August 2008 Grocery Challenge

WelshWoofer

Morning from a drizzly Manchester!

Had a quietish weekend with just one major shop at Mr Ts -£37 spent. I didn't seem to get much for my money - the vast majority of it was fruit, veg, fresh herbs and dairy stuff (and a bit of washing powder, few toiletries etc). I'm on the SW diet and thought that it would be good to try some new recipes to add a bit of variety - so last week I trawled through all of my WW and SW recipe books and came up with a few new things to try this week - the only thing is that the bits and pieces I needed to make them cost a fortune! I needed extras like fresh herbs, feta cheese, field mushrooms, cottage cheese, etc.

Oh well, at least it'll be a change!

I made the WW pastry free quiche yesterday - it was OK but a bit bland for my liking - was just surprised that it came out like th one in the picture as my culinary skills are not the best!

I'm trying cheese and garlic stuffed mushrooms for tea tonight - we'll see!;)

Anyway, I'm going to try to spend no more than a fiver between now and next Friday (15th) on food as I have enough for meals (apart from a few meat sausages from the butcher for OH) to last through until at least the middle of next week.

I have to try to economise a bit if I'm going to make the target - will be hard though!

Noticed yesterday prices are still going up - 1pt of semi skimmed milk in Mr Ts was 42p it was 40p the last time I bought one from there a week or two ago. (52p in the local shop!:eek: )

Bye for now....

gunsandbanjos

Tigerpants wrote: »

Actually, I will go and have a look around now as I am HUGE into baking and that takes up loads of money on eggs, flour, icing sugar etc. so if there are any additional hints and helps on this I would be very, very grateful but will go and look around too.

Do you use value flour for your baking? I use value flour/honey/stork etc, works out fairly cheap. I use value oats for my flapjacks, wont use own brand golden syrup though, doesnt taste right. Also noticed in supermarket was cheaper per kg to buy the smaller icing sugar, always check the price per kg.

Bella79

Hi all
I did a little test yesturday i imputted last weeks shopping list in tesco.com and it came to £35.00 but i spent £60.00 so the rest of the spends were jst on things id seen going round !!!
Think i will be trying online this week

mumoffour77

Gunsandbanjos.....I noticed that too on sat!!
But the Tescos here in NI seem to have different prices in Different stores too!! I always buy in bulk but after i noticed this i started checking other weights value too!!
I used MrTs value oats for twinks hobnobs last nite and they were delicious!!! I had no bic powder or golden syrup but i used honey instead!!!:)

Debz66

Hi all,

Just updating, been to Mr T today and picked up a few bits, managed to spend £13.19 but after discounts and MOCs only had to pay £5.28 so not bad :T . Will add the whole amount to sig though as really want to track what I am actually spending.
Tha did include som choc and couple other bits for the kids as have my neice and nephew today as well.

Hopefully won't need to spend much more any time soon as have loads in now.

madmittens

Morning all!

Been away from internet for a week and you're already up to 38 pages!

I've just declared my total on July's thread (£74.14 out of £80, woohoo). For this month, I'd like to set my budget at £70 please.

Off to do some catching up ...

Money_saving_Diva_2

angelnikki wrote: »

I cup = 8fl oz so your weights are wrong

1 cup of flour weighs a different amount to 1 cup of sugar List of conversions

1 cup flour = 140g
1 cup sugar = 200g

Might be easier to just leave your measurements in cups. HTH & thanks for the recipes

Nikki x

I went to a site and checked all my weights.. can't remember the site but I googled and wrote it all down carefully and those are the correct measurements as I found them, but I left the cup ones on there anyway just in case! I did ask an american friend too but I can see I was wrong now. *sighs*

Thanks for your help Nikki and hope noone used my british measurements and messed up the cookies. They seem fairly bullet proof but would hate for anyone to have wasted ingredients cos of me. Obviously some of the sites on google aren't matching up! *laughs* - don't I feel an idiot now thanks to Mr Google...lol?? Anyway, as you said, stick to the cup measurements I listed there and you can't go wrong!

Diva. x

OrkneyStar

Morning, oops no, afternoon :eek: .
NSD for us today as we need nothing and are using up stuff before we go.
Pasta for team with tuna and sweetcorn for DH/DS and just sweetcorn for me.
Am now recording price of everything on all shopping lists on excel, storing alongside meal plans, getting toooo organised lol!
Might pack DS's stuff today and maybe take him out somewhere nice later.
x

Tigerpants

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

Do you use value flour for your baking? I use value flour/honey/stork etc, works out fairly cheap. I use value oats for my flapjacks, wont use own brand golden syrup though, doesnt taste right. Also noticed in supermarket was cheaper per kg to buy the smaller icing sugar, always check the price per kg.

Thank you for that tip! :beer:

I started to use the value flour this past month and to be honest no-one noticed any difference at all. I do try to use Stork wherever possible but some of the lighter cake recipes are a lot denser if you use it and when I used it to make some biscuits the dough was a lot wetter. Again though the end result with the biscuits was no difference, just added a bit more flour and they were fine.

Will definitely look more at the prices per kg on the sugar etc. and get some of the value oats too.

Just ordered some cake cases for my son's birthday party from www.sugarshack.co.uk as they worked out a lot cheaper than some of the fancy ones from other places

Have just written out my meal planner from now until we go on holiday (12th) and the shopping list I need to finish of the meals so I hope that it will keep us on track.

We're also not drinking alcohol during the week and I think that will make a huge difference to our budget.

angelnikki

Money_saving_Diva wrote: »

angelnikki wrote: »

I cup = 8fl oz so your weights are wrong

1 cup of flour weighs a different amount to 1 cup of sugar List of conversions

1 cup flour = 140g
1 cup sugar = 200g

Might be easier to just leave your measurements in cups. HTH & thanks for the recipes

Nikki x

I went to a site and checked all my weights.. can't remember the site but I googled and wrote it all down carefully and those are the correct measurements as I found them, but I left the cup ones on there anyway just in case! I did ask an american friend too but I can see I was wrong now. *sighs*

Thanks for your help Nikki and hope noone used my british measurements and messed up the cookies. They seem fairly bullet proof but would hate for anyone to have wasted ingredients cos of me. Obviously some of the sites on google aren't matching up! *laughs* - don't I feel an idiot now thanks to Mr Google...lol?? Anyway, as you said, stick to the cup measurements I listed there and you can't go wrong!

Diva. x

you are right that 1/2 cup = 4 oz but it is 4 fluid oz which is a volume not a weight. The weight of 4fl oz of things is not 4oz It varies depending on what it is IYSWIM (eg sugar is heavier than flour). The weights are as follows:

1/2 cup butter or marg [strike](4oz)[/strike] =125g /4.5oz butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar [strike](4oz)[/strike] =115g/ 4oz sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar [strike](4oz)[/strike] =115g/ 4oz sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter - I use crunchy [strike](4oz)[/strike] =150g/5.5oz peanut butter
1 egg
3/4 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 & 1/4 cup sieved flour (I have used self raising but don't think it matters much) [strike](10oz)[/strike] =150g /5.5 oz flour
1/4 tsp salt

Nikki x