The Big Relaunch of the Food Cupboard Challenge

The big relaunch of The Food Cupboard Challenge .... haha, now that sounded great didn't it, I couldn't resist.  😁

Actually I just mean that from today onwards I will be doing it properly.

I will resist every temptation to move foods from one place to another.  I find that this is one of my biggest failings, I see a gap in the top part of the food cupboard and have an immediate urge to fill it, either with shopping or with something from another place.  It means I quickly lose track of what I have and what is where, I think it's mostly because I would like all my food to be in the one place.  Who knows maybe if I do this challenge properly this time that will actually happen.  

Now that would be good!!

So yesterday, with this post in mind I took these photos.

For posterity, and to see exactly where everything is right now at the start of the Challenge ... and of course because a peek inside someone else's cupboards, especially food cupboards is always a nice thing, so they are for you as well as for me.  😄

Even the little drawers have filled up again with all the lovely foodie gifts I was sent for my birthday.  The thing is, when you tell all the family that you don't want any more 'stuff' you get edibles and toiletries instead.  Which means that I am now fully stocked up in all departments ... and very happy about it too. 💝

The little wire shelves above the drawers have barely changed in appearance since the start of the year. A couple of the packs of biscuits from the glass jar have been eaten and some of the tiny jars of jam from the larger of the two cream coloured enamel tubs have been eaten for breakfasts.  Oh, and the contents of the granola jar have changed as it was refilled from a different box.

These shelves have only changed in that the jars have been topped up and the pepper pot is a different one, the cream coloured one I used to have leapt off the shelf and broke in a cloud of pepper ... atishoo!!  🤧

And that's all the ambient food in the house, of course there's stuff in the fridge and freezer, oh and I've just remembered the spice drawer and the extra spices that I found recently in the enamel teapot, and posted about here.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday that overwhelmingly said you would be interested in continuing to watch my ongoing food expenditure successes and failures, hopefully by relaunching this challenge I will be able to keep myself on the straight and narrow and really limit the spending for the next few months.

I'm going now before I remember any more food stashes and have to continue confessing to my huge stock of food.  Anyway it's time for me to do my online banking now as Alan has just been over with a document for me to sign and reminded me to check to see if my wages are in my account yet ... if they are I could go shopping, or maybe not!!  😁

Sue xx

A Chip Shop Shock, a Lack of Menu Plan ... and What you Want When You Want It

I missed menu planning at all last week ... the first time I've not written out a menu plan since the start of January ... and I'm not really in the mood to do it today, so this week I have decided to mix things up a bit and instead of writing out a menu plan I will be filling in the menu sheet with the foods that I actually eat all week as and when I have them, then I should be able to have a look on paper at what is going on in my mind ... and going into my stomach.

I seem to be having a real, 'I'm not that bothered about anything' mood going on at the moment and it would be all too easy to eat crappy foods all week, but I don't want to do that.  So I think if I write it all down I will want it to appear slightly healthier to my own eyes ... not just if I share it on here.

Breakfast - tick!

After breakfast I took the dogs for a walk to the park, dropped some sorted out clothes into the charity clothes recycling bins in Booths car park, and then some unwanted dog food into the Animal Sanctuary collection point at Sainsbury's and whilst I was there was inspired to get some shopping.

Inspired by seeing the yellow-stickered reduced price fish fillets.

Last week when we got back from Manchester,  Alan went to get us a chippy tea after walking the dogs and the prices had shot up again ...  the fish were £8.50 each. I was so shocked.   So when I spotted this reduced price box of two very similar battered fish for just £3.99 I instantly thought that I would recreate last weeks meal for under the cost of just one chip shop fish portion, to show Alan that it can be done so much cheaper.

Alan has a bag of these Aldi oven chips in his freezer that cost £1.29, and I have bought the fish and the peas.

A meal for two -

1/2 bag of chips - 65p

1/4 bag of peas - 25p

Reduced price Battered Fish fillets - 3.99

Total £ 4.89

I think we might possibly have had our last chippy supper for a while, well a bought from the chippy one anyway!!  Even I didn't think that it would so far under the price of just one of the fish portions.

As you saw up above I didn't just get the fish, I also bought the peas, which were on offer at £1, two yellow-stickered chocolate bars at  79p each and because all this thinking about fish made me want to have some for lunch I bought two haddock fillets for £2.25 and some buns to have one of them on, for £1.40.  

The total spend including the fish was just £10.22.

Lunch - tick! 

There has been some talk of supermarket shelves being pretty empty in lots of places around the UK over the past few weeks.   I have to say that our store was pretty well stocked on most things, but I guess with it being such a small Sainsbury's it's easy to keep it looking well stocked.  What seems to be missing ... according to that and other articles ... is the really out of season things such as tomatoes.

  Wouldn't it be so much better if people ate more seasonally again, ate more British produced foods and stopped expecting to be able to buy exactly what they want, when they want it all the time!!

Sue xx

Holding Myself Accountable - Do I Cheat?

I ate the other VFC No Chicken Fillet last night for my tea.  

