Bi-Weekly Shop and Meal Plan

Well, yesterday I did the first of the new frugal budget bi-weekly shops at our local Lidl.

Can I just say – what a fantastic shopping experience. Somehow, because the store is smaller, you can see over most of the shelves and there is less choice, it was just so….EASY. I don’t want twenty brands of conditioner to choose from, it just bewilders me. I don’t want to work out whether the BOGOF offer I am presented with, is cheaper than just buying the cheapest brand. I don’t want the cuddly, squeezy marketing stuff that makes me feel like a supermarket brand is supposedly looking out for my best interests. I just want reasonably priced, reasonable quality and acceptably ethical food. I have to say, Lidl had all of those. I may be late to the party, but I’m converted!

 

Our bi-weekly shop (excluding milk and fresh veg top-up for week 2) cost £86 – this is all food, toiletries and cleaning products. I know that  same trolley would easily have cost £120 in Morrisons. I had budgeted £150 for this so I am well under budget and it will work out about £50 a week with the top up bits. It was so cheap, I even managed to buy a few things to make the frugality a bit more exciting, like parmesan cheese, black olives and wasabi peanuts. How Ed Milliband met with such uproar for claiming his weekly shop was £80 I don't know - if he shopped in Lidl I think this is quite realistic frankly!

 

Armed with this bounty, I came home and made a meal plan. You would think that planning before you go and only buying what you need would be more frugal, but actually no – I went with a rough idea, but other frugal bloggers suggest seeing what is cheap and then planning when you get home. Having this list means I don’t have to think about what to cook every night.

In the next fortnight, we can look forward to:

 

Dinners

Quorn and cauliflower homemade currry padded out with vegetables, poppadoms and rice

Home made chicken kiev, salad, homemade coleslaw and few homemade chips

Pepper and courgette fajitas with kidney beans

Homemade pizza x2 nights

Venison sausage casserole with jacket potato or mashed swede and cabbage

Homemade meatballs with pasta and tomato sauce, broccoli

Beef, port and mushroom slow-cooker stew, cauliflower cheese

Goats cheese, pea and mint (or whatever else is around) risotto, sprinkled with parmesan

Spicy tomato and sardine pasta

Prawn green thai curry with rice

Grilled minty lamb steak, mash and veg

Pesto pasta

Fishcakes with sweet chilli dipping sauce and mint yoghurt dressing

Homemade falafal and salad

Omelette, chips and mushy peas

Quorn mince lasagne

Leftover veg pancakes with cheese sauce

 

Lunches

Leftover quorn and cauliflower homemade curry

Tuna and mayo jacket potato and salad

Cheese and bean salad wrap

Leftover venison sausage casserole

Leftover beef port and mushroom slowcooker stew

Leftover goats cheese, pea and mint risotto

Leftover spicy tomato and sardine pasta

Leftover prawn green thai curry

Leftover falafal and hummous with crudetes

Cheese and spinach frittata/quiche

 

Breakfasts

Eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms

Sourdough toast

Cereal and Yoghurt

Homemade banana muffins

Homemade apple and cinnamon muffins

 

By the time I got home, it was late, so I shoved a previously made and frozen portion of veggie lasagne in the fridge for us, which we ate with leftover salad – which took all of ten minutes to prepare.

Going to the shops, even if it is just to pick up a couple of items mid-week, is an invitation to accidently spend £30 and this is where our budget has accidently spiralled out of control in the past. By buying in advance I hope that I have removed this temptation. Now time to batten the hatches for a fortnight!

 

 

Super Cheap Super Amazing Day Out

Today I had a great day out on my college field trip to the RHS Wisley garden in Surrey. The weather was shite, but I still had a great time indulging my horticultural urges.

 

 

The first thing my group did was head straight to the coffee shop. My muffins and home made coffee were a distant memory at this point (it was an early start and a long drive!). But a friend who wasn't able to come, and who asked me to take some photos for her, gave me a £5 voucher to use in the café, so I had a coffee and huge slice of cake.

