August 2010 Grocery Challenge

wssla00

4.55 spend today on scones, rolls and bubble bath- all necessities LOL! Will go and update my sig now!

urchin

Not a good shop - I went to Sainsbugs with a list and brought a load of stuff I didn't need. I made the mistake of going straight from work whilst I was hungry.

I spent £64 but £14 was on magazines as I'm a sucker for food magazines!

gdyr1945

Thanks for inspiring me to PLAN. Have just turned everything out of my freezer and listed it. Hopefully will spend very little in the next month using up all this stuff.
When I was working I spent £500-£600 per month on food. Have cut back to £300 and hope, with help from these boards, to cut this back to less than £100. There are only 2 of us normally and I love cooking so I should be able to do this without going without much. Aim is to save enough to have holiday. Have to save as we only have state pension.
Fingers crossed

ChocClare

Finally updated my signature - I feel like it's been spend spend spend this month, though admittedly not much of it has been groceries. My weekly shop was £66.33 including delivery this week (didn't have a coupon, boo - but it saved me schlepping miles and wasting my time there so hey ho). I know all you experts will be laughing at my pathetic savings, but I was really pleased with that.

Also, I include our weekly takeaway in my challenge, and this week we bought a Tesco's own Indian instead of going to the Kashmir - £6.19 instead of about £15 and it wasn't half bad. Mr "Proud of my Indian Heritage" ChocClare said "we should do this again". Blimey gov! Only thing was the (extra) onion bhajis/samosas needed to be heated up in the oven so I had to save them for a day when I'm turning the oven on. But you got a LOT of pilau rice for your dollar (enough for the two of us plus two lunches for Mr ChocClare). OK, so they don't do a saag paneer but you can't have everything. And I have yet to find an Indian restaurant in the UK which can do a proper butter naan the way we had it in India (oh yum, I can TASTE it just thinking about it), mmmmmm

angelatgraceland

weezl74 wrote: »

Hi please excuse the delurk

Thanks for the recipe feedback guys much appreciated.

Hippeeeechiq I think as long as you keep to at least 10g of yeat for a single loaf you should be fine

Clare, can I ask what you feel might help the recipes be sufficient for a family? We have just under 100 recipes now, but I'm wondering what I need to build up more of to make it more usefull for people

Love to all, Weezl x

Ive just tried the bacon and onion pie and made the humous and apple curd tonight. It says it will keep for a month but Im not sure about whether I will use it up. Is it possible to freeze the apple curd? Ive sent an email via the site asking this.
Very pleased with the bacon and onion pie-Ive never steamed anything in this manner before-I did it as instructed in the slowcooker and we all found it very nice. Giving recipe to my cousin later for her to try.
Trying to get my family to try new things-not eaten humous before but eldest dd has bought it at a realy silly expensive price so I can def convert her when she gets back from her holiday. Froze one of those for next month or next week or whenever.
Sometimes I think the large batch cooking is scary as people don't like to take a chance on a huge recipe and it turn out wrong(not saying yours will)so this is why we don't try them often. Id do the bread one but my freezer is full and Im not sure I have bowls big enough for mixing or enough loaf tins. If there was a version for just 2 loaves that would be helpful. Also, I use my breadmaker generally so Id like to make the dough in there then bake it but that would mean just one loaf. Ive always failed at "playing around" with yeast-it never seems to get foamy for me and I never seem to get the dough to rise as it should even though I follow instructions-which is also why I sucessfully use my BM. I did see some other batch cook recipes and maybe they are the same sort of problems for me.
Anyway-with all the food ready for tea I wasnt very hungry tonight and only had a small portion as I went out for a meal lunchtime-and was discussing the bacon and onion pie and cheap menus as I was eating my pizza! Nice to have someone cook for you for the occasional treat!
Now I did work out that what I saved on my menu at home today paid for my restaurant meal so it was gulit free. Went to a pounshop and only spend £8. Had to give dd money though for her meal out and spending money(£15 total)but Im using my daytrip/hols budget for that this month(called it grocery shopping last month tho its not)
If I can have 2 really cheap days per week I think it will slice a chunk off of the weekly grocery spend-£10-£20 at a guess! As everything has gone up and out incomes are about a third of what they were I need to give this my best!

