcing the merger. I’ve heard it on Radio 1 and Today FM. It’s a pretty novel way of communicating their enthusiasm.
Have they not broke their contract by merging. If someone was o2 for a reason and now they’re forced to be three clearly that’s a breach of contract?
@cholly appleseed: Nope. It’s a consumer contract.
By law O2 can assign it to another party (Three). It’s good till it expires. If you’re O2 Billpay have a look at your contract, you’ll see a clause to that effect in it.
€4.99 for 4frikkenG that’s at best one times faster than 3G. Are they having a laugh why not skip this generation iteration and go straight into developing the 5G or 6G network instead. Jaysus why are we always the last to develop are we suppose to be this new Silicon Valley sort of developing country or is this just a load of BS in order to get our nice little corporate tax clause.
I find 4g excellent. I can hit 40 to 50 mb depending where I am. Much better than 3g.
Fyi for 5g which is not commercially available and would have to be lienced both here and in Europe so no.
Anyway the only issue I have with 3 if their coverage. If your in city you have 4g most large towns are not covered by 4g masts. That’s only problem. I’m happy with price and the no limits but coverage is awful
Been a 3 customer for a number of years (moved there after terrible coverage with O2 and ripoff services with Vodafone). When I was home in the summer on 4G in Rathfarnham/Dundrum area it was mostly SLOWER than 3G and their staff in the Nutgrove centre were worse than useless, firstly saying that ~7mbps is acceptable for 4G speed (ya what?) and then tried to blame my phone itself (which gets around 60mbps out here in UAE).
Couple of quick calls to their call centre and got on to their networks team who (correctly) advised that 4G wasn’t fully rolled out in the area and whilst my phone was reporting 4G I was actually only on the 3G network. Wee complaint about the incompetence of their shop staff and a call with one of their customer service managers and they had profusely apologised, confirmed a complaint lodged against the store and also supplied a free credit for time wasted.
All in all (and with the exception of the store staff) the best customer service experience i’ve had with any of the Irish operators.
not officially merged a day and already im told my 4g will no longer be free, long live competition
So net -50 jobs from this merger?
That’s what usually happens when private companies merge
Well that sucks
I work for a New Zealand telco and we merged with one of our rivals a couple of years ago. We’ve subsequently lost hundreds of people, maybe even low thousands. There are more efficiencies to be had than just 50 roles, a number that low wouldn’t have allowed the business case to stack up. Watch out for a considerable number more over the coming months.
Is my old debt with them forgiven? And would 3 welcome me?
Nice to know if I need to move from my present one.
Lol.
They increased the cost of my internet add-on from €9.99 to €14.99 today with no warning so I’ll be switching providers asap.
Sweet lord , out of the frying pan into the fire , welcome to ” no signal land”. 3
I hope the roaming charges improve!
Don’t worry, the much maligned EU is looking after your pocket on that front:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulations#Common_limits
Outside the EU, you’re on your own. I was in the states for work last week and was quote 10 euro per MB data roaming
O2 brilliant company. Fantastic customer service – always. Wins hangs down compared to competitors. Hope this ethos and work ethic does not change during and post merger.
B, yourself, would not agree with you there was with O2, left due to sh!t customer service, was with VF, left due to high charges and sh!t customer service and no signal, now with emobile, not a bad deal with them and good signal, but guess what sh!t customer service, 2 out of 3 not bad,
I nearly needed counselling after an Emobile BAD experience. Shocking treatment and really terrible customer service. Couldn’t believe in took 8 weeks to sort out receiving wrong phone and then getting overcharged!
All phone companys and upc and sky have absolutely the worst customer services one can imagine. Pure head wrecking muck.
Been with three with 5 years best network really.
Despite other news sites taking part in 3′s corporate smugness and back slapping, there has been very little mention of the shop closures or job losses. This should be highlighted, as 3 have now embarked on an advertising campaign to tell everyone how great they are. I wonder how much that cost?
I found their ad slots on newstalk this morning almost offensive. 1.5m people being celebrated by 3 having been transferred over without their consent!! I left 3 years ago cause their signal and customer service was beyond brutal now I’m a customer of there’s despite the fact that in an openmarket I would have forever avoided them like the plague.I’ve been with O2 over 10 years now and simply don’t accept that despite there no longer being operational in Ireland I’m somehow tied to 3 having signed a resigned a contract with O2 fifteen months ago. There’s a reason 3 couldn’t penetrative the irish market as they’re a mess and I don’t care what they claim the service will be going forward, they have to earn their custom not take it by force. I’m quite tempted to cancel my O2 standing order and move elsewhere as they’re quoting me €369 to leave 3 despite never signing a contract with them. Despite their protestations that they have merged, they simply haven’t, 02 simply no longer exist!!!
Don’t know if it’s a coincidence or this merge has decked up my coverage but I’ve spent the last 10 mins waiting for photos to upload on my business page!!!! My wifi connection is also down and I’m relying on the old 3g until Eircom pulls their fingers out of their bootys and sorts my wifi. Never had an issue before today with 3g service.
Mobile operators are very divisive. People always give out about one, move to another and then eventually give out about them too. Personally I find Vodafone excellent. No matter where I am in the world it works. Plus I’ve had 4G for the last 16 months. You generally get what you pay for.
And you most definitely pay for Vodafone.
Any bill amount I’ve ever heard about from friends with Vodafone has been extortionate (and I say this as an ex. Vodafone shareholder!!)
I’ve had 4G since it got rolled out with 3, they kept saying a charge was going to apply from such and such a date and then pushing the dates back so they’ll likely do that again.
Wasn’t getting it in my house, but got a new phone and that fixed the problem. Have never had a problem with customer service, always found them great, the staff in my local shop are great, and there isn’t a hope in hell of me managing to go over my data limit which according to the my3 site is over 2 million mb.
And all cheaper than a similar calls / texts offer from Vodafone..
The worst I can say is that the 4G can be patchy. But it’s a wireless signal, that’s to be expected.
@winding down, just heard that entire ad campaign, it’s not novel or original, it’s irritating and typical of the large corporation stuff. You must love your new 3 job.
I’m with 3′ live in Lucan and have to stand by my kitchen door to be able to talk on my HTC to of the range phone. Grrrr
Everyone knows you get what you pay for,that’s why vodafone is the best around
I just want normal coverage. Where I live get one bar if lucky, cannot make of receive calls. Thats with 02, vodaphone no better.
Will we get a better deal?
Will this effect 48
They said the o2 money card would never change and now they HAVE changed it. I will NEVER trust 3 Network again,
G4? Your only able to get G3 in towns.
i
Internet add on gone up from E10 with O2 to E14.99 with 3
Data is free and unlimited on 3 Billpay and postpaid. You’re reading about a post-paid add-on that only applies in exceptional cases.
have your say