March 2019 Grocery Challenge

pamsdish

taka wrote: »

I know how you feel... Any £2 coins I get while grocery shopping go to my 2019 Mortgage-Free Wannabe fund. I've had £10 worth this month! :eek: Currently avoiding my local Tesco as one lad there was responsible for £6 of them this week alone! :rotfl:

I have an ALL change goes into a dish, gets sorted when worth doing, eyeballing yesterday looks at least 15 £ coins, really get cross when I give a tenner for a spend and get, sorry no notes, and can get 7-8 £s

K9sandFelines

K9sandFelines wrote: »

£2.54 spent last night (11th) in work and impending Sainsburys shop tomorrow, which should come to £44.90.

Off to add up now as it might shock me into not spending so much the rest of the month

Sainsburys order was spot on, but since then i have had the following spends.

Morrisons (date unsure) £4.25
Work (16th) £2.82
B and M (16th) £6.75

Need to check whether i have declared spends of £3.64 via DD2 in Morrisons on the 8th also.

Lifeisforliving19

Well...took OH shopping on Saturday...big mistake as usual:rotfl:. He wanted coffee we didn't need (just because it was on offer and he only has enough of his "special" coffee left to last a couple of weeks)! He should therefore wait a couple of weeks before throwing it in the trolley, it may still be on offer, but he can't understand that concept. He also wanted yellow stickered cherry scones, that we didn't really need. As you know, if its yellow stickered it needs using up. So he buys 4 scones on a Saturday, and knows I won't eat them as I am GF now. He opened the packet on Sunday and had 1 and the other 3 are shoved in a plastic container, waiting to go stale! :rotfl:
So anyway, my budget of only spending £20 in Mr M's, ended up being £23.22. A bit more in Greengrocer and then a packet of tissues from the local Nisa yesterday, brings new total up to £132.75/£180. Still sure I can pull this off and hopefully reduce it even further next month.

PipneyJane

Does anyone have a good chocolate cake recipe to share that uses cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate? Many thanks.

I've tried modifying an existing - non chocolate cake - recipe by adding a tablespoon-or-so of cocoa, but the end result didn't taste of chocolate.

- Pip

tighteningthebelt

PipneyJane wrote: »

Does anyone have a good chocolate cake recipe to share that uses cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate? Many thanks.

I've tried modifying an existing - non chocolate cake - recipe by adding a tablespoon-or-so of cocoa, but the end result didn't taste of chocolate.

- Pip

i think you can put quite a lot of cocoa powder in, if you take the same volume of flour out of any standard sponge recipe.... like 2 or three tablespoons... others might know better.

elsiepac

Thanks Pip, I enjoy doing the GC, just always worry that I'm not posting enough and that I am not joining in enough! I am absolutely shattered at the moment - not helped by a vitamin D deficiency that I discovered by insisting on blood tests, that was probably going on for months as the reading was so low! I do always read everyone's posts though!!

thriftwizardReally hope this setback was a temporary thing and that you are feeling better and on the mend.

Suffolk_lass

PipneyJane wrote: »

Does anyone have a good chocolate cake recipe to share that uses cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate? Many thanks.

I've tried modifying an existing - non chocolate cake - recipe by adding a tablespoon-or-so of cocoa, but the end result didn't taste of chocolate.

- Pip

Here is a link to the famous Chocolate Guinness Cake (Nigella) recipe. This year we shall mostly be serving this and shortbread when we open the Village Gardens - it is a famed recipe in USA and she has converted it to grams from cups with little else changed.

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Here is a link to the famous Chocolate Guinness Cake (Nigella) recipe. This year we shall mostly be serving this and shortbread when we open the Village Gardens - it is a famed recipe in USA and she has converted it to grams from cups with little else changed.

Thanks for the link, Suffolk Lass. Sadly, the cake is meant for work - my colleagues bring in biscuits, so I bake - and we're in a "dry" industry which means I can't bring in anything that has alcohol in it. Chocolate Guinness Cake is disqualified on those grounds. I'll keep looking.

- Pip

euronorris

Hi All!


Hope you all had a good weekend. Had parents visiting this weekend, so spent Saturday blitzing the house in preparation for their arrival, and then Sunday was swimming with DD (and my parents managed to arrive just in time to watch her) and then making a roast for us all, and yesterday we went to Bristol Zoo for the day (we have membership).


So, I spent £1.18 on Saturday (as my neighbour picked up some cheap cereal in B&M for me - 2 packets).
NSD on Sunday and yesterday (mum has a disabled badge for parking so that was free, and our membership means we didn't pay entry and my parents were already a concession, but got it half price thanks to our membership, so only £11 for the both of them. We took packed lunches for our trip )
Today - Lidl - 70p on garlic baguettes


So, new total: £295.20/£300

Suffolk_lass

PipneyJane wrote: »

Thanks for the link, Suffolk Lass. Sadly, the cake is meant for work - my colleagues bring in biscuits, so I bake - and we're in a "dry" industry which means I can't bring in anything that has alcohol in it. Chocolate Guinness Cake is disqualified on those grounds. I'll keep looking.

- Pip

This one is meant to be rather rich - I have made a cake with the same ingredients but not this version of the icing Old fashioned Chocolate Cake