April Austerity - Fallout 3

I'm definitely watching my cash now.  It's not that I was really *that frivilous with the stuff in the first place, but I am now on the equivalent of the state pension, which is paid to me by the teacher pension lot and I have a huge mortgage which is not covered by this!

So, to try and make sure the pot does not sink too fast it's now Eve vs. Tosca: in May for example, Tosca has supplied me with £220.36 worth of goods - food, toiletries, washing powder, cat litter etc etc.  I gave them £122.15.  My best shop was around £73; I paid about £25 for it. Another good one was about £50, down to £28. Huzzah.

I do this with a combination of strategies:

1. My glitch trick - next date for a good change over to new ½ price goods is 03/06.  I try not to do this *too often, I don't want them banning me ;) And if there isn't enough of what I want, I don't do it, just because I can ;p
2. Vouchers and coupons I find in free magazines, and online
3. Using these coupons against deals in the shop - for example, I use Johnsons Baby Bath, because my skin is so delicate.  It's £2.76 in Tosca.  It's currently ½ price = £1.38.  I used my three email addresses and printed off three £1.00 voucher.  I bought three bottles for 38p each!
4. I always rummage through the reduced sections and find things to freeze - seeded bread?  I haven't a hope of eating a loaf in a week, but I'd rather pay 60p for a loaf at 6pm, than £1.40 for it at 3pm.  Pick your shopping times.  
5. I ring up and moan like billio, at the slightest thing.  Last night I realised the dark chocolate has whey powder in the ingredients list on the packs I was sent.  It's not on the ingredients list on their site.  I shall ring and create havoc.  They'll send a gift card.  It was £1.20 worth of choclate, shall I aim for £5.00?
6. Because I have a Tosca credit card, I do all my shopping with it.  I earn points for everything I buy - in their shop, for their petrol and on every other purchase.  I may as well get a few more pennies back in coupons from them, for this!
7. I womble vouchers.  I've only been doing this for a few months.  I must have picked up £15 worth of free money that way.
8. I know exactly what is in my stockpile, in Narnia (cupboard that goes on forever), so I have a list of things I am targeting for special offers and the Tosca glitch.  I don't need to buy any household cleaning, or personal care items for about two years and what I have bought has all been paid for at knock-down prices.
9. I don't pay full price, if I can help it.  I'm fast coming round to the idea that ½ price is the right price and every penny after is profit.
10. I don't buy anything I don't use
11. I don't use a coupon to buy something, if it is not something I would use - just because it's a bargain, does not make it a bargain if you don't want it.  There's no point me printing off three vouchers for bisuits, if I am not eating them...

Actually, if you want to know how well this is going for me, look at these figures:

Actual shopping costs Jan-May - £872.36

Amount I have paid to Tosca -  £529.30

If Tosca goes under, I'll change my name and address.

April Austerity - Chocolate Chomping Cheat

Ok, so Sunday 13th looms on the horizon and I am almost at the half way point of this little experiment, so I thought I'd try and sum up the progress so far and work out 'where I am' - yes, at home on the sofa, with a cup of tea and the cat.

You're probably wondering about the chocolate chomping.  Well, I haven't and that is an odd thing.  As far as I was concerned, chocolate was one of my five a day and this had been the case for most of my life.  When I was recovering from heart failure as an infant, the first thing anyone could get me to eat was a plain chocolate digestive.  At this point the medical team and my mum were less concerned about what I was eating, they were just relieved I was eating!  The dye was cast and plain chocolate has been my default setting ever since.  But on the 1st April it all changed; I haven't had any chocolate this month and the really odd thing is, I haven't missed it.  If you'd told me to give up chocolate for Lent, charity, a week, 24 hours, I'd probably have laughed at you and told you were to go and how to get there.  I have chocolate tucked away in Narnia (large cupboard under the stairs).  I have been into the cupboard, seen it and not touched it.  It's not bothered me.  What does that say about cravings for sweets/mind over matter/addiction/want vs need?