katholicos

Fed from the fridge, pantry and freezer today so very pleased not to have purchased any groceries for yet another day. I was going to place an online food order but some of the things jumped out of my basket by the time i got to the checkout so i decided not t go ahead with the order.

katholicos

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Ive just tried the bacon and onion pie and made the humous and apple curd tonight. It says it will keep for a month but Im not sure about whether I will use it up. Is it possible to freeze the apple curd? Ive sent an email via the site asking this.
Very pleased with the bacon and onion pie-Ive never steamed anything in this manner before-I did it as instructed in the slowcooker and we all found it very nice. Giving recipe to my cousin later for her to try.
Trying to get my family to try new things-not eaten humous before but eldest dd has bought it at a realy silly expensive price so I can def convert her when she gets back from her holiday. Froze one of those for next month or next week or whenever.
Sometimes I think the large batch cooking is scary as people don't like to take a chance on a huge recipe and it turn out wrong(not saying yours will)so this is why we don't try them often. Id do the bread one but my freezer is full and Im not sure I have bowls big enough for mixing or enough loaf tins. If there was a version for just 2 loaves that would be helpful. Also, I use my breadmaker generally so Id like to make the dough in there then bake it but that would mean just one loaf. Ive always failed at "playing around" with yeast-it never seems to get foamy for me and I never seem to get the dough to rise as it should even though I follow instructions-which is also why I sucessfully use my BM. I did see some other batch cook recipes and maybe they are the same sort of problems for me.
Anyway-with all the food ready for tea I wasnt very hungry tonight and only had a small portion as I went out for a meal lunchtime-and was discussing the bacon and onion pie and cheap menus as I was eating my pizza! Nice to have someone cook for you for the occasional treat!
Now I did work out that what I saved on my menu at home today paid for my restaurant meal so it was gulit free. Went to a pounshop and only spend £8. Had to give dd money though for her meal out and spending money(£15 total)but Im using my daytrip/hols budget for that this month(called it grocery shopping last month tho its not)
If I can have 2 really cheap days per week I think it will slice a chunk off of the weekly grocery spend-£10-£20 at a guess! As everything has gone up and out incomes are about a third of what they were I need to give this my best!

I made the humous today too, but my mini mixer thing doesn't really get it down to a smooth paste so it's rather lumpy, will have another go at it (rework the one i've done) tomorrow and see if i can't get it a bit smoother.

suzybloo

Had a good day yesterday with no spends except for my can of diet coke. Did go out for lunch but that was for DD2's 21st birthday so that did not count in the grocery equasion. Up early today and have the base of a trifle made for tea, and will use up some of the bargain 20p pizza's from the freezer with h/m potato wedges. Will need to get milk today, but dont need anything else at the moment.
have a good day folks,
Suz

Winky,_The_House_Elf

OK so far. Yesterday I had my brother coming around to remove a padlock from my shed (Stupid key had snapped off locking Mr Winkys bike which he cycles to the station on inside, and I had to bloomin take him insted) He said he hadn't eaten, so any chance of a bacon butty, I said yes but pick up some bacon on your way round. He also picked up a single tomato and his favourite Warburtons loaf. So no change from £4! But he did sort out my problem, and broke 2 drill bits trying to drill through the padlock!

Last night we picked up a solid beech baby changing unit which matches the cot we bought (Another ebay bargain), and by time we'd been to B&Q to pick up a new padlock, and paint samples for the nursary, it was gone 9 so we had toast for tea!

Starting to feel more confident that we will hit the GC challenge this month.

Winky x

I've added that to my total

franby64

Morning all

Spent about £8.46 yesterday on bread, B. M*atthews ham which I'd quietly stopped buying but the the kids requested, fabs and cornettos (2 for £3), rolls and some reduced sausages. I am well back in to the daily shopping bind:mad:

After saying I wouldn't do the 3 x £50 T*sco shops for extra points thing I changed my mind and the first shop comes this evening. I even meal-planned! This will take me up to about £210 spent.

I'm then going to have a small A*da shop on 17/8 (mainly to stock up on pepperoni pizzas for DS) and T*sco shops on 26/8 (we're going away for a few days before this) and 31/8 which will be the first Sept shop. If I try not spend anything in between this should work:rotfl:! It's a plan anyway..waiting to go wrong!

Hope everybody's month is going well!

P.S. It's raining....Where's my Summer!!