 

 

Ask, and the universe delivers!

 

 

 

After some more mooching and a tour of the orchards, the heavens opened, and all thoughts of a picnic outside went down the drain with the deluge. We all piled into the nearest café...this time an organic sausage restaurant. This was difficult - I could have spent £4.50 on a hot dog so as not to offend anyone by eating my own food and I came close.

 

I figured that there are always going to be times like this, when spending money is an easy way to avoid an awkward situation. But if I did that, I would be putting off reaching my goal to basically fit other people's expectations. On the other hand, the owner of the café needs to make a living and isn't providing, cleaning and heating an indoor picnic site. So I compromised. I bought a black coffee for £2.35, declared to the group that I had already made my lunch and brazenly ate it at the table. Nobody looked, commented or threw me out and it was perfectly fine.

I stayed away from the bookshop and plant centre (SO much temptation - why do it to myself?) and the whole day out cost me a grand total of  £2.35 (which came out of my spending money budget).

Thus proving to myself that I do not need to spend lots of money to have a great time.

Frugal Packed Lunch

Well today was another no-spend day. I'm up early to go off on a 'school' trip tomorrow, with the college I go to one morning a week to study horticulture. It is a sort of side-project while I save up for my Garden Design course.

 

Tomorrow will be a real test of my determination not to spend anything during the week. The whole trip is mercifully free, but I know that there are lots of cafes and resteraunts where we are going and I could easily blow £15 on lunch. I don't have it in my budget ergo, I am not spending it!

So tonight I scoured my imagination and what was left in the fridge and cupboards to make something nice for lunch. It's not so bad missing out on buying lunch if you have put some effort into your picnic.

 

First, breakfast. It is was tradition for me to buy breakfast such as a croissant or breakfast bap and a coffee in the college canteen and eat it with my fellow students. For obvious reasons, this won't be happening any more.

 

So, I scoured the cupboard and came across these:

 

 

Which are traditionally fairly breakfasty, no? I also found a manky banana. An online search threw up Banana and Prune Muffins.

 

 

It took about five minutes to throw in the other ingredients and lazily mash them with an electric whisk.

 

 

I found some old cupcake cases in the cupboard - I didn't buy them and have a feeling that either LB is a secret baker, or they belong to his ex-girlfriend. Oh well, waste not want not!

 

 

25 minutes later, I have breakfast for tomorrow, which I will take with a flask of coffee. Cost was: 200g Morrisons Savers Self Raising Flour (4p), Banana (15p) Prunes (79p) Egg (16p) Oil (25p) 100g Sugar (14p) = £1.53 for 10 so 15p each. Bargain!!

  

 

Then I made six rolls - this is the same dough recipe I always use and comes out at 60p for 6 or 10p each. I will put 1/2 tin of tuna (50p) and tablespoon of mayo (35p) in two of these, making a total of 95p.

 

 

But just in case I am still peckish - it's a long day - I whizzed up some hummus using a tin of chick peas, garlic, tahini, olive oil and lemon juice. I will chop up some carrots and celery in the morning and apologise profusely to my fellow students for reeking out the minibus!

 

Then, since I was in the zone, the Archers was on Radio 4 and all was good with the world, I carried on and made tomorrow's dinner, Chorizo and Chick Pea Stew.

 

 

This is quite cheap as a tiny bit of chorizo goes a long way.

 

 

It bubbled away for about half an hour while I did other stuff.

 

 

And I made enough for two lunches and a main meal. This cost 94p per portion (£1.05 for the tinned tomatoes, 33p for the pepper, 75p for 6" of chorizo, 79p for a tin of chickpeas, 15p for the garlic and 25p for some red lentils, 15p for an onion 10p for spices and 20p for oil) which, even with a hunk of sourdough bread for lunch, and a jacket potato for dinner, is pretty darn frugal.

It sounds like a lot, but I came home at 6.30 and was sitting down with a cup of tea and 'The Thick of It' re-runs by 8, having eaten the stir fry I also cooked tonight. One thing to be said for frugalism - you don't have time to get bored!

