August 2008 Grocery Challenge

LittleMissAspie

Can I join this? Our food spending is all over the place, £150 one month, £90 the next. Don't know why it's like that.

I'd like to make my August target £110. Have got a Tesco order coming tonight, it was £50-odd but won't know the real price until it gets here because they take the offers off afterwards. It's a lot of cupboard/freezer food and some household stuff. I hope we'll only need to buy fridge food for the rest of the month.

That's for two adults. We also have a cat but she has her own budget lol

Money_saving_Diva_2

Quote:
Originally Posted by gunsandbanjos
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.


I always use value flour and all I would say is it is worth sieving it... ccasionally I even sieve it twice as it isn't as fine as some of the branded ones, but as far as results go, I have never had a problem, all cakes and biscuits turn out fine!

Diva.x

WendysWorld

Just a quick update to see my signature! i've spent almost £88 on groceries this week but have an extra adult in the form of my mother. Having childcare nightmares as this is the first year we've had a schoolgoer. So had to fly my mum over from Ireland to help out bless her! We don't have any family over here apart from my sister who works full-time so it's a bit difficult at these time - and out of school clubs all add up.

Anyway, hope this month works out better than last. I can't believe how some of you can manage on so little! It's embarrassing when there's only two adults and two boys (5 and 1 and a half) in our house - but they are savages.....:rotfl:

BM

mouche

Hullo all....got our monthly Asda delivery yesterday breaking a streak of 9 NSDs. Well, actually that's not true because I bought teabags on Friday on my way home from work. We drink very little tea at home since we get home after work in time to have dinner straightaway. So we've only just managed to finish the bag of Tetley tea bags my father in law bought while visiting us in January! OH and I prefer Whittard teas though - feels posher and doesn't cost very much when you consider that we get 6 boxes of 50 tea bags each for £11. 300 tea bags will last us well over a year!

The Asda delivery was for £55.57 though about £6 of that came from my pocket money (tinned tuna for lunches) and the 'household expenses' fund which covers cleaning things and toiletries.

So total spend from grocery fund is £60.37. We've got plenty of food in. All I need is some fresh juice (will pick up some bottles of Minute Maid for £1 from Tesco on my way home) and some frozen mushrooms (Asda doesn't stock it so will go to Mr.S). That should be all we need for the month apart from bits and pieces and irresitible whoopsies! Of course we have a guest this weekend and a couple over the bank holiday but I think we can still manage.

EagerLearner

I think we're at £21 so far, that does include bulk buying the £2 loo roll in Sommerfield though (we got 2 lots) and also flour, yeast etc which we woudn't normally buy.

We then made our first ever hand made bread last night, which I rate at 7/10, not bad for 1st try! I plan to make it wholegrain next time though. So eventually, we worked out bread would cost say £0.25 (flour) + £0.30 milk & £0.10 yeast = £0.65. At least 50% less than normal bread. Then if I use no milk it'd be more like £0.45 for wholemeal.

EDIT > Can anyone confirm or deny that the cheapie £1.12 pack of 12 x loo rolls (economy) from say Sainsburys, are any worse than the £2 Sommerfield (for 9 rolls) deal on at the mo? If not, I will stick to them for £1.12...

Frugaldom

Good afternoon from sunny S.W. Scotland.

Just adding my tuppence worth for the day regarding saver brands - I did my stockpile with mostly saver brands, unless there were BOGOF or other deals that worked out cheaper. You can normally find a way of making cheap foodstuffs taste the same as their more expensive counterparts as, I believe, most of the raw ingredients are sourced from the exact same places of origin. I have found no difference between baking with 36p flour and 99p flour, I have found no difference between expensive macaroni and 19p pasta shapes and if the cheese is on special offer, adding some seasoning to your cheese sauce makes all the difference. A half teaspoon of cheap mustard makes all the difference, IMHO.

