Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge...

cheerfulness4 · 9 April 2008 at 4:34PM

Purpleivy - thanks for the tips and weights regarding the cooking pulses etc. I'm going to start freezing a few types up as I love them added to mince dishes and in salads. Its the remembering to soak them overnight that stops me using them more. Can feel the pennies being saved! :j

bails · 9 April 2008 at 7:28PM

Hi all, Weezl I didn't see your houmous recipe on the GC, would you mind posting it here please? OH eats it by the bucketload! Thanks very much.

weezl74 · 9 April 2008 at 8:32PM

bails wrote: »

Hi all, Weezl I didn't see your houmous recipe on the GC, would you mind posting it here please? OH eats it by the bucketload! Thanks very much.

Hi Bails, It's on post number 46 of this thread, so you've just got to scroll backwards!

weezl74 · 9 April 2008 at 8:52PM

[FONT=&quot]Back with some more thoughts… [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Another thing that sometimes concerns people when I tell them about my challenge, is, if you have meat or meat products, will they be cheap and nasty? On closer inspection, this turns out to be a concern that cheaper meat products might contain more ‘nasties’ like saturated fat, fat in general, calories, and salt.
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So I turned again to my friend google… (mysupermarket.co.uk to be precise)
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My sausages of choice are asda smart price ones. They are 85p for 20 sausages, which is 4.25p per sausage, or 13.5p for a 3 sausage serving, which is a meal for us.
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I decided to compare them with asda’s ‘extra special’ sausages, and also their own brand ones. The extra special ones are 25p each:eek:, so 5 times the cost (although I think they are bigger) per sausage. The own brand ones are 6.4p each.
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Saturated fat-wise, I was pleased and surprised to note that my cheap and nasty sausages were 4.3% saturated fat, the extra special range weighed in at a hefty 6.6% saturated fat, and the own brand ones had 4.5% saturated fat. The cheapest contained the least saturates!

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Hmmmmn. Calories then, how do they square up? 1 smart price sausage is 83 calories, the own brand is 93 calories, the extra special ones are bigger, but if you ate the amount of one sausage to make it the same size, you’d have 123 calories, or 172 if you ate a whole one.
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Again, cheap is not so nasty!:cool:
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Salt then, surely I am poisoning Mr. Weezl with too much salt? Another surprise, all the sausages contained exactly the same percentage of salt, 1.6%. 3 sausages does contain 2.4g of salt, which is just over a third of our recommended daily amount, but pretty ok when you consider our diet as a whole. :j
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So I feel ok then in raving about another couple of really cheap meals, sausage, mash and onion gravy, with peas, (mushy or otherwise), and toad in the hole.
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These are definitely doable within this meagre budget!:T

[/FONT] Cheerfulness, you asked if I make up and then freeze the pate sarnies, I certainly do, and am living to tell the tale! As long as it hasn't been frozen before in it's cooked state, it's fine apparently.(got that info from squeaky the board guide) although I'd not foist it on any pregnant friends (think they have to avoid liver...?)!;)

Yes, Bails, it is £1.29 a day (depending on the length of the month (oh the luxury of February!) and includes cleaning stuff, loo roll, painkillers, women's monthly paraphanalia....:D

t'was pasta pesto tonight for tea, and will be HM tropical fruit ice cream during the apprentice. (a little tradition in weezl-land, which used to be scarily expensive before I met MSE old style and thought nothing of a weekly £3.50 on Ben and Jerry's!):eek:

Bye for now,
Your rambling OS miserly Weezl x

purpleivy · 9 April 2008 at 10:23PM

I reduced my 'grocery purse' pro rata for fewer days in February! Started in Jan with £200, so decided to divide by 31 and multiply by the number of days in each month. Seems like a fairer way of doing it somehow. I overspent in March and am trying hard not to overspend this month. Less than half left, only 9th today, I don't need to buy anything before Sunday, will also try and do minimum spends for next week as well.

weezl74 · 10 April 2008 at 8:11PM

75g flour - 2p
75 ml milk - 5p
1 large egg - 10p
salt and pepper - 2p
6 smart price sausages- 27p
gravy - 6p
peas - 11p
mash - 7p

whole meal for the two of us tonight, 70p :T

I used delia's toad in the hole recipe.

Just thought an example of one of our cheap dinners would be helpful. When we have vegetarian nights dinner costs around half that.

Weezl x

bails · 10 April 2008 at 8:28PM

weezl74 wrote: »

Yes, Bails, it is £1.29 a day (depending on the length of the month (oh the luxury of February!) and includes cleaning stuff, loo roll, painkillers, women's monthly paraphanalia....:D

Now I really am completely in awe!!! As veggies we must be able to eat much more cheaply than we do...How long did it take you to hone your skills Weezl?

scrimperjan · 11 April 2008 at 10:44PM

Weezl, can you explain what this bit means, I don't get it:

April to june grocery challenge: £40 per mnth for 2 adults: £38.36 left of £120

It sounds like you've already spent more than two thirds of your three months budget, but that can't be right 'cos it's been the same amount since the beginning of this thread...or is it that you stocked up and now you're living from your storecupboard?

weezl74 · 12 April 2008 at 7:24AM

scrimperjan wrote: »

It sounds like you've already spent more than two thirds of your three months budget, but that can't be right 'cos it's been the same amount since the beginning of this thread...or is it that you stocked up and now you're living from your storecupboard?

Hi scrimperjan,:hello:

I have spent all the money between march 15th and now, and I have been filling and then using my freezer and store cupboard since then. I don't let myself 'overspend' in any month and then write it off at the end of the month, (although I know some of my fellow old-style grocery challenge friends do this and it works for them as a plan), I just carry the debt over to the next month.:eek:

So, yes, to clarify, yes, I really am saying that I'm going to try to live off the amount left in my signature until the end of June. It's an extreme challenge isn't it?! Looking at what I've stockpiled from what I've bought since then tho, I still reckon it's do-able.:T

Just a thought, scrimperjan, do you know that when we look at each other's old posts, we see our signature as it is now? So you'll see something I wrote when I'd not spent much, but if you read it 3 weeks later, you'll see all that I've spent til now (if I've remembered to update my sig!) That might be really obvious to you and if so sorry, but it might help explain your confusion!

Back in a bit with some thoughts on calcium and the super-thrifty diet...;)

Weezl x

addictedtosoreen · 12 April 2008 at 8:15AM

morning all!
i love this thread, thanks weezl74:beer:
someone above wanted a nice smoothie recipe, well heres mine
pint of milk
2-3 bananas depending on size
honey to taste
teaspoon vanila essence/extract

bung in your blender and wizz til smooth, soooo easy and a really sneaky way to get lots of fruit into the kids:D

have also made them with the frozen fruits you can get at tesco, yummy

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Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge...

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