The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The Food for the Week

 

So, armed with my four little coins I went to Sainsbury's and I chose as much food as I could get for my miniscule budget.  I brought it home, took the photo and then thought now I must see exactly what I have to work with here.

It was time to start counting before the panic set in.

I had 20 slices of bread and 2 crusts.

There were 19 potatoes of varying sizes.

Despite one carrot trying to hide under another there are definitely 15 carrots here.

Sadly just the 2 onions, but what a lot of flavour they should be able to bring to the dishes I make.

I had one jar of orange marmalade, one can of orange spaghetti rings, and one can of orange coloured peach slices.  Yes it was at this point that I realised that most of my shopping for the week was orange in colour!!

Oh how I will be missing green by the end of the week. 🍏🥗🥬

And I also had the basic store cupboard foods that I had decided to allow myself.

Next it was time to make myself some notes.

Just rough ideas so that I could see how to spread out the numbers of each vegetable and food to be eaten either as they are or in recipes.  It may be messy and scribbled out, but these scraps of paper told me that while it might be on almost ration levels, I should be able to make myself the twenty one meals that would see me through the week, seven breakfasts and fourteen sort of interchangeable lunches and teas.

Well that was a relief for sure, at least I would be eating three times a day.

My next job was to work out the nutritional value of the foods that I had available and average it out over the one week of the Challenge.  This is how it looks:

Protein -139g = 20g a day

Fats - 43g = 6g a day

Carbohydrates - 1202g = 172 a day

Calories - 5886 = 840 a day

Five a day - 17 = 2.4 a day.

Not added to these figures are the amounts that I will get from using the oil and the mayonnaise, so all of them except the five a day will rise by a bit.

One tablespoon of Olive Oil contains - 123 calories, 14g fat, .5g of carbs and .5g protein.

One tablespoon of Mayonnaise contains - 103 calories, 11g fat, .5g carbs and .1 protein.

So I should be getting over 1000 calories a day and some more fats too.  I will also be getting at least some of my five a day ... as long as I eat all of the onions and carrots.

Tomorrow, I will be sharing the first two days of meals.

Sue xx

The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The Where and the Food

  

I am in a Facebook group entitled 'Food - Surviving on 50p a Day' ... yes it's sad that in this day and age we even need a group like this, but it seems we do.  I posted yesterday about The Why and the History and today is all about the where the idea came from and the food that I bought with my £3.50 budget.  I will also show the store cupboard items that I have chosen to allow myself ... after all even in my worst times I think I have always had salt and pepper and usually a couple of things lurking in the back of the cupboard.

The Where ... did this challenge come from?

 

One day Pat, who is an Admin on the group asked the question:  

' In the true spirit of this group, assuming empty cupboards, and that means not even flavourings, what would you buy?

Must be full price items and no freebies.

I will start you off with Aldi savoury rice 28p and Aldi spaghetti hoops at 16p. total 44p.

You only have 50p. Not a penny over! Just food for one day for one person. '

 It triggered over 250 comments and lots of ideas, and this was mine, well you know me, I love a Challenge.

The above was my shopping and it came to exactly 50p.

Breakfast was my 14 p banana.

Lunch and tea were made from the onion, carrot and potato, with the peelings being cooked to make a stock to add some flavour.  I simply lifted out the vegetables for the stew and then whizzed up what was left with my stick blender to make the soup for my lunch.

It was tasty but not that filling and if I hadn't already been on a limited diet no doubt I would have felt the small amount of food even more.

Then in the comments of the Facebook challenge someone mentioned how much easier it would be to be able to shop for a whole weeks worth of 50p days of food all in one go ... and I replied that for one week I would give it a go.

And so this Challenge was born.

Now quite a few times in the past, and usually documented on this blog or one of my others, I have shopped and lived on £1 per day, but this is a whole other, and half the price challenge.  Could it be done?

So after looking on the Sainsbury's online shopping website and putting things into and out of my virtual basket many times, I came up with the basic plan and then I went shopping the very next day armed with £3.50 and a single shopping bag ... to see if it could really be done.

