The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Five

Today for a change I went to Aldi to pick up my breakfast, and as I needed a banana I remembered my own blog post of the other day and found the biggest one I could.  It would have been interesting to take it to Sainsbury's to see how much it weighed there and thus how much it would have cost me.  I'm guessing at least the 13p I paid for it if not a penny or two more more.  I also bought a mixed pack of fruit, it would most likely have been cheaper to buy a single apple, but I really fancied a bit of a selection for a change.

Breakfast Shopping

Banana - 13p

Classic Fruit Salad Mix - 85p

Total = 98p

Leaving me with 4p change from my £1.02

Breakfast

With most of the banana, a couple of spoonfuls of flour and some water I made a nice thick batter and made myself two pancakes.  I chopped half of the apples and the pineapple pieces out of the fruit salad up and simmered them in a little touch of water.  Once they were soft I whizzed them in my Nutribullet to make a sort of thick hot puree to have instead of syrup, it work really well and was delicious.  

Gosh that was a filling breakfast!!

Lunchtime Shopping

I can't find my receipt, but I do know the orange juice was 55p and the cucumber 43p.  I got these from Aldi as the  cheapest orange juice  in Sainsbury's was almost a pound, so by walking for ten minutes I got a 'free' cucumber  ... yes my brain does work in mysterious ways 😃😄

Lunch

A nice picky, dippy plate with hummus, celery, cucumber slices and a toasted pitta bread.  Very tasty and all washed down with a half glass of my new orange juice, which is remarkably good for the price.

Teatime Shopping

Bag of French Fries - 59p

1 tomato - 16p

1 onion - 16p

1 carrot - 4p

 1 banana - 8p

Total = £1.03

Isn't it a joy when you are doing a Challenge like this one and you can shop in a supermarket with a weigh your own produce and print your own labels machine.  It takes away all the guesswork and means you can shop right up to your limit without worrying that you won't have enough money when you get to the checkout.  I sure appreciated this facility for this shop!!

Tea

Pizza and Chips

I made a nice rich tomato sauce with my half tin of leftover tomatoes, half of my new onion, the grated carrot, a bit of salt, a little curry powder, some of the fresh tomato and lots of pepper.  I was going to use it for my planned Pitta Pizza, but right at the last minute I changed my mind and used most of the leftover hummus instead, topped with the rest of the fresh tomato and a slice of onion.

It made for a simple but delicious tea, which was really good to sit down to at the end of a long day ... and now I have some pasta sauce maturing nicely in the fridge ready for tomorrow 😀

Cash Carried Forward

2p

Food Carried Forward

oats

flour

2 cloves of garlic

3 lemon slices

a spoonful of hummus

1 pitta bread

1 banana

1/2 an onion

3/4 of a cucumber

3/4 carton of orange juice

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Four

 

Day Four of my £1 a Meal Challenge dawned beautifully with the sun shining once again and highlighting on the worktop just how quickly my little stash of leftovers was building.  A cup of coffee and a few thoughts later and I knew exactly what I would do ... live for the day on my leftovers and use the overage from Day Three and todays £3 to buy some food for the local Foodbank instead.

Breakfast

So using my apple, the banana that I had popped into the freezer last night and picking out the spinach leaves from my bag of mixed leaves and then adding two spoonfuls of the oats I quickly whizzed up a breakfast smoothie.  It was delicious.

Then armed with my £4.06 I headed to Sainsbury's.

I forgot to take a photo of the food in my basket as I was concentrating on adding the prices up in my head, and then I got so excited to hit £3.06 exactly that I completely forgot I had £4.06 to spend.  Dropping the first lot of food into the Foodbank's box, I then went back around the store determined to buy something useful with the remaining pound.  Two kilos of pasta seemed a very good buy for just 98p.

In case you can't read the receipt here is what I bought:

1 jar of coffee

2 jars of jam

2 jars of marmalade

2 packets of biscuits

and 

1kg of pasta shapes 

1kg of spaghetti

I'll be nice to myself and add the 2p change to my breakfast pound in the morning.

