I had orders to do a frugal shop this week. "See if you can keep it under £20" my husband suggested. Whilst we didn't need a great deal, I could see problems in keeping it that low as we had just run out of bird seed and I felt the birds were still very reliant on what we were putting out. Another month and I might have been able to not feel so guilty. At all events, I have been cutting back what they get and they just have half a measure morning and evening, when they are hungriest.
Anyway, the shop started at the greengrocery outlet at Abergwili. We spent £7:
20 Cox's apples (6 1/2 lbs weight) £2
a box of mostly still green bananas (6 1/2 lbs weight) £1 (for quick sale)
a tub of cherry tomatoes 50p
a cucumber 50p
2 sweet potatoes £1
Bag of onions (just over 2lbs) 50p
11/2 lbs carrots 50p
7 Mineola tangerines £1
We had some vouchers to use in Tesco (though we don't do much shopping there as a rule, just odds and sods), plus a "spend £20 and get £3 off" which is worth having (better than Morrison's spend £45 and get £2.30 off anyway).
My shopping list was written down over the past week as I got low on things:
Bacon
Rapeseed Oil
2 bottles sparkling Mineral Water
AA batteries
AAA batteries
Plain Flour for baking x 2
6 tins cat food (whatever's on offer)
Salt
[Apples]
[Oranges]
[Bananas]
[Salad]
Broccoli
[Carrots]
[Onions]
(Butter) - could wait until next week, and so it has been put on next week's list.
Extras were two lots of Cheese, a bag of OO grade flour for home-made pasta, some French beans and a can of Diet Coke as my brain was feeling like mush by that time, as I have been awake 5 a.m. or earlier all this week.
I had some vouchers which needed using up so added a couple of extras to what I bought - venison steaks on offer at £4, plus I had £1 off;and milk at £1 less 35p off; 25p off a stirfry pack, which then cost me 75p, plus the £8 coupons, and 40p off the multi-buy cat food as it made sense to buy 2 packs and have one spare, thus making a saving on price.
The dearest thing of all was the batteries which cost £3 per pack (£6 in all). Normally we would get them from the £1 shop, but were going on to view an auction, so didn't have time. They cost TWICE as much as the venison steaks! Crazy.
My indulgence (for £1) was . . .
this magazine, which had several recipes I liked the look of, and gave details of how I could get £25 for submitting a recipe, which appealed to me! Fingers crossed they use one of mine when I get them sent off.
Total Tesco shop was £27.47 after reductions, which allowed a little towards the birdseed at £11.50 from Charlies in town. (Cheapest place).
I was awake at 4 a.m. this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I crept downstairs and blew the dust off the sewing machine to turn a bit of spare material (I think it was 50p worth in Brecon one time) into a cover for my breadmaker. The bias binding was in a £2 box of sewing bits from auction, so cost pence too. Job well done!
