Almost Blowing the Budget

I had a £4 off a £40 shop coupon courtesy of Lovely Hubby, who when he buys fuel at Sainsbugs always foregoes the ease of the 'Pay at Pump' and instead goes inside the shop to pay ... just on the off chance a coupon will spew forth from the till.

It did, and I tucked the coupon into my purse.  As I needed fuel when I got to the supermarket I thought I wonder if this will work for me too.  So I went into the shop to pay and lo and behold I got another coupon, this time £6 off a £60 shop.  Now I thought long and hard about what I could possibly need that would make me spend £60 and I went in to the shop open minded about what I would buy.

( I only found out recently that as long as you spend the amount of the highest offer voucher, all the others will be accepted at the same time.  So in this instance I got a total of £10 off my £62.45 shop and double Nectar points on the whole amount as I had a coupon for those as well.)

I had a small shopping list of grapes, milk, soft cheese and coffee, all things we really needed but other than that nothing that would bring my total even close to that magic £60.  Then on my way round store I spotted the things that were on offer, and it turned out I could buy a new fitted sheet for our bed at half price, ours has gone uncomfortably bobbly and worn, shower gels and toothpaste of our favourite brands were all less than half price, so I stocked up for the next six months, and new dog collars for the pooches in my life just shouted out at me from the shelf.

I have to keep some spares in the house as Rosy is apt, every now and then, to leave hers down a rabbit hole.  So if you ever see a wild bunny wearing a red and white spotty collar you will know it popped out of a rabbit hole in our neck of the woods and picked up Rosy's while making a snappy exit!!   ;-)

Oh, and I have to confess to a new jumper for me ... well it look so good on the mannequin in the doorway and looked so incredibly cosy.  

Sainsbugs customer 'tempt them in the doorway' technique 1  -   Sue  nil

Looking at the food part of my purchases I thought I had blown my budget, after all I had only £37.81 left of my Mini Challenge budget, available to spend and on the drive home with two exhausted dogs snoring away on the back seat of the car (we had stopped off for a walk in Rhos on Sea and walked a lot further than usual, hence our being in Sainsbugs neck of the woods) I was wording in my head today's blog post.  Title ..... 'Blown the Budget', text about how I could not resist the tasty bargains that I had found and sorry but the challenge was over a lot sooner than expected.

Well to my utter delight after taking away all the non food items I was stunned to see just the above things left on the worktop, virtually all included in my Capsule Kitchen (not the Ryvita crackers) and all just coming under the available allowance.

So I spent ££36.53 and I have remaining £1.28.

Not a lot is it, but with my 47p T*sco coupon I should just about be able to last another week, if I just buy milk and a couple of bananas next week.

As is my way the breaded fish portions were individually wrapped and added to my 'fish box' in the freezer, reminding me that I have yet to make my freezer inventory.  Something I think is vital now that I have just about ran out of money and it will be nice to have a list showing exactly what is in there to save me standing with the lid open wondering what to cook.

This picture reminds that someone asked did I know of any freezer labels that didn't peel off and lose themselves in the depths of the deep freeze, leaving you with lots of boxes and packs of unidentifiable freezer objects.  Why not do as I do and simply snip off the part of the label on the food packet that describes the contents and pop it in the box or bag with the food you are freezing. 

 Sometimes I write on the label what each item has cost me for budgeting purposes, but after buying these particular fish portions constantly for a while now, I know for a fact that they come out at 83p each.  Which makes for a nice cheap tea when combined with either a leafy salad or a few chips and garden peas.

'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' ..... a good mantra for me to keep in mind with only £1.28 left to spend  :-)

Sue xx

Shopping ... but not on a Sunday!!

I decided to go shopping yesterday to buy some more fresh stuff to compliment the food in our freezers, cupboards and the fridge.  The fridge was looking very sparse and nothing like the photo I put on the blog at the start of the week, so shopping really was a necessity. 

I kept it to all healthy things and the only items I bought that weren't on my Capsule Kitchen shopping list were the milk for Lovely Hubby, the Butternut Squash and the Quorn Cottage Pie .  I don't normally buy these but at the checkout after paying for everything else I got a 47p coupon off my next shop and a 50p coupon off any Quorn product, which I had noticed on my way round the store were on special offer.  I had thought I would be able to use both coupons off it but it turned out that the 47p coupon was only valid from 17th January ... one day later ... sneaky, sneaky T*sco.  Still it did mean that I got the Cottage Pie for just one pound, which made for something quick and tasty for lunch when we got home with the shopping.

So I still have a 47p coupon to spend on some more shopping .... and next time I will read the small print more carefully.

