December 2008 Grocery Challenge

LilacPixie

Thanks again. I'm off tobedbut i will be fourm searchinglater one.

SunnyGirl

LilacPixie wrote: »

Thanks again. I'm off tobedbut i will be fourm searchinglater one.

Have a look for MBAZ's 'Feed a Family of Four for a month on 20 pounds' thread it's truly inspiring. I've cut our grocery budget in half following all the advice from here. My dh has a terribly sweet tooth too so I sympathise. I find a pudding after the evening meal does help & also tell him how much the budget is & how it's been spent, hopefully it'll help deter him I felt mean at first telling my dh that he couldn't graze throughout the evening but when I saw how much he could get through I didn't feel so bad - everyone has to be on board for a drastic reduction like you're doing :T Well Done!

apple_mint

I bought this book, Muffins - Fast and Fantastic, two or three years ago with a gift voucher I'd been given.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Muffins-Fast-Fantastic-Susan-Reimer/dp/0952885832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230886668&sr=8-1

It's my most used recipe book and I haven't had a single failure. It will be a lot cheaper though to use the muffin recipes from the OS board. Muffins are brilliant because they are so easy to make and you can alter the flavours very easily. I bake a couple batches and then freeze them individually for lunch boxes. Saves us an absolute fortune. Recently I've graduated to using silcon bun cases (a bought a couple of sets from ASDA for £2 a set) and this saves even more. They just get brought home, washed and used again. I find you don't even need a special muffin tray if you use these - they stand quite nicely on any oven tray. For gift giving though I've still got some standard paper muffin cases (Wilko have some cheap ones).

My OH has a sweet tooth and I find that Muffins are a cheap way of satifying this. They cost a lot less than the bought ones.

In addition they are a great way of bartering A batch of muffins in return for apples, eggs etc.

Muffins can be made with a base recipe and have different flavouring - so I keep a well stocked storecupboard with glace cherries, almond essence, vanilla essence, nuts, cocoa, chocolate (the cheap supermarket stuff - I chop this up instead of using chocolate chips), ginger, all spice etc. I didn't get these all at once, I simply added something extra to my shopping basket each month. The stocks gradually build up.

apple_mint

LilacPixie ... can I also recomend Twink's Hobnobs

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=471992

.... seriously the best biscuits in the world .. ... and very easy to make. Very moreish (you might have to hide them!)

Essex-girl_2

Hello all

Am declaring £475.11 for December which is over budget but not too bad. Also includes what I will be spending at Makro today.
x

annie123

Don't be hard on yourself if you don't do it first month and don't give up. You will find this is the friendliest most helpful board here;) so post anytime you like

I used to spend £500 pm +....and now do £300, could do less but don't need to. Thats for 4-5 adults, 2 bunnies and fish.

read the shopping forums regularly for bogof on nappies....there is often someone doing them.


when I started someone on here advised me to make changes slowly over a few months and they were right......if your finances allow try cutting out c**p first..we all used to buy it at some point! then aim by, say 3 months, to have made big changes.

If finances don't allow read this thread for some great ideas
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333
start from first page.

use stardrops/vinegar for all cleaning

1/2 the amount of washing powder

use vinggar for fabric conditioner or dilute fabric conditioner by 60%

good luck, you can do it.
x

juliapenguin

Good pudding which takes me 10 minutes altogether. I realise it's very sweet (sugar plus drinking choc) but it satisfies chocolate and carb cravings much more cheaply than going out to buy stuff. You could probably reduce the sugar a bit anyway.

This makes enough for at least four people, probably more if they aren't as greedy as us:

Mix:
6oz margarine, 6oz sugar, 3 eggs, 5oz SR flour, 3oz drinking choc (old fashioned style you add milk to, not instant, not cocoa), 3 eggs and 3 tbsp boiling water.

You can bake this as a cake at about 180 for half an hour or so, OR!!!!!
Microwave on high for 4 to 5 minutes and eat when it's still very soft and ever so slightly liquidy in places. If you undercook it a bit it's like it has its own sauce with it. I often add tinned cherries/custard/ice cream, but if your OH is still peckish and you haven't anything to go with it it's great on its own. It can be reheated in the microwave the next day but it's dry to eat as a cake after the microwave - if you want it as cold cake it's best to cook it in the oven.

My son used to take a piece of this cake in his lunch box every day and all the kids on his table would fight to barter with him for bites of it - he used to end up with a ludicrous amount of bought stuff like crisps and choc bars, which he thought were a great treat as we didn't have the money for those at the time! He's 21 now and an old friend he just found on Facebook asked him did his mum still make that chocolate cake!

purpleivy

juliapenguin wrote: »

My son used to take a piece of this cake in his lunch box every day and all the kids on his table would fight to barter with him for bites of it - he used to end up with a ludicrous amount of bought stuff like crisps and choc bars, which he thought were a great treat as we didn't have the money for those at the time! He's 21 now and an old friend he just found on Facebook asked him did his mum still make that chocolate cake!

Doesn't that feel good? I got a note in a Christmas card this year to say that the lads that went to toddlers with dd are out snowboarding....wearing the bobblehats with their names on that I made for them. The lads are now 18 1/2 years old! I did laugh. It was the fact that they BOTH still had the hats that got to me rather than the fact that they are actually wearing them.:rotfl: Both families are very well off, one was in private school. ALl the fancy skiwear. And he still has my hat!

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

re muffins...I chuck just about anything into muffins, for example we had xmas pud and custard leftover so i chucked the rest of that in and they were very nice! I have put leftover porrige into bread and muffins with good results too.

The trick is to not throw anything away. In my fridge I have 1/2 a jacket spud from the other day that witll quite happily go into my home made soup today (stock made with the bones from yesterdays chuck!)

Tesscha

Hi everyone,

Juliapenguin - Your recipe sounds yum and I like the idea of being able to put it into the microwave for a quick sweet treat. You've put down eggs twice in your recipe - is that correct?