 

Frugal Newspapers

I used to regularly buy a paper on both Saturday and Sunday, as I have a romantic notion about leisurely flicking through the paper while I sip coffee and eat croissants at the weekend.

Actually they usually ended up being placed unread and still folded in pristine virgin fashion, into the recycling bin - I never had the time to read them and then they became superseded by events. Obviously in this new frugal era, I can't be spending £5 a weekend on papers (£260 a year!).

Hardcore frugalists remind me that all content is available on-line for free - but firing up the laptop of a Sunday morning and reading online - when I spend 37.5 hours a week gawping at a monitor at work, does not have the same appeal. Besides, I get told off by the work IT people for getting crumbs in the keyboard.

However - there is Waitrose!

 

 

Obviously, my Waitrose shopping days are probably long gone, and I will be making the humiliating walk through the same local Waitrose carpark to the Lidl behind.   However, I do still have my 'MyWaitrose' card. Waitrose dogfood is the best I have found, and the most reasonably priced, at £2.50 for 6 cans. If you spend a minimum of £10 (24 cans of dogfood) you can get a paper for free. So now, I pop in of a Sunday morning to buy 2 weeks dogfood supply and pick up the Observer absolutely FREE. The trick is obviously to buy what you went in for and NOTHING else (I only took £10 in cash lest I be tempted).

 

So this evening (not having time at the weekend anyway) I sat down for an hour and treated myself to a flick through the papers. Although the news is obviously now out of date, this is only about ten pages. Most of the paper is comment, the Weekend section or the Magazine, which don't really date and can be read during the week or even the following Saturday, giving me the feeling I have bought papers every day, for nothing. It is really relaxing to just sit with a cup of tea and read for an hour.

 

The weeks that I don't need dogfood, I will be investigating the prices of their fresh, frozen and value ranges to see what else I can buy that was on my list anyway- and I will not come out with £50 of scented candles, luxury greeting cards, preserved artichoke hearts, avocado oil, baby vegetables or artisan bread!

 



Sunday

Another great and frugal day. We were invited around to great friends for a meal - we always go there as they have young children, but to spread the burden, I brought dessert.

I plumped for Apple Crumble, using some leftover apples we had in the freezer (from someone with too many back in the autumn). To ensure it got there in one piece, I made a 'kit' that could quickly be assembled at her house.

Total cost to me was £4 for the wine (Aldi again!) and £0.98 for two packets of custard - the rest was made using what we had in the kitchen. We had a lovely evening in, sitting in the garden and chatting and laughing into the night- our contribution cost £5 but good friendship is priceless!

And this afternoon, I made a quiche to take to work during the week. This was another cheapy, as I used up all of the old veggies from the fridge.

 

It cost:

Butter - 100g (39p)
Flour - 200g (6p)
4 eggs - (66p)
100g cheese (57p)
Mushrooms (10p)
Onion (15p)
Chives from the garden  - free!

Total: £1.93

LB and I will take a quarter each, each day - so 48p for each lunch, with some homemade coleslaw and leftover salady bits. Tasty!

Worth Wearing means Worth Reparing! And other things

What a brilliant Saturday. I really enjoyed pottering about and getting things done.

 

Total Spend:£9.05

 

I achieved a LOAD today, just pottering and doing the things I knew had to be done. Here's what I did:

 

1. Got my Shoes Repaired

 

 

 

These shoes were discounted to £22 and I wore them to work none-stop last year. However, that annoying thing happened whereby the tip of the heel falls off after a while and you are left trotting about with this annoying squeak of metal on floor tiles. Once upon a time I would have binned them, but I have bought myself another year out of them by paying £7.50 to have them repaired - much cheaper than buying another pair and I must admit, it feels good to mend what you have.

