please help

SailorSam

If you're making soup you should start with a base of dried soup mix and pearl barley, then throw stockcubes and whatever veg you have in.
Curries and casseroles are made the same starting with a base of half a dozen assorted lentils, then tin of tomatoes ans dried spices and herbs. Just throw everything in a slowcooker and forget it.

pinksuedeshoes

SailorSam wrote: »

If you're making soup you should start with a base of dried soup mix and pearl barley, then throw stockcubes and whatever veg you have in.
Curries and casseroles are made the same starting with a base of half a dozen assorted lentils, then tin of tomatoes ans dried spices and herbs. Just throw everything in a slowcooker and forget it.

hi can i just ask dried soup mix do you mean a dried soup you add water too or the dried lentil/pea type? thanks:)

tea-tart-and-rice_3

also pinksuedeshoes (and everyone else) check out the printable coupons thread on m.s.e (its under "discount codes and vouchers", first sticky)

you've obviously got access to a pc and hopefully a printer too. There are loads of savvy shoppers on there who make their weekly budgets go much further by store offer/coupon combining. For example at the moment on facebook Spam are giving away daily vouhcers for free cans of spam - I know that spam is not great for healthy diets but you could use this for your family and not yourself - best thing is its free! Over the last few months there have been lots of voucher giveaways on facebook and generally coupon availability. Check out supersavvyme .co .uk (can't yet post links) so take out the spaces - their "tried and tested" section have lots of coupons. Also beforeishop . co. uk. Also Tesco and Sainsburys offer reward cards (nectar/clubcard) and regularly send out conditional spend vouchers e.g £2 wys £20, and sometimes these come out of the till with your receipt. Tesco national policy is to accept other stores conditional spend vouchers so you could maximise your shop by using, for example, a sainsburys conditional spend voucher in Tesco. Very often also with free item vouchers, like the spam (I give as an example) the voucher itself is worth £1.76. Tesco recently had Spam on 2 for £2 so with two vouchers (which you were allowed to print) you had an automatic saving off the rest of your shopping of £1.52. Lots of other vouchers recently that spring to mind that have given an item for free when combined with a store offer have been bottles of fairy fabric softener, lenor fabric softener, sharwoods curry sauces, dove deodorant, bottles of dr pepper, weight watchers meal pots, galaxy chocolate large share bars, muller light yoghurts, box of go-cat biscuits and many many more over the last months. I repeat again that I know a lot of these items are not in the healthiest category but as you have a family you don't have to eat it yourself. Spam cut into little cubes, with red peppers, sweetcorn, spring onion, mixed together with low fat fromage frais makes a lovely salad dish served with pasta. However, a lot of these items are storeable and non perishable (like the fabric softener) and its very satisfying have a stash of something when you are on a budget.

Also, think about wombling. Asda are running a highly promoted price guarantee check. Wombling is the art of finding a discarded receipt in a trolley or around the car park and entering the details in the price check system. Sometimes this can produce a printable voucher for varying amounts. Ive had many for under a pound but equally Ive had lots for £2+, £3+ and sometimes £5+. You just present this with the receipt at the till point with your next shop and voila - money off your shopping.

As to the dieting pink.s.s it can be done. Two years ago I lost loads on the slimming world plan which is basically low fat eating - but you have to be in "the zone" completely to succeed. Family tragedy unfortunately threw me off the plan completely and much of what I lost has been gained but I know one day (soon I hope) I will get there again. As I come to terms with my loss and stop numbing my pain with chocolate that is!

Also pink s.s google extreme couponing in the U.S. You may gain some inspiration from these ladies on the savvyness of their shopping. I know unfortunately in the UK our supermarkets are not quite so coupon friendly, indeed there are not as many coupons about for a start, but their determination is quite infectious.

If you have an Asda near you - Id get yourself down there (with your kids even, they are great for crawling under trolleys!) and womble a few discarded receipts. Kids are also useful if you feel a little embarrassed to start with by picking up the receipts for you and you can just look at the next person and tutt, and say tsk, kids eh? whilst shrugging your shoulders. lol. On my very down days I do often wonder if this is what my life has come to, as I search the windy corners (where the receipts tend to blow into) for others' receipts but then when I get home and find that my search rewarded me with a few vouchers (some days Ive found receipts that have given me vouchers totalling over a tenner) then I smile. You have 28 days from printing to use these vouchers and you can use multiple ones at the till.

Do hope you keep your thread updated with your successes.

lovesabargain123

Have a look at sainsburys feed your family for £50 a week

http://www.sainsburys-feed-your-family.co.uk/

I know that's £10 over budget but the first order is £10 off and then you could possibly tweak it to get the price down

pinksuedeshoes

wow wombling that sounds fun what a great idea will deffo be of to asda round the corner when its built. Really sorry to hear of your family tragedy i hope you are ok. The help i have received on this forum has been fantastic i just want to say a big thankyou to everyone. At the moment i am planning my first meal homemade soup and wholemeal bread with rice pudding and a blob of jam for pudding for kids and OH. Im not a pudding person so lots of soup for me.
I also thought i could use some as a pasta sauce for the day after as it will be quite thick what do you think?

