At last here I am with the next Challenge, inspired by the photo above, well inspired by me sitting looking at an identical looking table in the local garden centre around a month a go. It got me thinking, really thinking, about our coffee drinking habits and how much we spend on them.
Now don't get me wrong I think there is something really good about supporting local businesses, taking time out of your day for yourself or to meet up with family and friends in a central place and all enjoying a good cup of coffee or pot of tea. It's one of life's little luxuries and one I relish now that I can afford to do it whenever I want to.
But what if the once or twice weekly habit got out of control, what if it turned into a daily 'must have'. Again I am not really saying there is anything wrong with this … as long as you can afford it.
But what else could that money be spent on, what would you do with the price of a cup of coffee a day. You all know by now that I don't like 'stuff', I don't like buying for buying sake. I didn't even really enjoy the Shopping Hauls Challenge in the end, it was a bit of fun but not one that I would ever repeat.
So … I decided to go down one of my favourite Challenge routes and use the money that I could have spent on a coffee each day for myself to instead pay for a whole days food.
Here's a shot of the menu as it stands today and actually as it has been all year. My coffee of choice is a Large Filter Coffee, served black and no sugar. So the cost of that is my daily allowance for my three meals a day for the next seven days.
So a weeks worth of coffees would be £19.25, but I decided straight away that as I only ever buy one cup of coffee at a time, I can only have one £2.75 at a time.
I decided to be nice to myself and set myself up with a five item store-cupboard, consisting of:
Coffee
Olive Oil
Seasoning (salt and pepper)
Dried Mixed Herbs
Curry Powder
All literally just picked off the shelf here at the Van.
I have two empty shelves in the fridge.
An empty fridge drawer for vegetables.
And a shopping list.
It took much deliberating and scanning of the mysupermarket.co.uk shopping pages, to work out what I would buy first. I wanted to get the most possible 'bang for my buck' and have the makings of breakfasts, dinners and teas from day one. I also knew my first shop would be done at Tesco as I had to call there for fuel on the way to the Van, so it made sense to pick up my first days food at the same time.
Did I manage to get what I hoped to get, well you'll have to 'tune in' tomorrow to find out.
Off we go.
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Interesting to do it one day at a time (and carry forward, I assume). When you look at it like that, it's quite a shock how much a 'not at home' coffee habit costs and I bet you eat really well.
ReplyDeletexx
I thought it would be much more interesting and 'spur of the moment' to do it one day at a time. My first shop was Tesco, which really was the best value hence me being able to afford all the starting blocks for the first few days food. At the Van I don't have access to a Tesco, just a small Sainsbury's, a Booths and an Aldi. It will be interesting to see what I can get between the three of them.
DeleteA really interesting challenge, looking forward reading all about it. Good luck.x
ReplyDeleteThank you, it's nice to be back with a Challenge. Hopefully this one will lead straight into another.
DeleteGreat challenge:) It really is food for thought, prices here are so high but with the right planning I think it could be done.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting for sure, more so I think because of the daily limitation. It would have been so much easier to toddle off with the full £19.25 and buy a week's worth of supplies and simply repeated the same meals over and over.
DeleteI shall follow your lead this week and see how I get on. But I live well away from any of the supermarkets, so our village shop will have to do if I'm to shop daily. Actually, I think I'll get on better if I have 7 days Latte Coffees in one go = £17.50 - and drive into town once.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to compare the two ways if doing the Challenge. A daily spend against a weekly one.
DeleteI do need to drive into town once a day to pick up my shopping, but here at the Van it's only about 3 miles, compared to the 8 at home ... and I can combine it with a good walk for Suky each day around town.
Brilliant challenge. I think it will definitely put into perspective what you can get on a low budget. I remember a few of us doing a challenge to come up with a weeks shopping, a weeks menus for £25 to feed 2. It took some doing but it was possible.
ReplyDeleteI bet that made for a really interesting Challenge, seeing what each of you came up with compared to the others.
DeleteMaybe some of us bloggers could get together and do something similar and all at the same time, linking to each other every day so our readers can follow our progress!