 

 

 

 

2. Tended my Veg

 

I spent two satisfying hours down at the allotment, hoeing, watering and planting a few things out. I will introduce you one time soon. At the moment I have strawberries just about to ripen, rhubarb, potatoes, butternut squash, broad beans, carrots, swede, turnip, cauliflower, red cabbage and broccoli up there growing away nicely. I even picked up some tomatoes for nothing, to go in the greenhouse  conservatory from a plot holder who had grown too many. They were a bit straggly and desperate for a bigger pot.

 

 

But with a bit of TLC they have perked up and will be just fine.

 

 

 

The garden is where I grow all of the high-maintenance stuff, like courgettes, beans and lettuce which need daily picking and watering - I just don't get to the allotment every day. It isn't beautiful for a wannabe garden designer I know - but we don't think we will be in this house for that much longer, so I have resisted the urge to make it pretty - it is productive though.

 

 



Things are growing away - we will have salad all though the summer from this tiny plot. I extended it recently and was about to get some 'Warrior Compost' from the recycling centre (£2 a bag - needed four bags) but then thought again. We had a large delivery of manure at the allotment last year - so I bagged some of that instead and brought it home in the car in some rubble sacking - praying I didn't need to do an emergency stop. I dug this in and incorporated some blood, fish and bonemeal and it is ready to go for the courgettes as soon as they are big enough.

 

3. Made some Bread

 

I have recently re-started making my own sourdough bread. I have bought it in the recent past for £2.70 a loaf - I just love the tangy flavour and the lovely texture. But, no more now I am frugal. So, last week, I set my sourdough starter off.

 

 

 

It is really simple - flour and water mixed and left to 'harvest' the yeast in the atmosphere, which is 'fed' and nurtured to grow a little yeast colony - which you then use to make bread. If you are interested, this is the recipe I use.

 

 

It rose sedately in the conservatory all day...

 

 

 

And was ready much later that evening .It is a little flat I concede - I think it really needs a large loaf tin as it lacks the robustness of normal dough. But it tastes divine!

 

This cost me: 500g bread flour (53p), salt (2p?) water (free!) and a little slug of vegetable oil (5p). Grand total: 60p!

 

I also spent £1.55 on a reel of black cotton and most of the day working on a super-frugal sewing project, but I will save that for another day, when it is finished.

 

What a relaxing and satisfying day.

Frugal Friday

My first frugal Friday was lovely - I really wouldn't have had it any other way. At the end of a long week, I really don't want to do anything other than crash on the sofa and really, even if the cinema and a pizza out was free, I don't think I would have the energy. Which made fitting it into my new frugal life easy peasy.

Every Friday, a good friend of the Lovely Boyf (LB) comes round with his Game of Thrones box-set. This has been going on for some time now as we were a bit late to the party. But now we are hooked!

 

 

Good free entertainment - but I spent £3.99 on a bottle of red at Aldi. I am a bit of a wine snob but actually, I have to admit as I polish off the remainder while I type, Aldi wine is fine - it was still a nice treat to relax with on a Friday night, and still less than a pint from our local! I have made it last all weekend though, so I suppose you could argue I only spent £2 of it on Friday!?!

Rather than get a takeaway, I made homemade pizza. I have a bread maker and it takes no time at all to whiz up the dough (although I have done this by hand and it is no trouble either). I make it on a Thursday night and bung it in the fridge, so all I have to do is roll it, load it up and bung it in the oven. I can honestly say that having taken years to perfect this, I prefer my own pizza to Dominoes - far less dry and doughy and just to my liking. It goes down well with the boys too.

I wish I had remembered to take a photo of the finished result before it was scoffed, you will have to trust me, it was delicious.

Dominoes charge £16.99 for my pizza of choice - I calculated that mine cost: 500g Flour(58p) 5g Yeast (6p) Oil (10p) Water (free!) 2 Mushrooms (10p) 1/2 red onion (5p) 3 bags value Mozerella (1.35) 1 tube tomato puree (49p) 1/2 tin tomatoes (15p) garlic granules (5p) 1 whole tomato (15p) = £3.18, so £1.05 each! Bargain.