January 2008 Grocery Challenge

mumofcookers

oldMcDonald wrote: »

Those of you who get free yeast at supermarkets, do you just go to the bakery section and ask for yeast? What do you say to them? Have you ever been refused?

Can you use fresh yeast in BMs, or does it have to be used in hand made only?

from an OldMcDonald who is trying to pluck up the courage to ask for some yeast at her local ASDAs!

I don't know about ASDA but I used to work in the bakery section at Tescos and we gave away free yeast all the time!!! Quite a lot of people would ask for it.

You don't want to know how much of the bakery food that was throw away at night, it would make you cry!! After asking a manager why throw it away instead of putting in staff shop (if it didn't go when it was reduced) he just said it was easier to throw it away than to process it through the shop!!!
If you know what a bakers tray looks like, then some nights it was 10-12 of those!!

galacticgreen

Haven't posted for a couple of days, so here goes. Made a HM beef curry on sat eve. Was going to make something different for kids then decided to get them to try the curry. It went down well. Enough left for tea for 2 tonight. Thought I'd try naan bread in BM. It was great and soooo cheap!!
Made a big pot of vegetable soup last night. Got some lemons left from Christmas (why did I buy lemons??!!) Going to try to bake a lemon cake tomorrow night and then we'll make some flapjacks for snacks.
Went to Asda tonight. 2 for £1 on Vitalite margarine, 3 for £1 on tinned makerel which OH likes for his lunch and 2 for £1 on multipacks of hoola hoops which are good for lunchboxes. Also bag of sliced mushrooms from pizza counter reduced to 52p which I'll freeze in smaller batches for stews etc. Milk and orange squash. Total spend £12.04. Pleased with that. Will update totals in a minute. Fingers crossed for rest of the month. Keep up the good work everyone :T

Angelraesunshine

lil_me wrote: »

Angel, most milk says to keep in the fridge, but I just ignore the labels. Maybe try it with one and see if it's ok....or just a cup full if you are concerned about wasting it

Thanks its the tescos Pure stuff and its the only one i have found thats says DO NOT FREEZE on the side but am lucky i have one of those american fridge freezers ands have dedicated a shelf to it and put one in the drawer which my 8 year old complained about lol, it wont go to waste though the bbe date is the1st week of feb will all be drunk well before then just counted up thats over 16 litres of milk plus what we are already using in the fridge hehe

Mollymop5

Oh no... my mum phoned and asked if I knew quorn mince and quorn chicken pieces were only £1 each at asda.Silly her asked if she should pick me some up.I now have 10 packets of quorn mince and 10 packets of quorn chicken peices. Me thinks I need to update sig. I think I can eat well for a while now anyway.

tranquil_2

I've just typed a long post and the computer went and lost it! Spent so long typing that the site must have logged me out; when I went to post I had to re-log in and my computer went funny and my post disappeared. Soooo frustating!

Right, not posted for a few days. Have realised that I can do ok as long as I don't go near a supermarket- then budget gets blown. However since last post I have got abit better. As suggested, I'm now paying in cash, which means I have to think if I can afford it before putting it into my basket. I'm still tempted by reduced items, with mixed success. I'm currently craving salad (why don't I crave chocolate like normal pregnant women?) and have brought bits to make it more interesting. Haven't managed to meal plan yet but am planning on making this my next priority.

So far this month we've spent £187.37
Of this: £24.42 was DH lunches
And: - £10.50 was DD school dinners (I like her to have a hot meal at lunch time)
So really I've spent: £152.45

This includes a takeaway and lunch out, plus any cleaning household items I've picked up (also a card that I brought whilst at supermarket).

My total for the month is £350 so I have £162.63 left. It is still do-able but I think I need to have another crack at meal planning some cheap meals. DH and DD lunches won't help but that's next month's challenge!

Hopefully this time it will post and then I can go back and catch up on how you're all doing!

tranquil_2

Meant to add, my total does also include all the food for DD's birthday party (which won't have next month but there will probably be something else instead!).

witchypoo

oldMcDonald wrote: »

Those of you who get free yeast at supermarkets, do you just go to the bakery section and ask for yeast? What do you say to them? Have you ever been refused?

Hello!
This was the second time I tried. It was in a largish ASDA, first time I asked a member of bakery staff whether the shop sells fresh yeast (knowing full well from this forum that they give it away) and he said "actually we give it away to customers for free" and went to get some, I acted pleasantly surprised That was about 3 weeks ago. Today when I went to ask, the first person I spotted was the same guy, so rather than use the same trick I said "excuse me, would it be possible to have some of your fresh yeast please?" and he dropped everything and went off to find me some, was very happy to help. I was very appreciative, which I think helps!

So I've not been refused but then only tried ASDA and only twice so far. It made delicious bread, much nicer than the tub of dried yeast in the cupboard (destined for bin!) and I use 15g in a 500g loaf. The first time I was given 64g, this time it was more like 55g. I expect they just break a bit off with guesswork. Oh and I go through self check-out, but make it plainly obvious I am holding onto my packet of fresh yeast when I take it out of the basket and then pay for the rest of the shopping. Today I had daughter with me so I said out loud "oh yes, that's my free yeast" for the benefit of the till controller person. Although I'm sure if stopped it would not be embarrasing to produce it and say that it was free from bakery, I am sure they are all instructed that this is the case.

CanadaBound

Just a quiet YAY for a NSD. I am going to try to not spend anything this week, or at least until the hubby comes home from Birmingham on friday, as I need to claw back last weeks over spend. Managed to persuade my hubby that he didn't need £20 for 4 days of meal while he was away and he could get by on £10 as he still has stuff left from last week and just needs a couple of bits to get through to Friday. So, fingers crossed, I may come in under budget after all this month which I was worried about previously.

Now all I have to do is train the hubby to do housework and life will be complete!

lil_me

Angel I've frozen that once before and thought it was fine, but as long as you'll use it all by then then not to worry of course.

Frugaldom

Final post of the night and last day of week 2. Still well within budget and have the rest of the month to focus on emptying the cupboards, fridge and freezer before starting restocking but February is supposed to be diet month for me. Tonight was night 1 of the pork - casseroled with apples, served with roast potatoes and peas. Just thinking about going on the diet makes me hungry, so I ended up making a pot of custard later on (used powdered milk) and we had that over what was left of yesterday's hm fruit loaf.

I guess tomorrow will be another pork day as there was far too much to use in one meal, not sure what to serve with it, though, as I'm out of potatoes! Any suggestions for what I can do with pork steaks that doesn't call for fancy ingredients?