Lunch

I finished off the last of the beans and used one of the pitta breads.  I honestly thought a pitta bread once toasted would go crisp like bread does, not in my toaster it doesn't it stays soft and floppy.  So it was more like beans on hot bread but hey-ho it was tasty and filling so I'm not grumbling ... much  😉

Tea

This was bloody gorgeous.  The curry sauce I made last night was whizzed up in the Nutribullet and then slowly reheated, the flavour was amazing.  I will definitely be making this again and definitely on the day before I want to eat it, as the flavours developed so well in 24 hours.  It was poured over my last potato which was par-boiled in wedge shapes and then finished off in the oven, and the last of the mixed leaves.  I added a couple of my half-sticks of celery so I had a bit of crunch to the dish.

Very filling and very, very tasty ... and I have at last made a bit of dent in the pile of leftovers that were building up.

Cash Carried Forward

2p

Food Carried Forward

oats

SR flour

3 cloves of garlic

1 stick of celery

1/2 tin of tomatoes

4 lemon slices

hummus

coleslaw

3 pitta breads

Back to normal tomorrow, when I will be going out armed with my £1.02 to buy my breakfast.  I hope it's a lovely sunny morning again, it's very nice going out first thing when the sun is shining and the shop is empty.

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Three

 It was ironic that on the morning I had £2.06 to spend on my breakfast I was just not hungry at all.  I wasn't going to shop just for shopping's sake even on a Challenge, so I left some of the porridge oats I bought yesterday to soak while we went out with the dogs.

When we got back I made the porridge and Alan helpfully gave it a bloody good stir for me while I was busy doing something else, this and a spot of over cooking made it very claggy and stodgy, so I only ate half of it. 😞

Oh well there's always lunch I thought to myself.

Heading out with yesterdays overage of £1.06 plus this mornings unused £1, and now the lunchtime £1 saw me with a vast budget of £3.06 and do you know it made it harder rather than easier!!

At first I thought I'll splurge on a ready meal and I went into Booths, but I saw nothing that I fancied and just couldn't make up my mind what to buy.  I was about to buy some hummus when I suddenly pulled myself up short, why spend over a pound on hummus in Booths when I could get it much cheaper in Aldi.  So I left Booths and went 50 yards across the car park to Aldi ... and suddenly everything made sense.

Lunchtime Shopping

Mixed Leaves - 57p

Baked Beans - 22p

Coleslaw - 79p

Hummus - 69p

Total = £2.27

Leaving me with 79p still available.

A bit of everything I bought along with one of my remaining two potatoes.  Absolutely delicious and just what I needed.

Teatime Shopping

Microwave Rice - 45p

Tin of Tomatoes - 28p

Total = 73p

Before I have any comments telling me that this is the most expensive way in the world to buy rice, yes I know ... but I have so much rice in the cupboards here at the flat it seemed stupid to buy another kilo of rice that will obviously not be used up by the end of this week.  

I was also tired and hungry and looking for an easy tea to cook, I almost bought a jar of curry sauce to go with it, but I pulled myself together and bought a tin of tomatoes instead to add to my curry powder, half onion and some of the beans left over from lunch.  Easy rice is a real treat when you're tired and just want to sit and eat.

And with a handful of my lunchtime leaves, it made for a lovely tea.

Cash Carried Forward £1.06

... oooh a touch of deja vu here!!

Food Carried Forward

1 potato

porridge oats

SR flour

3 cloves of garlic

celery

5 lemon slices

1 apple 

1 banana

most of a tub of hummus

1/2 tin of tomatoes

1/3 tin of baked beans

1/2 bag of mixed leaves

a portion of curry

4 pitta breads

The apple is now in the fridge and the banana is in the freezer as I'm planning to have a smoothie for my breakfast, I'll add some of the oats to that but I'm definintely not having porridge again 😀

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Two

Day two and it was a lovely morning so I nipped over to Sainsbugs nice and early before the doggy walk.

Armed with my breakfast £1 plus the 30p carried forward from yesterday, I knew I could go for a nice healthy breakfast with a bit of fruit included.  I had a look at the prices when I was there yesterday and fruit is the most expensive thing to buy in the fresh food aisle and the majority of it is packed in plastic so you have to buy multiples, which although cheaper in the long run, for the purposes of this Challenge makes them out of my price range.

