The Project

[poliphilo]

The project is to keep our weekly shopping bill under £45.

I hasten to add that we're not doing this because we're skint. Well, not really skint. It's more to do with making life interesting.

We've been at  it three weeks now. Last week was fab; we spent about £21. This week we spent just over £40. We've proved it can be done.

Every trip to the supermarket becomes a challenge. We write shopping lists and stick to them. Every aisle bristles with temptations we heroically resist.  We fall on special offers with cries of joy. 

We walk back into the car park with  our £12 worth of cheap groceries feeling good about ourselves. Also- and this is the weirdest thing- we're almost certainly eating a healthier diet.

Comments

[aellia.livejournal.com]

It's good isn't it!
My last week's bargains were two large punnets of seedless grapes for £1
And eight peppers for £1 !
I have also rediscovered the tastiness of chicken legs in a casserole!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Two punnets of grapes for £1 is brilliant.

We're also discovering the excellence of home-grown. My father-in-law gave us a bag of half-ripe cherry tomatoes he'd raised in his greenhouse and didn't think much of. They were delicious.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

After having been supplied with orange cherry tomatoes all summer,I never wish to eat a shop bought one again!
All they do is colour the plate?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Our tomatoes in the stores are so expensive no one can buy them! They are (sorry--son't know your equivalent) as of yesterday $3.94 a pound! I thought I'd buy a tiny one, about the size of a golf ball, so I weighed it and it would have been $1.00!

I put it back. And it wasn't even ripe...

[shullie.livejournal.com]

can you please write my shopping list!!

lol

we need to get it under control.. as

1 we are skint....and

2 well we are skint!! p[lus we need to get the car fixed!!

and 3. i agree it makes life more intresting

i need to get back to making things from scratch... and well I love this time of year, time for stews and such... and slow cookers!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I find I'm eating a lot of rice and cous-cous
And salad stuff
And eggs
And bread
Oh, and baked potatoes.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this serves as a counterpoint to those who argue that eating healthy is expensive and part of the reason behind why lower income families tend to have higher than average rates of obesity.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i doubt it, because you also have to consider that time is money, and that a lot of lower income people are too busy working multiple jobs to have the time to carefully plan shopping lists, scope out the best buys, and then cook those healthful meals. or for that matter, their working hours may make it difficult to get to the grocery store when it's open... but there's plenty of fast food places open 24 hours a day. it may not cost less monetarily to eat a hamburger, but when you factor in the time cost of eating a home-cooked alternative, fast food may consume less of a lower income person's available resources.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the secret is to stay away from convenience foods. They're the ones that do the damage-both to your pocket and your health.

[methodius.livejournal.com]

I haven't done much shopping in the UK, but 45 quid would be quite generous here.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can imagine.

The thing is we were spending over £100 a week. Money we don't really have. God knows what we were buying with it...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

You are inspiring me, against my will.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's like boy scouts or girl guides. You have to devise a way of crossing a flooded stream with half a ball of twine and a penknife.

Fun!

Scouts with twine

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

I liked that analogy.

Never heard the word "skint" before. Always glad to add to my vocabulary.