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

The 'How Many Books in 2021' Challenge

 

Last year I set myself the Challenge of reading 100 books in the year.  This year there is no numerical target to aim for, no pressure to read to bump up numbers, just a record of what I do read for my own memory and amusement ... and as you can see my main bookcase is empty. 

 I am currently in the process of selling and buying houses and living in a rented flat so my books are in a state of flux.  They are on shelves here at the flat and in boxes in our storage container, boxes under the bed and piles on my bedside table.  As I read I will keep or discard but once I have moved my lovely paper friends will be all around me again, once again in this bookcase, in my lovely 'new to me' curved one, in the kitchen and ... well everywhere really.  

I love books and I am not afraid to admit it.

January Reading

1

2

3

February Reading

4

5

6

March Reading

7

8

April Reading

9

10

May Reading

11

12

The One Hundred Books Challenge

 

Right back at the start of this year I began one of the six Challenges that I have managed this year.

  You'd think with a year of more time and less ability to do so much of what we normally do in our day to day lives completing Challenges would have been a doddle, but in many ways this year has proved harder than most to set my mind to anything.

With such huge disruptions to normal living and in my own life, Challenges were at times just not on my mind at all.  You would also think that given all that 'extra time' lockdown gave us, staying at home, following rules etc etc reading more books would have been a given to an avid book collector like myself.  

Quite the contrary, if anything I found myself harsh on my collection and lots of books were jettisoned without even appearing on my list of read books, after all if I didn't read more than a couple of pages they didn't deserve an entry at all.  I made more than £140 selling books through Ziffit and donated some to charity shops when they were open.

So how did I do?

Below is the final tally of the books I read each month and the grand total is 45 books read.  Not the one hundred that I aimed for, not even the halfway point ... a sad years reading in my opinion and I know I can do better.  

Hopefully next year will be better and this brings me to something else.  Next year this blog will be dormant as I have started a new blog for a hopefully year long Challenge that I am hoping to complete.  It too involves a lot of reading ... so maybe I will find my reading mojo somewhere along the way ... and it deserves to stand alone with it's own space in blogland.

If you scroll to the bottom of this post you will find a link that will take you to the first page of that blog and posts will begin in earnest next week.  Thank you for reading all about my Challenges this year.  The links of all my Challenges for the past three years will remain on the sidebar if you wish to read them.

My 2020 Reading Total

December

45 - kept

44 - gone

43 - kept

42 - kept

41 - gone

November

40 - kept

39 - kept

October

38 - gone

37 - kept

36 - gone

35 - gone

34 - gone

33 - gone

September

32 - kept

31 - kept

August

30 - kept

29 - kept 

28 - gone

July

27 - kept

26 - kept

June

  25 - kept 

24 - kept 

May

 23 - kept

22 - gone

21 - kept 

20 - gone  

April

19 - gone  

18 - gone

17 - gone

14/15/16 - gone

March

13 - gone

 12 - gone

February

11 - kept

10 - gone

9 - kept

January

8 - kept

7 - kept

6 - kept

5 - gone

4 - gone

3 - gone

2 - gone

1 - gone

The link to the new blog:

A Year of Modern Rationing.

I'll see you over there.  If you are interested please click on the Follow button on the sidebar of that blog, and thank you to those of you who spotted the first post go live and added your names immediately.

Sue xx