Bananas are always the cheapest fruit to buy.

A TIP -  if you're watching the pennies don't buy single bananas from Aldi unless they have really large ones available.  At Aldi they are charged at 13p per fruit regardless of size, at Sainsbury's you can get bananas starting at around 8p.

Breakfast Shopping

500g bag of oats - 60p

2 bananas - 18p

1 apple - 30p

Total £1.08

Leaving me with 22p change to carry forward.

My Breakfast

I was going to have the apple later for elevenses with a cup of coffee, but I just wasn't hungry.

Lunch Shopping

Bag of SR flour - 45p

Change = 55p

Leaving me with 77p to carry forward.

Some pastry made with oil was on the cards for lunch using the leftover stew from yesterday as the filling for a couple of pasties.  

With lots of extra pepper and some salt it made for a good pasty filling.  I compress my fillings into one of my breakfast bowls and then divide into two, et voila ... the right shape to fill a pasty with no air gaps.

They might not be the prettiest pasties in the world due to the pastry being so short it was like a deliciously savoury shortbread ...

... but they were so tasty I ate this one and then went on to try and eat the other.  

No chance once I got to almost halfway through I was so stuffed I offered it to Alan, who had already had his lunch, and he wolfed it down in a couple of minutes ... he's always happy to help 😁

While the pasties were in the oven I used the same bowl to weigh out some flour to get a head start on tonight's tea.

And five minutes later my Tagliatelle was drying on a coat hanger 😀

Teatime Shopping

Haha ... this looks so random!!

I needed an onion and some garlic to make a tasty tomato sauce for my tagliatelle and as this really was all I needed when I spied the lemons for 30p I thought why not.  I have been missing my morning lemon slice in hot water and now I don't have to miss it anymore.

Onion - 16p

Garlic - 25p

Lemon - 30p

Total = 71p

With 29p change from this particular pound.

Tea

Tagliatelle with garlicky tomato sauce with a pitta garlic bread.  Gosh this was so tasty and so filling and added bonus ... I do not need to fear vampires tonight  😄

Cash Carried Forward

£1.06

Food Carried Forward

2 potatoes

celery

half an onion

porridge oats

1 banana

1 apple

6 lemon slices

half a bulb of garlic

4 pitta breads

I'll be back tomorrow with Day Three, it's going to be good starting the day with extra money and I will be able to leave some oats soaking while I walk the dogs.

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day One

 

On a bright and sunny Monday morning I trotted off to Sainsburys armed with my re-usable bag and a single pound coin, my logic being that if I didn't have any more with me I wouldn't be tempted to go over for my first shop of the Challenge.

It worked.  I had planned to have tinned tomatoes and onion on toast and I managed to get all the ingredients I needed.  There was 22p left over, ooh I thought, is that enough for some garlic?  But on walking back to the fresh produce aisle I discovered that the bulbs of garlic were 25p each 😞

Oh well, it meant that I would have an extra 22p to spend somewhere along the line.

Breakfast Shopping

6 wholemeal Pitta breads - 35p

1 onion - 15p

1 tin tomatoes - 28p

Total 78p

22p change

My Breakfast

Leftovers

Five pitta breads, 2/3 tin of tomatoes and most of the onion.

The pittas were the only way I could afford to get any bread to make my breakfast a complete meal.  The cheapest loaf was 55p and it was that pappy cheap white supermarket bread that I just would not have enjoyed (they had no cheap brown loaves left).  Actually the pittas have worked out well, as when I cut them in half they fit neatly into my tiny toaster.

Time for Lunch ...

Lunch Shopping

4 baking potatoes - 45p

a head of celery - 43p

1 carrot - 5p

Total 93p

7p change

Everything peeled, washed and ready for chopping, I decided to add another potato after I had taken this photo as I do like a higher potato ratio in my stews 😀

The bowl on the right was my lunch and very tasty it was too, and the bowl on the left a more strained version and with all the bitty bits from the pan is going to be the filling for a pasty.

A colander full of the washed trimmings and peelings ready to go into the freezer to give me a pot of 'free' soup in a couple of days.