So, no, I haven't cheated on the chocolate front, but I am going to cheat the next time I go shopping.  It's back to the Wombles again.  On my way back to my car, outside Tosca in Egham I saw this on the ground --->

  

Considering I am down to just over £6 for the rest of the month, this may well save my bacon.  I drove home dreaming of knocked down apples and avocado.  So, is this 'cheating'? If I was genuinely this broke, I could still have picked up this receipt.  You'd be surprised how often people abandon these on the car park floor!  If I found a fiver, I'd pick it up; I'd be mad not to.  

Feeling like I've won the lottery tonight...

April Austerity - Shopping Shenanigans II

Three eggs needed eating by the 9th and I just hadn't managed to fit them into a meal, so I made a cake to take to uni, as I was meeting Roy and Mohamed for a collective study session - hopefully we'll either motivate, or shame each other into getting the essays done!  I think the tea and the cake probably helped in this session, but I am now out of butter.  I don't think they noticed I only put 50% of the sugar in the mix - it vanished!

This is a typical uni day lunch, although I am now down to one apple - I don't think I'll see much fruit this week; I may crack open the tinned peaches and have a few slices on my breakfast each morning.

Dinner last night: I took a flatbread, smeared tomato paste over it and loaded it up with courgette, onion, broccoli and a little bit of cheese.  I wasn't bad and it was certainly cheaper and better for me than fast food.

Ange popped over today.  We had chicken wrap with carrot, courgette, a tomato, cucumber and lettuce.  It was nice to have the variety, but realistically, it was only about 1 ½ portions of veg in total.  Potato wedges went nicely with the wrap.

This is the second time I have cooked for someone else, plus the cake above.   Realistically I shouldn't be doing this, if I only had £45 for the month, but I am a sociable person and sitting down with a nice plate of food and good company is a brilliant way of spending a day.  Someone on this budget would be missing out on this important (no, essential) social side of life.

I made it over to Tosca this evening just as there was s some decent stock in the cut-price veg section.  Avocado - 59p!  Spinach - 59p! Beans -  58p! Rocket  - 40p!  I also picked up three peppers for 99p.  The total spend was £4.09, that leaves £6.45 and I'll need milk in a few days.   If I can get away with not shopping until  next Sunday (milk aside)  I *may manage this.  I still have some Savoy and white cabbages left and ½ the broccoli.   I haven't even cracked open the tins of tomatoes, the freezer still has ALL THAT SOUP and I still have ¾ of the pie, some turkey mince and two chicken breasts left in stock.

Dinner!  Finally - peppers, avocado and spinach - this is definitely more my sort of meal!

April Austerity - Stockpiling Syndrome

This was dinner last night.  It was the first time I'd sat down actually hungry!  Because of my medication regime and my exhaustion levels, I tend to graze through the day - I'm not usually one for big meals - but the lack of nuts to nibble on is causing a bit of a problem. 

I had 80g of fresh broccoli; there's still another 4 portions left, so 50p was great!  I had 60g of Savoy cabbage; there's still ⅔ of the original item left and I had the last 50g of a carrot that had made its way grated into a wrap and 4 portions of coleslaw.  Potato wedges went nicely with the pie.

And well done Tosca!  Originally £3 and I paid £2 for this pie.  I didn't look too closely at the ingredients, but on taste alone this can't be faulted for 50p a portion!  That said, I think a normal sized adult may find the size a bit small...  If budgets are tight and you want a little bit of comfort food, then this is not bad.  Obviously, again, you have to cast aside any consideration for the chicken's quality of life before it wrapped itself in pastry, but flavour and texture were pretty good, and who doesn't like puff pastry?  It probably worked out at about 95p for the meal.

Last nights dinner actually happened after a quick trip to Tosca.  I spent £4.92 on this lot.  I didn't have the energy to go over to Aldee to pick up cheaper bits and bobs.  If I had to get by on £10 a week, I'd sturggle for the simple fact that I find supermarkets exhausting.  Normally, Tosca comes to me once a fortnight with a two week supply!