And this is what I bought:  

One loaf of bread - 36p

2 onions - 24p

2.5kg White potatoes - £1.25

1kg Carrots - 50p

Can of Spaghetti Rings- 16p

Can of Peach Slices - 34p

Orange Marmalade - 59p

I was very lucky to see the 36p bread, I have never even noticed it before in our small branch of Sainsbury's, but there were four loaves tucked right in the corner on the bottom shelf, they obviously don't want many people to shop for such a cheap loaf.

My receipts (I totalled and paid before I realised the bread was still in my shopping trolley), and the 3p that I had left over.  I could have bought jam for 39p instead of that extravagant 59p marmalade ... and I might be regretting that later on in the week!!

Unlike the 50p for one day challenge that we were originally set I decided that this time I would allow myself a very basic store cupboard of items ... and these are the items I chose.

Coffee - caffeine is a MUST if I am to remain sane by the end of the week.

Salt and Pepper

Vegetable Stock

Olive Oil

Curry Powder

Mixed Herbs

Garlic Powder

and Mayonnaise

If you have any questions I will be happy to answer them, but if you are just here to criticise don't bother.  We don't learn more about ourselves or others by being critical and negative, it just shuts down the narrative.

This might be about to be a tough week, but hopefully it can be a friendly and entertaining one too.

Sue xx

To be able to read all these challenge posts in the right order, simply click on 'Newer Post' after each one.

The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The Why and the History

You might be wondering why I decided to do something that seems to be almost impossible, to be honest perhaps I am too!!  

But I am in a Facebook Group called 'Food - Surviving on 50p a Day' ... I think a few of my readers are on this  too ... so I thought that in this time of hugely increasing food bills, and with energy prices going through the roof causing so many people to really panic and worry about the simple job of feeding themselves it could be a useful challenge to generate some ideas for absolute rock bottom price eating, and to test out if eating for 50p a day is possible ... and could it even be more than just surviving?

The simple task of keeping body and soul together, on a budget that seems barely enough to feed your goldfish can get to be just too much for most people, and sometimes seeing something written down that inspires you to make more out of what you already have can be a little glimmer of hope in an otherwise ever darkening struggle.

I am going to be completely open and upfront, these days this is a Challenge to me and not something that I have to do, but I HAVE been there in the past so I do not do this out of a sense of fun but rather as a way of hopefully helping.  Back in the day I was feeding a family of four, two of them growing boys and one an outdoor working husband on a budget that varied from week to week but that never topped £20 and sometimes sank as low as emptying out the penny jar*.  

We survived, perhaps in some ways more by luck than management, as like many I had to learn on the job.  You don't get taught household money management at school and years ago there was no internet with ideas to Google, no Facebook chums to help out with ideas or even encouragement, we were just young Mums keeping our children fed and clothed on tiny amounts of money and doing the very best we could.

What I do now when I decide to do a Challenge like this is use the money that I would normally spend on my own food shopping ... my average per week for just myself including a bottle of Aldi Pinot Grigio is around £25 ... to buy food for the local Foodbank trolley in the supermarket.  So it's a bit winner, winner, winner as I get to learn something and push myself in the kitchen, I hopefully get to pass on a few ideas that might help someone and the Foodbank gets some much needed extra supplies.

Anyway enough of the waffling, it's time to go get the food and begin the Challenge.

*How do you shop when using coppers from the penny jar?  I scrabbled together all the 1p, 2p and the odd 5p coins from our huge whisky bottle and went around the indoor market in Barrow in Furness which had a lot of fruit and vegetable stalls and asked if they minded some small change.  Four bananas on one, half a dozen potatoes on another, carrots on another ... you get the picture, with the money being counted out from a handful of coins pulled from my coat pocket.  A couple of dented cans of beans or peas for 10p each from the basket on the floor of the grocery stall and if I could, a small bag of penny sweets for each of my boys.  I came away with a carrier bag of food and a much, much lighter pocket with all that loose change gone ... and most importantly of all we survived another week.

Sue xx  🥫

The £3 a Day Challenge - Using Up the Leftovers

 

Having such a small amount of storage space it has been important to me to quickly make good use of the foods I bought last week during the Challenge, especially the already cooked leftovers and the fresh salady stuff.  One of my first use it up meals was a lettuce and coleslaw bun, a nice filling lunch which simply added a brown sub roll to my Challenge leftovers.

Then I made use of the cooked potato/carrot/onion mix ...