Leftovers

Two baking potatoes and most of the celery, now washed and wrapped so it stays nice and fresh for the whole week.

And then there was Tea ...

After a day of walking, cooking and cleaning up the mess at the house I'm afraid on the way back from the evening doggy walk I just went down the easy route, and as these Aldi No Cheez Bakes were on offer at 99p (instead of their usual £1.29 I think it is), I just bought these.

Teatime Shopping 99p

change 1p

Half an hour later and my tea was ready.  

Not magnificently nutritious but it hit the spot and with a cup of coffee and the latest Midsomer Murders it made for a pleasant evening before an early night.

So not a bad  first day and there was money over ... a whole 30p.

Which will roll forward to breakfast tomorrow and give me a little leeway with my spending, and perhaps encourage me to eat a little more healthily 😃

Food carried Forward

5 pitta breads

2 potatoes

most of a head of celery

2/3 tin tomatoes

Sue xx

Challenge Two - The £3 a Day Challenge - The Rules and Information

The £3 a Day Challenge starts today and to give myself a head start so that I have something to show you tomorrow after I have bought the meals, obviously I have to fill todays post up with something else other than the three shopping trips.  So here are The Rules I have set myself ... very minimal and basic rules 😄

I can have a basic store-cupboard larder to give me some back up.  It's pictured above and that is it, no other dipping into the cupboards or fridge for anything else  to pad out or flavour my meals. 

It includes:

Coffee

Olive Oil

Basic Salt and Pepper

Stock Powder

Curry Powder

Mixed Herbs

 

I have £21 for my 21 meals for the week long Challenge.

The Challenge will run from Monday's breakfast until Sunday's tea.

Meaning that on each day for seven days I have £3 to spend.  

One pound of which I will take out with me each time I go out to buy the food for each meal.

I will go out armed with my own shopping bag and try to buy as little food in plastic as possible.

Any change can be carried forward to the next meals allowance or to the next day.

Any food not consumed can be carried forward to the next meal or the next days.

Yellow stickered foods are allowed, indeed they are positively encouraged.

I will take photos of the shopping and of any meals prepared from it.

I will post at least once daily for the whole week.

I think that's it!!

Now, for those of you who have only gotten to know me recently:

I don't eat any meat.

I do not and cannot eat anything containing dairy ... even a smidge.

I am allergic to avocados and duck or goose eggs ... random hey 😄

I try to limit my bread intake as it makes me feel podged.

There that should add some interest to this week and make things just that little bit harder!!

Back tomorrow with Day One.

Sue xx

At Last ... A New Challenge on the Way

I mentioned over on my other blog A Smaller Life that I was missing my Challenges, then I came up with an idea, threw it open to see if there was any interest, and boy oh boy yes there was.  So today I am having a wander around the local supermarkets, sussing out the viability of it here in this small town and will most likely be kicking off the Challenge tomorrow.

What is the Challenge I hear those of you asking that do not read my other blog.  Well after watching Toba Courage's latest 'Broke in Lockdown' Challenge from day one through to day seven I have decided to shamelessly steal part of his idea ... and you know me, it's the food part.

Below is the actual link for those of you that read my blog posts on your phones as I have found the photo with it's built-in link doesn't seem to show on Android phones.

Broke in Lockdown - 

(135) Filling surveys & Buying domains for money - Day 1 - YouTube

So the basic premise is that for the next seven days I will go out armed with one pound to buy food for my breakfast, then take out another pound for my lunch and then finally yet another for my tea ... or dinner if you're posh  😉  That's £3 for each days food.

As mentioned on the Smaller Life post (see HERE if you want to read it for yourself) this actually gives me £21 for a weeks food, much higher than some of my previous Challenges which have seen me with a total budget for a week of just £7.  So it should be very achievable, the difficulty with this is that I only have one pound up front each time ... and maybe a few extra pence if the previous meal has come in under budget.

It should be an interesting one this time and of course it fits in well with me not having the space to store much in my tiny fridge or being able to make meals ahead and freeze portions.

I'll be back in the morning with a post about the basic rules of the Challenge there's not many really but it will be nice to get them down and it will give me the chance to get a day ahead with the food ready for posting about it.

Sue xx