The swede, carrots, onion and parsnip was a deal for £1.  Adding up the items individually bought, it would have been nearly £1.50 - so keep an eye out for the packs with the largest produce as they are not sold by weight!!!  Eight apples? 94p instead of £1.60.  I wish I'd gone a bit later; the discounted produce may have been better!

 So... £10.54 for the month remains - heck!  I won't be going back to the shops until Sunday/Monday next week.

Which is why I spent most of today making stacks of soup.  I took two of the manky Aldee chicken breasts, the turkey bone, some of the soup mix (split peas, beans etc), ½ of the swede, the onion, some potato and the parsnip and made soup.  I also added a bit of the veg stock from the cupboard, a load of dried herbs and seasoning  I was going to put in one of my lovely new carrots, but I decided to keep them and instead spent 5 minutes removing frozen carrots from the veg mix!  It seemed sensible; I'd be getting some fresh veg, but bulk out the soup with stuff that's fairly lame, if eaten just cooked.  I had it for dinner; there's 8 portions in the freezer and about 6 in the fridge.  

Hopefully they'll make life a bit easier as I am becoming too tired to cook again.  I normally only cook 2-3 nights a week; I get too tired to prepare a hot meal every day, so this exercise is already making its mark, from that point of view.  If this was my reality, it would probably have quite serious consequences for my health, especially if I didn't have a car to go to buy goods.  On this budget the shopping is not delivered.

Tonights dinner: homemade, plenty of veg, all blitzed together and it was pretty good, if I may say so myself.  Nothing unpronounceable in this bowl and the chicken passes muster like this.

Au

April Austerity - Food Forecast

What's on the Menu?

So this is what it boils down to; can someone live (not just scrape by) on £1.50 of food in a day?

Breakfast!

Porridge - made with the following:
40g oats (serving is 50g) 3p
25g sultanas  - 4p
100mls water                  
100mls milk - 4p
Total - 11p

Calories: 279
Fat:         4.4g
Sugar:     23.2g
Salt:        Trace




Based on this, I think I'll be increasing the oats to 50g and reducing the sultanas to 20g!


Lunch!

Mission Herb Wrap: - 6.25p
Tosca Everyday Mayo: -1p
Lettuce: - 4p
Cucumber: -5p
Carrot: -4p
apple: -31p
Total: -51p


Calories: 313
Fat: 8.7g
Sugar: 20.2g
Salt: 1.2g



I haven't worked out the calorie content etc. of the veggies as they would be negligible!  The wraps are now off deal and I haven't found any more coupons to replace them - clearly, I'm now hunting for vouchers for next month!

Dinner!

I had this last night and owing to not wanting to waste anything, it looks like tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch as well :S

Panebello Pizza - Free - I won it!
(whole costs £2.50 - ⅓ = 83p)
Lettuce: - 4p
Cucumber: - 5p
Carrot: -4p
Onion: -1p
Tosca Everyday Mayo: - 1p
Total: - 15p


Calories: 347
Fat: 13.7g
Sugar: 3.5g
Salt: 1.62g

This would have cost me 98p, had I had to buy the pizza.  Half a pizza is a portion; this was divided into three.  The cost would increase again. 

Teabags and Milk allowance - 15p

My Daily Food Spend 
- with the free pizza  - 77p 
- 'paying' for ⅓ pizza - £1.60
- 'paying' for serving of ½ a pizza  - £1.87

Daily Consumption:

Calories:  939
Fat:          26.8g
Sugar:     26.9g
Salt:        2.82g

I'll probably have a couple of those ginger nuts this evening, but which ever way you cut it, there is not enough food on the plate to sustain most adults, on the available £1.50.  I won't do this mathematical working out every day; it's taken too long and it's tedious to read, but I will once a week, on a random day work it all out. 