... and made myself a pasty.  

Which also neatly used up a third of a roll of shortcrust pastry that I had in the freezer.  I am in the process trying to use up the contents of the freezer which seems to be lots of bitty stuff, half a pack of this, half a pack of that.  When you have such a tiny freezer space it's like playing freezer Tetris every time you go in there when there's a lot of stuff, especially when most of it is singly wrapped to save space.

Lunch the next day was a bit similar to the top photo, but this time some sliced cheese and cucumber   was added to the lettuce, and it was served with some of the tortilla chips as a crunchy nibble.

The flour has been tipped into my large flour jar, the oats into the oats jar, the spaghetti is in the spaghetti jar and the garlic cloves and baby spinach have been added to the bags of both in the freezer so there is no immediate rush to use them before they go off.  We are both using the marmalade when we have toast in the mornings and the peach slices have been added to the other tinned fruit in the cupboard to be served with some ice-cream one evening when we fancy a treat.

Lunch today is going to be the last of the lettuce and cucumber with the remaining sausage rolls, so as you can see nothing will be wasted ... which makes me very happy 😀

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - End of Challenge Round Up

 

One Challenge, one week and boy did that go fast!!

Just look at what I have over ... so much food, there's at least another two days worth of good eating there.  I knew £21 would be a luxury budget for one person, it was just the Challenge of knowing what to buy with each £1 coin as it became available for each meal that kept me on my toes.

Not in the photo because I ate them for my breakfast were the last two crumpets.  This time eaten with lashings of spread instead of the 27p marmalade.

Also not in the photo ... because I forgot about it ... was the orange juice!!  Look, it was sat on my desk looking reproachfully at me as I downloaded the other photos ... don't forget me it shouted as I slurped.

So what's left over:

1/3 of a tub of Coleslaw

2 Sausage Rolls

2/3 pack of Tortilla Chips

1100g SR Flour

most of a jar of Marmalade

2 Garlic cloves

400g of Spaghetti

370g Oats

a tin of Peach Slices

1/2 a Cucumber

1/2 a Lettuce

1/3 bag of French Fries

1/2 bag of Spinach

2 Lemon slices

enough vegetable filling for another pasty

a small portion of Pasta Sauce

.. and a wad of receipts and a 5p coin.

Quite a lot to show for a week of Challenging Myself.

Every Challenge I do teaches me something, so what did this teach me?

That £1 per meal is doable and can be very tasty.  

That I am quick to react to what my body tells me I need.  I switched buying a few things around at the last minute and enjoyed what I made with what I had purchased all the more for it.

  

That the self- weigh and self-checkout facilities in Sainsbury's definitely give it the edge when you are doing a Challenge of this nature.  It takes all the embarrassment out of buying one carrot, one potato, one onion and one banana  😳

That my little fridge and freezer cannot cope with me doing Challenges whilst we are both living here in my little flat.  Oh, I am looking forward to my Smeg even more now!!

That just because some own brands are cheap does not make them worse taste-wise in any way.  The Tortilla Chips at just 45p a bag (although the shelf edge label said they were 55p they scanned at 45p 😀) were just as tasty, if not better, than the branded ones I have had before.

That my 35p Pitta Breads were a brilliant buy and stayed fresh all week.

Thank you for all of you that stuck with me for the whole week, thank you for the comments and the encouragement, it made it all seem all the more worthwhile and kept me on the straight and narrow.

Now all I have to do is to use up my leftovers over the next couple of days, nothing will be wasted.

Thank you.

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Seven

The first two meals on this my final day of this Challenge both came in two parts.  

My first breakfast was a couple more of yesterdays crumpets spread with the tangy orange marmalade and a glass of orange juice,  and then because the shops don't open until 10am on a Sunday I couldn't go shopping until after the doggy walk.

It was a glorious morning so we took the longer way round the river first down one side and then up the other, which rather handily brings me out just near Sainsbury's, which by that time had just about opened.  So I was one of the first customers, and I bet the only one armed with only £1.57 😄

Breakfast Shopping

Spinach - 1.00

Gala Apple - 30p

Total £1.30

2nd Breakfast

A nice green smoothie for us both, using the apple, my last banana and a good handful of the spinach.

