My £2 a Day Shopping Challenge - Day Three

The Plan

With yesterday's 1p overspend there was just £1.99 available.

Day Three Shopping - Total Cost £1.12

If I had gone to Sainsbury's, as was the original plan it would have cost me £1.11, but Alan was going to Aldi and I decided to go with him and get their versions of the things I needed.  I had originally thought that I would need to buy another onion to make the pasta sauce that I had planned for today, but having the carried forward onion and carrot meant that I saved some money, and of course meant that shopping at Aldi was possible.  It's a shame that Aldi sell so little of their produce loose, but I understand why they can't.

Meals

Breakfast - 1 slice of Toast with Jam, one with spread and a Banana

A simple breakfast but with the added banana, very satisfying.

Lunch - Jacket Potato with Spread

I had to use the same photo from yesterday as I forgot to take another one before I got stuck in.

Tea - Pasta and Sauce

I made the sauce with the tinned tomatoes, onion, carrot, mixed herbs and seasonings.  Simply cooked for a long time together and then whizzed up with my stick blender.  As you can see I manged to make three good portions from the ingredients that I had.

Leftovers Carried Forward:

14 slices of Bread

400g SR Flour

 Jam

 DF Spread

375g Pasta

2 portions of Pasta Sauce

2 Potatoes

1 Banana

87p

Sue xx

My £2 a Day Shopping Challenge - Day Two

 

The Plan

With yesterday's leftover cash I had a total of £2.03 to spend.

While I managed to get everything on my plan this time, overnight the Aldi 'Price Matched' baking potatoes had increased in price to 79p.  Luckily I had the 3p in reserve from yesterday's shopping trip so I decided to be lenient and dip into tomorrows money for the other penny.

While this is not my usual choice of spread, it was the cheapest one available and I had often wondered what this one tasted like.

The Receipt

Day Two Shopping - Total Cost  £2.04

Meals

Breakfast - 2 slices of Toast - 1 with spread and 1 with jam.

The Flora 'Buttery' is actually quite nice, very mild tasting but with a good texture and it doesn't disappear the moment it sees a bit of heat the way that my usual 'Naturli' spread does.

Lunch -Leftover soup from day one, with 1 slice of toast.

I was so happy when I found that I had enough soup from the pot made yesterday to do a second day's lunch.  I had originally thought I would need to use two of my newly bought potatoes today and use my leftover onion and carrot to replicate this healthy lunch.  This time I just left the toast whole and dunked it into the soup.  

So, it's the same meal as yesterday but it's looking slightly different.  😀

Tea - Jacket Potato and Spread

The Flora came into it's own again here and made for a very tasty jacket potato, which was surprisingly filling.

Leftovers carried forward:

400g SR Flour

 Dairy-Free Spread

3 Potatoes

16 slices of Bread

 Jam

1 Onion

1 Carrot

(-1p)

My £2 a Day Shopping Challenge - Day One

The Plan

Things didn't go exactly to plan, as when I got to Sainsbury's there was no porridge oats available, except for some very expensive ones. Thinking on the spot, I decided that a cheap loaf and a pot of jam would make for at least a week's worth of breakfasts. There was no cheap bread or jam either!!

 Is this a sign of things to come I wonder, all the cheapest things slowly vanishing, or is it just that they are now the first things to be snapped up when they are available? 

I headed off to Aldi, which happily is on my way home from Sainsbury's, where there seemed to be a bit more stock available.

The Actual Shopping

The couple of things from Aldi are on the left, and the rest are from Sainsbury's where it is still possible to buy loose vegetables.

The Receipts

Items Purchased

500g SR Flour - 45p

2 Onions - 19p

3 Carrots - 14p

1 Potato - 33p

454g Strawberry Jam - 39p

Bread - 22 slices - 47p

 Day One Shopping = Total Cost £1.97

Meals

Breakfast - 2 slices of toast and jam

The makings of lunch and tea.

Lunch - Soup 

1 potato

2 carrots

1 onion

Cook with stock, salt and pepper.  Lift out one slotted spoons worth of vegetables and then whizz up smooth with stick blender.  

Served with croutons made from one of the crusts of the bread, toasted.

A large slotted spoons worth of the vegetables were removed from the pan to use for the pasty.

Tea - Vegetable Pasty

Make pastry with 100g flour and 50g oil.  Fill with vegetables reserved from lunchtime.  

I'll be honest and say that my pastry didn't work out as well as it usually does.  It's been a while since I've made pastry with oil so it could just have been that, I first stated doing this after reading one of Thrifty Lesley's posts many moons ago, and have only used this recipe when I have had no hard fat available.  

Anyway I made enough for my tea and managed to eat most of it.

Leftovers carried forward:

19 slices of Bread

 Jam

400g SR Flour

1 Onion

1 Carrot

3p

My £2 a Day Food Shopping Challenge

 

With the colder weather coming and feeling a bit lethargic at the end of a Summer that we never really had, I decided to set myself a Challenge.  

A proper Challenge just like I used to do on my 'Challenging Myself' blog.  It's one that I will post about each and every day just after it happens all through this week.  And this challenge is:

My £2 a Day Food Shopping Challenge

My very first challenge on that old blog (which is always in the Blog List on my sidebar), was in 2018 and was a £1 a day food challenge aptly called 'The Eating for £1 Per Day Challenge'.  That one was done by buying all the four weeks worth of food in virtually one go and then using it over the course of the twenty eight days that the challenge lasted for.  Then in 2021 I did another low budget challenge, 'The £3 a Day Challenge' but this one was going out just before each meal armed with a £1 coin to see what I could buy for each meal ... so I shopped three times a day.  Luckily I lived just across the road from Sainsbury's then!

So this time I decided to switch things up a bit, allow for inflation and go for a £2 per day challenge, with each new amount being available one day at a time.

I decided to allow myself the luxury of a very basic pantry.

Instant coffee, olive oil, salt and pepper, mixed herbs, chilli flakes, garlic granules and a tub of stock powder.  That's it ... I did say basic.  😁

Here are the rules that I gave myself for the £3 a day challenge, slightly modified to fit this new one:

I will go out each day armed with my shopping bag and £2.

Any change can be carried forward to the next day.

Any food not consumed can be carried forward to the next day.

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 hope this all makes sense, any questions please feel free to ask today and I will try and answer them.

Sue xx