The shopping above cost me £11.16, which means I still have £37.81 to spend.  

It's going quicker than I thought it would, but then I've not really been making an effort to use up the vegetables in the freezer, I think I should be brave, put some gloves on and have a good sort through the chest freezer to see exactly what I have in stock before I do any more shopping.  At least there's a bit of room in there now for me to be able to see what I've got and have a sort out.

Did you set yourself any challenges for the New Year, and if you did ... how are they going?

Sue xx

Mini Challenge 2015

My Mini Challenge for 2015 is simply spending the Sealed Pot money on food to supplement what is in our fridge, freezers and cupboards and seeing how long I can make it last for.

Well at the end of last week I had to bite the bullet and hit the shops, the milk was all gone and I was craving bananas!!  As I am also taking part in Courtney Carver's  Capsule Kitchen Challenge I was determined to only buy things on my list of 33 foodstuffs, and I managed it apart from the little fresh cream cakes which were a little treat for Lovely Hubby's birthday at the end of last week.

You will notice that I also bought beetroot which initially was not on the list, but as it was on special offer and we both love the stuff I decided to swap out Leeks from my list and replace it with  Beetroot.  The leeks I have growing are tiny, tiny and as such will not be harvested for a long time, in the meantime I will have beetroot.  It's good in salads, sandwiches and makes juices look and taste amazing, so it's on the list.

In total I spent £12 24 on the things above, which means I have £48.97 left.

The single bottle of Sparkling water is representing the ten bottles that I bought.  I just couldn't be bothered to put them all up on the work top and then have to move them over to the cupboard and fridge so I just put the one on the worktop for the photo.

This was our fridge at the beginning of last week, we have chomped our way through some of the foods, and some of the excess Christmas foods have now been popped into the freezer, including the wedges of Stilton that I bought Lovely Hubby, this has now been portioned, individually wrapped and is now hidden away in the cheese box in the freezer with lots of other bits and pieces of cheese.  I love having my 'cheese box' it means that I have a selection of cheeses to vary the taste of quiches, pies and to add to salads, and by freezing them in small portions means that I can have a mixture of flavours and colours, and of course there is also always a box of grated Cheddar and of Parmesan style cheese available to use straight from the freezer.

Our hens have started laying a few more eggs now and their lovely offerings are gracing many a breakfast ....

... and give me an excuse, if ever one were needed, to use my favourite little egg cup.  Hand painted by someone with the initial 'D' in 1956 and picked up by me for 10p at a car boot sale many, many years later.

Sue xx

The Sealed Pot Money

Since opening the Sealed Pot on the 10th December the money has been sat waiting to hear of it's fate.  We were going to spend it on Christmas treats, but with our gift of a lovely hamper. lots of foodie goodies off visiting family and a couple of bags of chopped kindling off my eldest son, which has been very appreciated ...... they've saved me a couple of chopping sessions in the rain this week ...
we've been thoroughly spoilt.

  We think it's lovely that our family know just what to get us,  but between all these gifts and the things I had been buying week by week ready for our couple of relaxing weeks off work we simply did not need to spend any more money on things for Christmas.

So all that lovely cash is available for spending elsewhere, and in time honoured tradition it has spawned a Challenge for the next few weeks.  I think it will be a mini Challenge this time as there is only £61.21 (I don't know where the one pound coin is in the top picture but we definitely had one!!).

This Challenge fits in nicely as well with our new 'needs not wants' way of life, as we are going to spend the money on food for as long as it lasts.  As is my usual (but not for much longer) way there is foodstuff galore in the fridge, freezers and cupboards so before we spend any money on food we will be eating up what we already have in store.

I will only be buying what we need, ie.  milk, bread or any fresh foods that we require.  I will also only be buying the foods on my Capsule Kitchen list as this is something I have decided to go ahead with.  Things not on the list will not be replaced once they are used up.

Using up the foods in the fridge has been no hardship, in fact the other morning we had some freshly baked croissants, made using one of these 'ready to go' packs.  How easy and yummy was that, it made for a very special new years breakfast :-)

There is still some Christmas foods left in the fridge, a couple of large wedges of Stilton for example and all of these will be cut into usable sized smaller wedges and frozen for future use.  Many, many times as I'm sure a lot of you will remember I have made an effort to eat our way through the cupboards and always after a few weeks or months of serious effort things go back to how they were before, when bargains are spotted or mass baking sessions happen.  

Not that there's any harm in that it's just that this time I intend to get right back to basics, evaluate what we have and what we need and only keep in store in future a core stock of the real base commodities that will supplement and enhance our own home grown fruit and vegetables.

Back with more about my Capsule Kitchen tomorrow.

Sue xx