I decided it might be more palatable if I cut it up and had it on a salad rather than eating it as a burger, it was.  It was still not really to my taste, I guess I just no longer like the texture of some of the meat replacement food items.  Things like sausage rolls, Quorn mince and Linda McCartney sausages I'm fine with, other things like pretend chicken or beef just seem so wrong.  I would rather just have vegetables.  Anyway it made a nice lighter style tea for an evening when I just wasn't that hungry after a really painful day. 

Someone asked me why I wasn't sharing the receipts of my shopping trips while I'm doing this challenge ... and 'do I cheat?'

Nope I don't, if I did I would just be cheating myself!!  This isn't an entertainment idea on a blog earning me money, it's a sort of challenge to myself to gradually bring down the contents of the food stored at home and see how long I can make my money last ... what would be the point of cheating?

The few shopping trips that I have made have all had good reasons for not having receipts.

Number one was a haircut and a Radio Times, my hairdresser does not give out receipts, and it seemed pointless to print out a Booths receipt showing that I had bought one item.

Number two was again a copy of the Radio Times and a pack of eggs both from Booths, these were on Alan's receipt.  I don't know where that went ... but I definintely gave him the money.

Third spend was £7 at Asda for a birthday cake to take to my Mum's, I haven't got that receipt as the only other things I bought were for my Mum and I gave her the receipt.

Fourth spend, or maybe it should be called a no-spend was from Booths when I used my £10 voucher to pay for the entirety of the shopping and I actually remembered to say yes when they asked if I wanted a paper receipt, as I wanted to see how neatly it all added up to £10.   (Usually it arrives on my phone five minutes after I leave the store) 

My first spend of February was the Jack Monroe book and was another nice round £10.

The second shopping trip for February was this one, I got the receipt but it was really badly printed, so much so I have written out all the food items I bought for me as I know it will fade even in my diary.

All the crossed out items are the things that I bought for the foodbank on that trip.  Looking at this I have just noticed that the fishfingers I bought on Saturday were £1.65 ... they are £1.85 today!!   I noticed this morning while I was in Aldi again shopping for toiletries for the foodbank trolley and I had a bit of a mooch around the shelves and fridges while I warmed up after a chilly dog walk around the park.

  Wow ... 20p up in just four days, late last year these used to be £1.15.

 

My final spend ... just to hold myself unnecessarily accountable ... was in Sainsbury's, once again while I was getting some shopping for Mum and I spied the Cathedral City plant based cheese.

So I don't always remember to ask for a receipt, if I do have one I stick it in my diary, but if someone else needs it they get it.  I do go to the shops shopping every week, but this is now predominately for the foodbank not for me, it's surprisingly nice half filling a trolley and then not bringing anything home to put away.  😃

On this holding myself accountable post I will show you my final freezer inventory.

The things in the top drawer are now mostly chopped veggies from the fridge drawer that I have been putting into freezer bags ready for future use so that they don't go off, along with the pasta sauces that were in the middle drawer previously.

Everything else, including the things that are on my menu plan for this week, are in the bottom two drawers now and not even crammed in like they used to be.   So in the past three weeks I have gone from three A4 sheets of inventory to what would now just fit on one ... a very successful freezer challenge if I do say so myself.

Chopped celery for use in stews and soups in the future, now in the freezer, and some little sticks of celery for dipping in the tub of hummus that I thawed out last week which I ate for my lunch yesterday.

This weeks menu plan. 

 I need to tick off yesterdays meals and today's lunch and then I should take that half baked potato out of the freezer to thaw out in time for tea!!

Sue xx

Menu Plan Monday, on a Wednesday ... and Stealing Food

 

I must be better organised ... Menu Plan Monday nearly didn't get done until Tuesday, and as you are here now and reading it I've no doubt you have noticed that now it's Wednesday!!

I also swap and change the meals around a bit, which is absolutely not a problem really but on Monday night no sooner had I written down pizza for tea than I made myself ... 

... a salad sandwich using the 'coleslaw' mix and a couple of Quorn ham slices.

Oh well, it's all food and all delicious and it needed using up.  I also stole the bread from Alan's breadbin.  He had just left for work and I was over in his kitchen feeding the dogs and Ginger, and I spied lovely fresh bread just crying out to be nicked ... so I did.

To be honest I could call it a swap for the piece of birthday cake that I gave him to eat before he set off on his travels.  So swapsies, not tea-leafing.

My actual menu from last week shows that I did do slightly better than the first week.  

I didn't make the Quorn and vegetable curry so that has been moved forward to this week when I will have some more time, and not all the meals were eaten on the day that they were supposed to be, but they were eaten and that has made a huge difference to actually being able to open the drawers of the freezer much more easily.

I was feeling really pleased with myself ... and then Alan reminded me just before he left that I have a pack of Aldi meat-free sausage rolls in his freezer left over from Christmas!!

The three pages of freezer inventory are getting a bit more difficult to scan through now, so because I saved them on the computer I may go and alter them and make it easier to see exactly what I do have left to use ... and I must remember to add to the list the four sausage rolls.  😄

Sue xx