Live Below the Line - The Shopping

I had a rethink about my Live Below the Line shopping.

I had bought a couple of things from Asda, a couple of things from Tesco and was about to shop around to make the best use of my remaining couple of pounds, then I thought ..... 'hold on a minute if you had just five pounds to spend to keep yourself fed you would not have the wherewithal to go driving round from shop to shop just to save pennies'.

SO .... I took my five pounds and went to Asda at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, knowing that whatever was there I would just have to make the best of it.  I had looked at mysupermarket.com to see what I should be able to get, and wrote myself a list with prices alongside the items I hoped to be able to buy.  Then I simply hoped that they would still have some of their value lines left at the end of a busy weekend.

They did .... phew!!

My supermarket shopping trolley is pictured at the top.

This is it unpacked later on at home.

I also nabbed a few real bargains with it being so close to closing time.  

Two loaves of brown bread for 3p each and a pack of 10 little garlic breads for 10p.  I did have a 30p brown Value loaf in my shopping trolley but that went straight back on the shelf when I managed to get these instead.  Because I had saved 24p on my bread I went over to the fruit and veg aisles to see what had been reduced there,  there wasn't much but I did mange to get this stew pack for just 20p.

Here's the receipt, showing that my shopping came to £4.18, I was pleasantly surprised. 

So when I got home I added half a dozen of our free range eggs, which at cost price are 48p and a bottle of Sparkling Water that I already had in the cupboard that had cost me 17p ... which brings me to a new total of £4.83.

I am going to use the remaining 17p to purchase whatever I need from my 'sachet tin'.  

Whenever we are eating or drinking out and about I bring home any unused sachets that we have on our tray.  I do not pick up extra just for the sake of getting freebies, all these are sachets that would have been thrown away if I had not brought them home with me.  So I have decided that I will make good use of them, and at Lovely Hubby's suggestion I will charge myself 1p each for them.

I'm pleased at how far I have managed to make my five pounds stretch, I just have to figure out a menu plan now ready for when I am starting my Live Below the Line challenge on Tuesday morning.  A day later than most people as I am off to a family funeral on today which is the official start date, but there are lots of people who have already done this challenge or will be doing it in the next few weeks ..... so if you are tempted to give it a go there is still time to join up!!

Huge thanks for my first three donations go to Lovely Hubby, Mary Dawson and Barbara Grant, I am very grateful and it has given me a real boost to see the coffers swell so early on.

This year I am raising money for Action Against Hunger.  To find out more follow this link.

But briefly ...

Action Against Hunger is an international humanitarian organisation committed to ending child hunger. We work to save the lives of malnourished children while providing communities with sustainable access to safe water and long-term solutions to hunger.
We run life-saving programmes in 45 countries helping over 9 million people every year facing emergency situations of conflict, natural disaster and food insecurity. 

My donations page can be found HERE.  Again many thanks to those of you that have got the ball rolling with your donations.  Now I just have to plan a menu and see if I can make this food last me the full five days..... I'm hopeful.

Sue xx