It's nice to share 💖

Lunchtime Shopping

Sausage Rolls - £1.19

First Lunch

While the sausage rolls were cooking I had two mugs of the 'free soup' that I made yesterday with the trimmings and peeling, gosh that was tasty

Second Lunch

Two of the sausage rolls, these really are the best vegan sausage rolls on the market in my humble opinion and are at their best eaten when they have cooled down for about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven.  I was really full after two mugs of soup and two sausage rolls!!

Teatime Shopping  ... and the final shopping trip of the Challenge.

Baking Potato - 39p

Bitter Lemon Drink - 60p

Total = 99p

I couldn't afford any alcohol to celebrate the end of the Challenge, although believe me the thought of saving up for some had crossed my mind 😊 ... but I could afford 60p for a bottle of diet Bitter Lemon which is one of the few fizzy drinks I like.

Vegetable pasties, the filling made with the potato, the carrot from yesterday and half an onion from day five, all simmered together in stock and then slightly mashed up with lots of salt and pepper.

Tea

Pasty and Chips ... for two, it's still nice to share 😀

We were going to share the tin of peaches for pudding but we were both far too full.

Cash Carried Forward

5p

I have the feeling that's not quite right!!   I'm sure I should have 9p but it's the only money left in my coat pocket!!

Food Carried Forward

 - lots, I'll be back tomorrow with a photo.

And that's it final day over and done with, it's been a good week and it has absolutely flown by.  I'll be back tomorrow with a bit of a round up.  Thanks for following along everyone, there have been a lot of views every day, even if most of you have been too shy to comment.

Sue xx

The £3 a Day Challenge - Day Six

 

Breakfast Shopping

Orange Marmalade - 27p

Crumpets - 25p for 6

Tin of Peach Slices - 31p

Total - 83p

Again I went to Aldi for my breakfast, and quite unintentionally it turned into an orange coloured extravaganza.

So much so that I decided to have a black coffee with my breakfast rather than the glass of orange juice I was going to have 🧡

After a long doggy walk I walked over to Sainsbury's to pick up my lunch, Alan took the dogs home with him clutching a locally bought bacon bun for himself and a couple of sausages as a weekend treat for Suky and Mavis ... for some reason they followed him willingly barely noticing me slipping away  😄🐕🐕

Lunchtime Shopping

Tortilla Chips - 45p

Carrot - 6p

Iceberg Lettuce - 43p

Total = 94p

Lunch

   A pitta bread stuffed with coleslaw wrapped in lettuce, which is a good tip for not getting the filling everywhere when eating a salad sandwich of any description.  I had to eat a few more of the lettuce leaves on the side and start cooking my 'free soup' with the outer leaves as this was the only way the lettuce was going to fit into the fridge!!

This was a lovely fresh tasting meal.  A really good discovery this week has been these pitta breads,  bought on Monday for just 35p for 6 they have stayed nice and fresh all week, with this the last of the pack tasting just as fresh as the very first one I had. Also well worth mentioning are these tortilla chips, at just 45p a bag they are really tasty and would be brilliant with a dip ... or just on their own with a nice cold cider 😃

Free Soup

All the trimmings and peelings from this week's meals that have been in a bag in the freezer were simmered along with the outer leaves of todays lettuce and a couple of teaspoons of my stock powder, and after half an hour were whizzed up in the blender and then strained through a sieve. 

 This has given me over a pint of free soup, possibly for lunch tomorrow if I buy something to go with it.

Teatime Shopping

Garlic Bread - 32p

Spaghetti - 39p

Total - 71p

I could have made a garlic bread, I could have made some more pasta, but it was Saturday night and an easy option just cried out to be had.

Teatime

And it was lovely, thirteen minutes from start to finish and my meal was in my dish.

Cash Carried Forward

57p

Food Carried Forward

oats

flour

2 cloves of garlic

1 banana

1/2 onion

1 carrot

3/4 cucumber

1/2 a carton  orange juice

4 crumpets

most of a jar of orange marmalade

3/4 bag of tortilla chips

1/3 tub of coleslaw

400g spaghetti

iceberg lettuce

a tin of peaches

two portions of 'free' soup

small portion of pasta sauce

It's the final day tomorrow ... just how did this week pass so quickly?

Sue xx