Grocery Spend

I really missed the weekly sale ads that come in the newspaper in the states.  You know the ones... Albertson's, Safeway, Super One, etc.  I always used those to plan the week's menu around what was on sale.  I never saw those while in England, they didn't come in the Sheffield Star.  Do you have them in other parts of the country? 

I really miss these, too - that's how my mama taught me to shop for groceries when I was little.

I really missed the weekly sale ads that come in the newspaper in the states.  You know the ones... Albertson's, Safeway, Super One, etc.  I always used those to plan the week's menu around what was on sale.  I never saw those while in England, they didn't come in the Sheffield Star.  Do you have them in other parts of the country? 

I get them in my local South Manchester paper, they vary on what supermarket, sometimes its Morrisons, this week it was Tesco. I don't like Tesco.

The only one that ever shows up here is for Netto. 

my dh said its better the second time around, normally cause i cook a lot of egyptian recipes or middle eastern and he is kinda right!

What is Egyptian food like?

We are two people and spend about the same. We live in a small flat with a small freeze, and we are on different schedules so we eat at different times and we each shop separately so we can eat what we like.  My goal is to make sure we don't buy more food than we can eat, that food doesn't go to waste, which is an issue when you have a small household. I am very careful about checking expiration dates, making sure that everything we purchase can be eaten before it goes bad.

I do find that we waste a LOT of food.  I try to buy things on sale and stock up but then we never eat them in time.  I am a sucker for 'buy one get one half off' kind of deals but if we're not eating the 2nd item, whats the point!  So, I am now trying to make sure we eat everything we have before we buy more food.  But the husband wants meat every day and always wants to pick up more food so he can have meat AND potatoes AND salad for dinner.  I say if we dont have salad, we just have to go without it until the next weekly shop.  hehe maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the poor guy though:-)  He is quite thin so the fatter I can get him, the skinnier I look! 

my dh said its better the second time around, normally cause i cook a lot of egyptian recipes or middle eastern and he is kinda right!

ooh, do you make koshary? do you have a recipe you can post? 

Does anyone bake their own bread or make their own yogurt?  How does the taste compare to store bought?

We buy two loaves of bread a week at 1.58/loaf and spend over 5.00 on yogurt.

I'm wondering if this could help us save a bit.

i do make koshery! love the stuff just i leave chick peas out of mine.. i was taught my old eygyptian women, i will post some recipes, if u guys like eggplant ihave a good recipe for that too.. and bashmel, that is pasta with cream sauce on top like, some use minced meat, buti dont eat meat....im just lazy to type ... also when i lived in egypt i made my own yoghurt. its a lil time  consuming but easy......

Oh, that sounds excellent! I love eggplant!

Any recipes would be welcome! I don't eat meat, so its perfect!

ok so hopefully i will get back with that, and a great recipe for a yoghurt salad....

Thank you I would love the koshary recipe. I lived on that when I visited Egypt. Maybe you can put it in the UKY cookbook so it's easy to find? (I've put some Iranian recipes in there you might like).

http://cookbook.uk-yankee.com/

Yael, I've not made my own yoghurt for years but you can experiemnt with how it tastes by using different milks/creams, plus you can strain it if you want to make it thicker.  I make my own brad sometimes, tastes fine but the texture is denser than commercially made bread.  I read somewhere they use some enzyme to make it lighter.

Does anyone bake their own bread or make their own yogurt? 

I bake my own bread every couple of weeks, and I really should get a bigger loaf tin so I can do this all the time.  I am pretty new to it so am still shopping around for a really good recipe, but on the few times I have really nailed it it is as good as shop bought and lasts longer.

Vicky

  So, I am now trying to make sure we eat everything we have before we buy more food. 

I am the same way. I don't like buying new food until all the food we have is eaten. I prefer to make do with what we have. I do make sure to eat fruit and vegetables every day, though.

I find that living by myself, I waste food more than I want to (and I am really dilligent about eating leftovers)- I guess I need to balance paying a bit more premium for smaller sizes/going to the store more often and wasting food

I'm trying desperately to cut down on veg. wasting. We waste a ton of salad leaves and spinach I'm afraid. I try not to fall for the BOGOF's unless it's meat or fish or something that can be successfully frozen....

I'm actually not sure how I end up spending so much every week - I probably average £50 - £80 a week for just the two of us. It's been better since we've cut way back on meat, but still expensive. I think part of the problem is that I don't buy the cheapest version of anything. For example I tried Sainsbury's own brand dishwasher tablets and I could. not. wait. to run out of them as they left a gross film on the dishes. I also have tried "basics" branded veg. but within a few days I had a drawer full of sprouting onions....