With such a tiny budget to feed 3 adults, it is difficult getting variety into the main meals but we are managing to include the 5-a-day fruit & veg by basing most dishes on tomatoes and by having desserts based on fruit - stewed, tinned or dried. Tinned tomatoes and tomato puree are still reliably cheap if you don't mind using basic store's own brand savers. There's also a fair variety to choose from in the garden right now - leeks, broccoli, peas and, soon, tomatoes. Potatoes are plentiful, as we're getting enough for a meal for 3 (at least) off each plant, so I'll have no expense there. My best tip for anyone wanting to go down the stock pile and then minimum weekly spend route would be to bulk buy all toiletries, laundry & cleaning products, milk powder, pasta, rice and tins whilst they are available cheap or on offer, stock up with herbs and spices, homegrow whatever you can even if it's just a few potatoes in buckets or a window sill garden, keep the baking ingredients cupboard full and never throw away any food - freeze it for another day or make it into something else for later.

I know all of the above has been said often before, but I find that if I keep reminding myself of it then I tend to discover more ways of doing all of the above by comparing notes on here and in the 4k challenge

egon

I am so *** with myself! The playgroup was closed today, so I decided to go to Worcester and fill up the car at Mr T and see if we can find some whoopsies. We had no luck with whoopsies. But I still managed to spend £17.58. Mostly stuff for stocking up, but I really really didn't need it.

Also, I found, the Mr T in Worcester is very expensive. Lately I have been better shopping between our local Lidl and Mr M. Lots more bargains too.

But I can do with the points, as I need them for my OU studies and our RAC membership......

Egon

nessquic80

Hi all, well stocked up on tolitries now from wilko and mr T, did a weetabix choc cake......oooooooohhhhhh, it was lush, defo making it again! found some lovely ideas for quick dinners in the new somerfield book which was lying on the table at work, so made a quick copiy of the recipes,med veg and cous cous, pot and broc fritarta and some others.I plan to make a veg quiche some time this week,uumm.When DS starts PT school in september im gonna go back to work full time(37.5hrs) i currently do 30hrs so the extra ££££ will come in handy.Lots of ironing to catch up on( i hate it) so better go do it!!!

OrkneyStar

Hot Dog Surprises

You need
1 pack MacDougalls Puff Pastry Mix (7p in Tesco right now) or homemade Puff Pastry.
6 Hot Dogs (or Sausages).
Tomato puree
Garlic puree
Handful or two cheese (we used Red Leices)
Milk

Make pastry as normal and roll out so that it is big enough to fit the 6 sausages into it with a gap either side.
Mark the lines to cut the pastry so each sausage will be wrapped up in the pastry a la half open sausage roll. Lift the sausages off for now!
Lightly brush the pastry with a mix of tom/puree.
Lay the sausages back on and cut the pastry.
Sprinkle with cheese and then fold pastry over to close (it does not matter if it completely closes over or just half way).
Brush the pastry with a little milk.
Cook at 220 for 15 mins.
yummmmmmm

You could use normal sausages (although I would maybe cook them first), or veggie sausages (not sure about how long these need cooking). You could also use mustard instead of garlic.
We served with beans and used half as much of everything as were trying to use up half pack leftover pastry.
Also made cheese pinwheels for DS by spreading his little piece with cheese, rolling up and then flattening and cutting into 2 inch pieces. Cooked as above.

philsmum

Hi everyone
Just checking in to update my signature, have got to try very hard this month because I went over by quite a lot last month. Made my bread this morning, when I came to put it in the oven it was cold, it had been on for 1/4 hr . I think the element must have gone because the hobs are working OK. OH will have a look at it later. At least I was able to cook my bread, I recently bought a small steam oven but have only used it for meat and veg but it cooked the bread really good.
I havent read all the post yet but have looked on Morrisons web site and they have 8 items for 50p again, inc. tomatoes, lettuce, chopped chicken, burgers, buns & sausage sorry forgot what else but I dont really think they are giving much away.
Sorry for going on.
Have a nice day.