Another Big Food Shop

Monday, after we'd seen our daughter off on her school trip for the week, I headed out to do a food shop for the week or three.  I say that as it turned out to be a bit of a bigger shop than I had intended. 

I'm a pretty frugal shopper and always on the lookout for a bargain.  I am not adverse to buying yellow ticket or reduced items so long as they look okay (especially meat) and I put them in the freezer as soon as I get home to extend their life.  I also look out for good offers and if it is too good to resist and I have room in my cupboards I will buy it.

Last week I had a very minimal shop spending less than £25 on food for the week.  We managed on food in the freezer, fridge and store cupboards so we had as a consequence run low on quite a few things that needed restocking.  In addition the fridge and fruit bowl were pretty empty with most of the fruit and vegetables used up save for some potatoes and salad from the allotment.  As a result my shopping list was quite a long one so I knew it wouldn't be a cheap week as weekly shops go.

I started my shop in Lidl and got many of the regular things that I usually buy from there such as fruit, some vegetables and salad, cheese, eggs, olives, orange juice, bread, toilet rolls, two lots of cereal, etc. etc.  I bought some meat, namely bacon, ham and chicken drumsticks.  Heinz baked beans were on offer at 4 x 400g tins for £1.75.  I haven't seen them this cheap in a while so I bought a pack of these and two tubs of Utterly Butterly Lightly on offer at 89p each.  In total I spent £42 approx. including  a few pounds spent on items for the food bank.

For the rest of my shopping this week and for a change from my usual routine of going to Asda, I went to Morrisons on account of having acquired a coupon to use there.  I haven't shopped here for quite a while and don't really know the shop that well, but £5 off a £35 spend was definitely worth having. 

I had a good long look around the store and managed to find lots of things which seemed very reasonably priced, and a couple of real bargains that I couldn't ignore.  The first of which was this pack of 12 x 400g of chopped tomatoes for £2.80 which translated to a cost of less than 24p per tin.  I have never seen these on sale for less than 30p in recent years, and they are a staple that will always get used and are useful to give to the food bank. At the beginning of the month there are funds available for this sort of purchase so I bought just the one case as I don't have room to store any more, but they were definitely worth having.

I also managed to get 4 pork leg steaks on offer at half price.  I paid £2.03 for 4 steaks.  I use two of these diced up to make a sweet and sour dish, so I just bag them up in twos and put them in the freezer for use later in the week/month.  I also bought various cheap fresh meats to make some homemade dog food, as our dog is pretty picky these days and once a week as a treat I make up my own food to feed her.  I spent another £10 or so on other things for the dog too including cans of food and dog shampoo. For the homemade food I use things like pigs heart or lambs liver and cook them up with some mince, rice and vegetables.  These animal products are usually less than £1 per pack which I divide into four parts for each batch and freeze them to use throughout the month.  She loves them.

I treated myself this week to a 1L bottle of the new Blackberry and Elderflower Pimms.  It was on offer at £10 as opposed to £18 so it was a bargain.  I tried it last night and it tastes nice.  The only problem with Pimms is that it almost tastes too nice so you can go on and on drinking it thus getting a bit drunk without intending to.  (I didn't do this last night - honestly).   I also bought a new 70cl bottle of London Dry Gin for £11 as I had run out and do sometimes like just one drink on some evenings, but had completely run out of anything alcoholic.

 

I found a few yellow ticket items in the bakery, namely a lovely chocolate fudge cake for £1.25 as a treat and various different flavoured breakfast muffins which I put in the freezer and will use over the next couple of weeks.

 

The total for today's shop combined after using the voucher for £5 came to £110 approximately, which is probably a third of my monthly budget for groceries, but with what is left in the freezer from last month's food shopping it should keep us going for at least two weeks, save topping up with some fresh foods and bread.