My weight was 46.4kg this morning.  Harefield likes me to be 45kg and they advocate a lowER calorie, lowER fat, lowER sugar, lowER salt diet.  This selection ticks that box, even if the sugar percentage is high.  I sense this weight coming off fairly quickly.  If it drops too low, then I may have to abandon the fruit/veg in favour of keeping my weight stable - just as the government FINALLY catches onto the idea that the English really, really don't eat enough of the healthy stuff!!

April Austerity - Wimbledon Wombling

Ok, so I don't live in Wimbledon, but surely you remember the philosophy of those chaps?  They picked up rubbish other people left behind; this afternoon, I picked up a Tosca Price Promise.  There it was, all £1.42 of it.  It was left in the floor.  Someone's 'chucked away' very valuable money! It paid (almost) for 1.3kg of frozen veg and a huge courgette.  I contributed 12p.  I'm quite prepared to stoop to cheap tricks to come in under £45 - although Freeganism may be one step too far!

I've priced up the remaining odds and ends in the fridge - 3 apples, ½ a cucumber, ⅓ of a lettuce, 3 eggs, ⅓ jar pesto, and a large carrot.  I also grabbed milk (95p), 13g of mixed herbs (49p) and 4 garlic bulbs (59p).  So the total spend now stands at £29.54, leaving me with about £5 a week!  eep!!  That probably doesn't sound a lot, but if you scroll back over the last ten days, then you'll see a lot of stuff has already been squirrelled away.  

I said before I think I *could do this, but it has been nearly two weeks in planning - and it could still go wrong.  I can't imagine having to think like this ALL the time, just to survive.

April Austerity - Cabbage Central

A few more items were added to the stock pile today and that means another £1.70 spent.  I also found 35p worth of 'Soup Mix' - lentils/beans etc, that I will be using in soup!  I was quite impressed at the size of the Savoy Cabbage from Tosca for only 40p!  I picked up a small white cabbage for 50p - I'll be making coleslaw then, won't I?  The 30p lemon was a major extravagance and has already been sliced into eight pieces and frozen; that'll jazz a few dishes over the next few weeks.

I have the intention of spending another £4.50, or so in Aldee on Monday - some of those purchases will need to last, but I think 4 garlic bulbs for 59p and a jar of herbs (probably Basil, or Sage) for 49p will go a long way to adding flavour and variety to meals over the month.

Right now, I actually think this is doable.  However, there are a few caveats to all of this:

1. I am the size of a ten year old; I don't need as much food as a fully grown man.  It isn't going to be possible for a 5ft 10 chap to exist on this, unless they resort to lots of noodles!
2. There is very little room for variety.   
3. Calling a lemon a 'major extravagance' seems fairly harsh on someone living on this budget. 
4. The food is going to be quite repetitive
5. Five portions of fruit and veg in a day?  Possible if you include dried fruit and tinned goods.  This is not the best for optimum health is it?
6. The BHF's latest magazine has an article in which a dietician was asked to prepare a set of healthy menus for a week, based on £25 per person.  I think this speaks volumes.

I have tried to make sure I have some choice and over the weeks I'll pick up the best of the offers on fruit and veg, as the month progresses.   Even in these early stages, I think I do overspend at the supermarket.  I could shop smarter.

Total Spend - £25.11 

Amount Left - £19.89

April Austerity - Shopping Shenanigans

I thought I'd familiarise myself with Tosca and Aldee, in the fleapit of a town next door to Ashford, and stock up on things that I typically use in a month.  In almost every case I went for the cheapest option available, instead of items that I normally buy - the chicken?  No I couldn't bring myself to contemplate the lowest of the low.  I'll squawk about my thoughts on that in another post. 

I sat down with mysupermarket.com open and worked out the cheapest way I could buy my shopping, without spending an excess in petrol visiting different shops.  I also had to factor in the fact that I am getting very tired again, so I don't have the energy to skip from place to place.  The two supermarkets I went to are next door to each other; the price of delivery at the cheapest time from Tosca was more expensive than the fuel I spent.  It seemed the only sensible conclusion.

