Shopping Hauls - End of Challenge

So, I shopped until I dropped ... well not really ... I've thoroughly enjoyed this week .  

Having seventy pounds to spend in seven shops, on whatever I wanted to spend it on was something totally unusual for me.  I don't think I have ever gone into a shop thinking 'I must spend £10 here'.

But I really enjoyed each and every shopping expedition.

I think as a round-up I'll say what my favourite purchase was from each shopping trip.

From Asda, my first port of call, I think my favourite purchase just has to be the large Spiced Berries tealights.  

At just 30p for a pack of twelve, and five packs purchased for less than the cost of one bag of ten unscented ones, I really do think they were my bargain of the week. 

My favourite buy from my first Poundland visit on Day Two has to be my 32 black pens ... don't ask me why but lots of pens in a jar on my desk make me happy.   

And 32 for just £1 makes me even happier  :-)

My best buy from The Works on Day Three in my opinion is the Weekly Planner that you can colour in.

I'll have to keep it handy for when I'm on the phone chatting to people, I have a tendency to doodle away on the margins of magazines, shopping lists ... anything that's to hand really.  So this might help me doodle in a decorative way on something that's also useful.

I loved mooching around the charity shops on Day Four.  You never know what you are going to find on any given day in a charity shop and I think I did really well with my mostly wooden themed collection of finds.

My favourite out of the four items I bought just has to be the little egg crate.  Useful, beautiful and it really was something I needed.

I don't know what I would pick as my favourite item out of the things I bought from Home Bargains on Day Five, most of them were actually needed.  The Christmas outfits for the dogs were a bit of silliness ...

... but I think for the adorableness of the pom pom and the little cactus label on the pencil case that has to be my pick from this little haul.

My favourite buy from my second visit of the week to Poundland on Day Six has to be the bottle openers, with the two packs of vanilla scented votive candles a very close runner up.

We've been searching for some of these, not attached to an expensive thing for a while, and to find them at just 25p each in Poundland was a revelation.

There's no favourite item for my final shop of the week ... Sainsbury's on Day Seven.  

 I enjoyed the whole experience, choosing what to put in my trolley, keeping tabs on what I was spending, dropping all the food off in the Foodbank collection box and walking out of the supermarket with just my handbag over my shoulder ... and then the getting home with no shopping to put away was just the icing on the cake.

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So all in all the last seven days have been a brilliant break from my normal sort of Challenge, and they have set me up nicely for a week off from blogging as I settle into a new sort of life, in a new place.  None of my purchases have been just for the sake of spending money, if you know me at all you know I wouldn't do that.  Some have been a bit of fun ... the dog outfits for 49p each, the squeezy strawberry stress ball and the little make-up bag/pencil case spring to mind.  A lot of the purchases I have made over the course of this week have been with half a mind on my new 'here and there' lifestyle.  There will be more information about all that over on my other blog if you would like to follow along with what I'm up to next ... yes I'm always up to something as all my long term readers from my old blog Our New Life in the Country know.  

This blog will be picked up again when I start out on some new Challenges based from my new weekday home, which although still quite rural, is in a different country, as  I'm crossing the border back into England and a completely different setting.  Where I'll be going from having five acres of growing space to having five square yards ... now there's a Challenge in itself  ;-)

Thanks for reading along and commenting.  It's always nice to hear from you.

Sue xx

Shopping Hauls - Day Seven - Sainsbury's

For the final day of my shopping hauls I wanted to do something completely different.  Something that wasn't for me, for us or for the dogs.  Something for someone else.  And what better way to share a ten pound shopping haul out as far as possible than to get a selection of foods and donate them to the local Foodbank.

So my ten pounds was stretched as far as it possibly could be, and the change left over from the shopping the other day and a little bit extra was added as I went over my £10 limit  - but this time I wasn't so bothered about that.

I went round sort of working to £1  limits on each foodstuff, mainly so I could keep track of my spending.

So for instance I got three tins of potatoes for just over a pound as they were 35p each, but most of the other vegetables were 25p a can so I got four of those.  I got four packs of noodles at 25p each but just two bottles of tomato ketchup as they were 45p.  Overall I think I balanced my purchases out reasonably and kept good tabs on my spending.

The most expensive items in my trolley were the two jars of Instant Hot Chocolate drink, but I thought they were worth the outlay as it means an instant hot drink, with no additional milk required that is suitable for adults or children ... well that was my reasoning behind the purchase.

I tried to get a good mixture and variety  of foods, and I think for the amount I spent ... a grand total of £12.65 ...  I did this very well.

So that's it, this Challenge is now over and it was nice to finish off with a completely different kind of shopping trip.  I will be back tomorrow with a round up of this Challenge and some of my usual waffle.  

I'll see you then.