Thank you everybody:j

DitaVonTee

Invest in a slow cooker if you can, these can be brought pretty cheaply from argos for under £10 last time I looked, you can cook all kinds of meals in them cheaply, such as casseroles and curries etc with very little effort.

SailorSam

pinksuedeshoes wrote: »

hi can i just ask dried soup mix do you mean a dried soup you add water too or the dried lentil/pea type? thanks:)

I usually go to Morrisons but any of the supermarkets will do.
I get 500g packets of soup mix; pearl barley; all sorts of lentils , green ... red .... buckwheat ... mung beans ..... black eyed beans .. butter beans .. yellow split peas .... chickpeas ... haricot beans. They have all sorts at about £1 a packet. The best one to start off with is probably the red lentils to bulk out curries etc.
Another good one is dried peas, as well as putting these in casseroles i plant them in an old margarine tub with in some compost and in a few weeks you'll have little salad leaves growing.
The one thing i think is most important and gives the most flavour to any home cooking is onions, you add them to almost anything. I only get cheap ones from Tesco £1.18 for i think its 1.5kg, then it's tins of tomatoes when there on offer perhaps 6 for £1

Gigervamp

Soup is really good for losing weight too.

I watched a programme a while ago where they did an experiment. One group of people were given a meal and a glass of water. The second group were given exactly the same, but it was blended into a soup.
It was found that the soup took longer to digest than the meal with water, thereby making you feel fuller for longer.

Also, make sure you take your time eating as that's been shown to help with weight loss too because it gives your body time to let you know that you're full.
My hubby is a bit overweight. Although we have the same size portions, he'll have finished his dinner before I've eaten half of mine. (He also snacks-pork pies and choccy biscuits are faves.)

delain

Wombling sounds fantastic... I'm totally going to give that a go :rotfl: I watched extreme couponing and thought it's a shame you can't do it here because it's all 'one coupon per customer' and 'not to be used in conjunction with any other offer' I thought that was stingy even before I saw the extreme couponing!

tea-tart-and-rice_3

Im so glad to see there are at least two wombling converts already - pink s.s and delain. Wombling in Tesco is also good especially if the person has not had their clubcard points added. Its a good way to build up a fair amount of clubcard points without any spend on your part. You can ask for two receipts to be added per day. Only word of caution though, and its a personal risk, but if the person has paid with a credit card there was allegedly once a story that a wombler had a visit from the police because apparently that credit card was stolen. Who knows if this is true or not, a lot gets "chinese whispers" on the net. I have to be honest, I haven't let it put me off, Ive gained around 5000 clubcard points this quarter from wombles alone.

Tesco also do a price guarantee check (but they only check against Asda) but they are quite selective about what they are prepared to check and unless its a carefully selected shop with items that are known to be comparable most receipts give little reward.

Asda on the other hand compare with four rivals, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Tesco and also give 10% on top of the difference.

My best wombling find has been £10.51 off one receipt so the biggies are out there.

I like to womble most days, sunny weekends (with a slight breeze) are the best Ive found, the litter pickers in the car parks seem to be fewer and people often do impromptu bbq and will just shop for what they need rather than like a weekly shop where they may be more careful. They are also not so worried about taking their receipts home because they want to get their barbies going, lol so often their receipts are fluttering around the carpark like butterflies. Some of my best wombling finds have been attached to flora and fauna around the carpark. Never underestimate! Go fot it! I love wombling, its quite addictive. I wish I could post links, (Ive rejoined with a new name and can't it seems for a while) recently in Martin's newsletter was an article about a guy who collected for charity and wombled in Asda, all his proceeds went to his Charity, both Asda and Tesco gave it their seal of approval. I reckon if you google it you may find it.

I can vouche for soup being a dieter's friend.

Would love to hear of your wombling successes. Thank you for your kind words pink s.s. I know this sounds so dreadful but I have taken some comfort from the news of Amy's passing, as I have for the last two years carried an enormous amount of guilt that I could have done more. Knowing that Amy's family did the "more" that I wished I could have done, i.e. the expensive stays at "the Priory" and all that only a bottomless pit of a purse could obtain in terms of therapies and support, yet sadly they still lost their girl. It lightens my mood a little to know that I could have done no more, I may have prolonged things, but I would still have suffered my loss. Guilt is a terrible thing.

Anyway, back to topic, you've had a lot of really supportive advice on here pink s.s. makes a change from so many threads that have visits from the gloomy gremlins. Lets all help and encourage each other eh?

x