Once I got to the shops, it soon became apparent that the price comparison site is better at brands than shop own, especially when it comes down to the cheap end of the scale.  You really need to do your leg work to make sure you are getting the best possible price.  Buyer Beware!

I came home with the following items:

Tosca:-

£0.35 - TEV Tomato Puree

£0.25 - TEV Ginger Nuts - a huge packet: please, please don't disappoint...

£0.20 - TEV Vegetable Soup - 4 sachets in a pack, so 5p each (looking forward to these!)

£0.98 - TEV Butter

£0.39 - Pasta Sauce (It looks incipid; I think I'll need to find something to pep it up)

£2.00 - Chicken Pie (It was £3, but I had a £1 coupon - I've cooked; cut into four and frozen it!)

Aldee:-

£3.79 - Class A Chicken - 6 miserly chicken breasts :(

£0.69 - 1kg red onions

£1.99 - 160 Teabags - Now, do I sample one before and risk dreading a month of bad tea, or do I wait and enjoy the nightmare in a week?

£10.64 - spent

£12.77 - already in house

£23.41- Total

£21.59 - Remaining out of £45

The stockpile currently looks like this - although I forgot to add in the potatoes!  Two things stand out; Tosca Everyday Value packaging makes the food look terrible and I really need to buy some fruit and veg next week!

4 Servings Chicken Pie

6 Chicken Breasts

250g Mince Turkey

2 Serving Pizza (the free one!)

16 Mission Herb Wraps

5 Flat Breads

Turkey Bone

Salad Cheese

Cheddar

Onions

½ portion free :D Manchego Cheese

Butter

½ Jar Mayo

2 Tins of Tomatoes

Soup Sachets

Salt & Pepper

Self-Raising Flour

Sultanas

Kidney Beans

Baked Beans

Peaches in Juice

Rice

Oats

Teabags

Pasta (Remaining from free bag :D)

Sugar

Coffee

Honey

                                                                                Pasta Sauce

                                                                                 Left over Bisto and Veg Stock

                                                                                    Rice (in bag on left - it didn't 
                                                                                    fit in the jar!)

April Austerity - Idiotic Idea

I don't know about you, but I am never really ever hungry.  I am lucky that I can afford to buy what I want, when I want - for now.  The reason I say 'for now' is that I am on a small income, with little/no chance of increasing it; my mortgage is on the SMR and will go up at some point and my out goings are already more than my income.  Yes, I have cut my spend drastically; there are a few other adjustments I could make, but at the moment I do not need to do that.  So what's with the idea behind April Austerity?

Firstly, the budget has just been released and things are looking a bit better for savers.  I always used to be a saver; I had a good job, I bought a house, I learned to drive, but now I am spending my resources and at some point, things could get messy.  Then there is the recent spate of benefit programs on the TV - from Channel 4's 'Benefit Street' to BBC1's recent celebrity brush with the poverty line.  Basically, 3-4 celebrities were sent to live with people in food poverty.  They had to stay with them for a week.  It was interesting because clearly the celebs had no idea that people were existing on ridiculously small amounts of money and also because those on reduced incomes had a wide variety of circumstances.  It got me thinking.  How hard is it to survive on £1.50 a day (£10.38 a week / £45 a month)?  I am not sure that a 5 day/1 week challenge will give the full effect of the situation in which some have found themselves - this needs to be done for a month.

My normal weekly budget for food and household is about £24 - this is based on a slightly haphazard recording of spending from last year, but it is a fair amount.  That's £3.43 a day.  Can I shave £1.93 a day off of my shopping bill, without going hungry and without damaging my health?  Clearly, my health has to take priority and if you are wondering why, just read 'My Transplant Story'.  The difference between my normal monthly spend and the April Austerity spend will spent on a foodbank shop.

Planning will be the key to this venture.  I suspect I'll not be eating avocado, or pine nuts in April :(