How Cheap Can I Eat?

10 days to go, and in an effort to get back on track I had a stir fry today. Had to share with with the gf so sadly there are no portions left for tomorrow.

I’ve still got frozen meals in the freezer, and other ingredients knocking about in the cupboard. I think I’ll do this with plenty of food to spare. The only thing I might need to buy between now and the end is milk.

On that note, a friend of mine sent me this link, about how the big name supermarkets have already been penalised for fixing the price of milk and cheese. While this article is 6 months old, I’m still surprised that the same companies mentioned still have identical prices of milk today. Surely this can’t be coincidence? If it’s not being explicitly fixed, then perhaps they have an unspoken agreement? That would seem to be the case, especially since Iceland, one company not mentioned in the story, is the only place I’ve found where the price is different.

Very suspicious stuff, if you ask me.

I’m not sure whether I should just dispassionately list everything I’ve eaten every day of the month. That wouldn’t interest me so I’m not sure who out there would tune in just to keep updated about what I’m putting in my mouth. Suffice to say yesterday was last of the cornflakes (49p), another chicken sandwich, and the rest of the pizza and a few chips for tea.

Today marked a change with Sainsburys Basics museli for breakfast. Despite being mega mega cheap it was just as nice as any museli I’ve ever had really. Some ‘basics’ things are noticably not quite as nice as their branded alternatives, and yet others are exactly the same. For example, I’ll never buy branded peanut butter again, it’s identical. Ditto Jam, Margarine, and flour. It’s a well known fact that many unbranded goods are produced by the same factory as the big brands, and yet the contents are identical. Cocoa is a pretty good example of this. How different can something like that be, from brand to brand? It can’t, so it’s not.

Stir fry later, I look forward to that. I’m still mulling over cheesecake recipes, the major problem being that marscepone, a major ingredient that I do not currently posses, seems to be very expensive. I think I’ll mull it for another day and try to pick it up from somewhere on the cheap.

7pm: Stir-fry!

This was very excellent, and there was enough left for a sizable second portion. That’s lunch tomorrow!

Also, and I don’t want you to get excited, viewers, but my cheesecake is now setting in the fridge. I’ve never made cheesecake before so I really hope that it tastes of yummy lemon, and not philadelphia on digestive biscuit.

Ingredients bought for cheesecake, plus other bits and bobs, came to £4.67. Total spend now £48.81.

Very little to report over the weekend. Yesterday was a busy day, so it was a cornflakes breakfast, peanut butter and jam sandwich for lunch (a forgotten favourite), and reheated sausage casserole for tea.

Sunday wasn’t much better, with another cornflake/PB&J  combo, but on the plus side these meals are entirely filling and cheap.

To my credit I did go shopping again for a couple of bits:

Big bag of oven chips for 41p! I was going to resist buying anything like this, as I do have potatoes in the cupboard so I could make my own, but for this price I could’t resist. The pizza there was £1.64, which I’ll eat in two halves, making it a cheap 82p per ‘meal’ that I’ll get out of that. Everything else is ingredients for a stir fry that I’ll make this week. I’ll get at least two portions out of that on consecutive days, so it’s all good.

Total spent today was £6.13 making the total spend so far £44.14. That gives me less than £31 left for the rest of the month and it’s only the 6th today. I’m not worried yet though, I have loads of ingredients in the cupboard and I envisage that I’ll just be buying the odd ingredient or two to complete recipes from now on.