May 2008 Grocery Challenge

WOMO2

i watch the bm as the dough is mixing if the dough is really sticky i shake a little extra flour in until the ball of dough sort of skids around the pan ,the secret to good dough is a bit sticky but not too sticky and because flour absorbs different levels of water recipes aren't always accurate


Hope this makes sense/helps

Shaz

I have been watching this thread now for over a year and think that maybe it's finally time to join!!! Put me down for £150 for two adults and a very greedy dog!! At the moment I think we spend double that amount (gulp) which is certainly more than we can afford.:o

My wife and I are currently going through the process to become foster parents so by the end of the summer we could have another two people living in the house and I fear that if we don't learn to budget our food money now then we could be in trouble.

We are also just in the process of refurbishing our kitchen. I have a big American style fridge/freezer arriving tomorrow which should help us to keep track of things a bit better. As I move our food into it from our old fridge and freezer I think I'll make a list of what we have got and see how long we can last.

oooh pennypinching that looks gorgeous - definately one I am going to do next time we have some chilli or something.

angelatgraceland wrote: »

The easiest way I find of lasting out a five week month if you have same budget as the normal 4 weeks is to have an 8(or 9) day week-if that makes any sense? If you do your shop normally on a Sat-last until Sun or Mon and the following week til Tues or Weds. This evens it out a bit. Also its good if you can have a little over from the previous month-too late for May but it may help for the future.

Hi angel, I assume the above is in response to somebody asking about how best to budget for 5-week months, but I couldn't find where the question had been asked. Anyway, if anybody's interested, the way I cope with a 5-week month is to budget weekly to begin with, even though I get paid monthly

As my income does give me some room to manoeuvre, I start off by saying I need about x amount per week (I live alone, and budget is normally £20 if I'm not doing a storecupboard challenge). So I multiply that by 52* for the number of weeks in the year, and divide it by 12 to see how much I need to be setting aside from my salary per month for that level of spending. So: £20 x 52 / 12 = £86.67 a month for groceries, which sits as a line in my accounts spreadsheet, and on a 4-week month I take £80 out of it, and on a 5-week month I take £100 out of it. Sometimes it is slightly in the red (for example if January was a 5-week month, I'd have subtracted £100 from an opening balance of £86.67, leaving me with a balance of -£13.33) but it never actually puts me into the red on my current account as it's all paid on the following month's credit card bill anyway, IYSWIM.

Alternatively if your monthly budget is tighter than mine (I don't mean actual amount, I mean if there's nothing to spare outside of the grocery budget) you could do it a slightly different way, with the same result. Rather than saying "I need £20 a week, how much do I need per month to allow for that?" you could say "I have x amount per month, what does that give me per week as an even split over the year?" So, let's say you have £260 a month and not a penny more, you say £260 x 12 / 52 = £60. So you have £60 per week, every week, regardless of the length of the month. So in a 4-week month you give yourself a budget of £240, and in a 5-week month you give yourself a budget of £300. Then your budget is consistent throughout the year.

I hope that's of use to somebody who might not have thought of doing it that way, and I hope I've explained it clearly!

*Actually, every 5-6 years there is technically such a thing as a 53-week year. That's because there are 365 days in the year, not 364, so it doesn't divide evenly by 52. In a 53-week year there are 5 x 5-week months in the year rather than 4 - in other words, if you organise your budgeting based on the calendar year, and January 1st falls on a Friday one year, and your budgetary week starts on a Friday, that gives you a 53-week year because 31st December will also be on a Friday. I would plan that into the budget at the start of the year.

You can make a good chillie or Spag Bol with Passata. You could make some pizza topping with it and freeze ay remainders - passats, herbs, whizzed up veg, etc.

Mandy moo - I am sure I read on here somewhere that yoghurt cake freezes fine in slices. maybe try posting on the Yoghurt cake thread ???

DH is going to take me to ASDA tonight to get Sadies milk - I hope I can stay strong and not spend loads

T xx