Sunday 10 July 2011

the food receipt, week one.

So, first week trying to stay within £30 on the food budget. We popped to do our food shopping today, and we got the following:
- 1 tin chicken soup - 74p
- 4 x branston beans - £1.50
- 2 x peach barley water - £2
- 2 x white onions - 48p
- salad cream - £2.09
- 2 x carrots - 14p
- 2 x orange pepper - £1.60
- 2 x baking potato - 79p
- broccoli - 70p
- baby spinach - £1.25
- bananas - £1
- 2 x chicken breasts (value) - £2
- mushrooms - 84p
- cashew nuts - £1
- crispy chicken - £2
- fajita mix - 59p
- tortillas - £1
- 2 x hovis loaves - £2
- pepperoni pizza - £1.79

Total: £23.51

Now, some of the things on that list will be used in different weeks - for example there are 4 pieces of crispy chicken, so there will be 2 left over for another week. Also, the salad cream will last longer than this week. The branston beans were on offer, so they'll last us a while. The pizza is for the other half, when he's at work late, so it's something easy for him to pop in the oven. If I were better at this, I'd have pizza dough ready made in the freezer, but I'm not. Likewise the bread, other half has 2 sandwiches a day for his lunch or tea, and again if I was better, they would be in homemade bread. But, I'm only just starting out, so baby steps. 

The menu for the week looks like this:
Today (sun) - lamb chops (from freezer) with mustard mash, carrots, with a red wine (left over) and mushroom sauce.
Monday - chicken fajitas with salad 
Tuesday - Meatballs with tomato sauce and spaghetti (him), soup (me)
Wednesday - Veg stir fry with rice
Thursday - Pizza (him), soup (me, from store cupboard)
Friday - crispy chicken, chips and beans (him), egg on toast (me)

Now, the salad, meatballs, spaghetti, rice, soup and eggs are all things we have in already, but that's part of the challenge. Another thing to aim for is that we never chuck any food out, and incorporate leftovers into the next day meals - so we're doing that. 

Overall, pretty pleased so far. Just realised that I forgot to get tomatoes though! D'oh!

N xx

4 comments:

  1. Lots of luck! I could never manage on £30.00 I really admire you for giving it a go:-)

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  2. Will post our menus too.

    Great progress so far Nic.

    Sft x

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  3. Well done - it's great budgeting, makes us very creative!

    Kay :)

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