This week the Sun newspaper (40p) have had £5 vouchers for fresh fruit and veg. Theres no minimum spend, and you can use 1 per transaction. Ive picked up 8, so basically £40 fresh fruit and veg. They had quite a few 2 for £3 offers, and 3 for £2 offers. My daughter devours any fresh fruit she can get her hands on so nothing will be wasted. A lot of veg can be frozen for later. And we were out of potatoes! Morrisons sell BIG sacks (7.5kilo) of potatoes so I got one of those, along with some baking potatoes and much more:
Big sack of Estima potatoes. These haven't been washed and stored in the paper bag, I've had them up to 6 months and still be good. For mashing, roasting, wedging etc. Bananas, strawberries, grapes (which have already been eaten!) baking potatoes (these have been washed and are good size) and 2 bags of apples. 2 x £5 vouchers for that lot, so 80p (for the two papers) no extra fuel cost as I collected them on the way back from dropping hubby off at work.
Another 4 x £5 vouchers (£1.60 of papers) watermelon, grapefruit, cherries and shallots (hobbies choice, he's treating my to a surprise!) For the freezer 4 punnets of button mushrooms, big tray of mushrooms, smaller tray of mushrooms, green beans, mangetout and mini sweetcorn, celery, 8 x bramely apples and raspberries. Also carrots, onions and red onions which will be frozen if I can't use them up in time. And a reduced bag of salad.
I forgot to take a pic of my last two vouchers, but I got peaches, apricots, more strawberries, more mangetout and baby sweetcorn for freezing, peppers to chop and freeze, more carrots and more onions, more baking potatoes. So I am well stocked up on potatoes and veg in the freezer. The fruit will get eaten quickly, I froze some of the raspberries and blueberries to add to yogurt for breakfasts.
Lidl have 200g blocks of parmesan cheese for £1.49 (half price) so I got 6 blocks, for grating and freezing. We use this most weeks in all sorts of dishes, it has a strong flavour so you don't need much. 6 blocks should last us nearly 6 months. They also had lasagne sheets 34p pack. Got 2.
My £60 approved food order came:
Lots of cake mix/dessert mix, prawn crackers, coconut milk powder, trifle sponges, sweets for the assembly.
More cake/dessert mix! Big bag of sage and onion stuffing mix. Seeded bread mix, chutney, tandoori paste, lime pickle, Smokey chimmichuri paste, Thai paste, apple sauce, some chocolate bars for the assembly and lemon extract for baking, plus some blackberry jam.
More chocolate bars for picnics (8p each!) pizza base mix, more cake mix! Tuna, cups ready filled with tea and whitener for the assembly (means we just have to pack hot water) and a few convenience foods. Cheese sauce mix, so much easier than making it from scratch and cheaper, instant noodles for emergency lunches for hubby. Stop the expensive trips to McDonald's when he hasn't got any leftovers into he fridge to take.
That was all not normal weekly shopping. It was stocking up, using up too-good-to-miss coupons, and stocking up on special offers.
My actual weekly shopping consisted of:
4 pint whole milk - 89p
Peanut butter - 64p
Hot chocolate - £1.40
Oats - 75p
2 x tin custard - 34p
Oil £1.19
Garlic bread - 34p
Chocolate mousse - 17p
Obviously fresh fruit and veg have come out of the vouchers. But maybe £5 would have gone on that normally. So about £10ish. Most of that is not stuff I've ran out of, its stuff I've opened the last one of. I try and keep a sealed one behind an open one of everything.
A bit of an odd week but hopefully over the next few weeks you can see how the costs even and average out. I won't need much for the next few weeks now unless a special offer crops up, I have meat in the freezer from half price offers/reductions, cupboards full of approved food stuff and fridge/freezer full of veg/fruit from the coupons. I haven't sorted daily menu plan yet but something along the lines of:
Definitely Fried chicken rice for lunch (have leftovers to use up)
Sat- definitely Lasagne, salad and garlic bread. With carrot and walnut cake. We have friends coming over :)
Stuffed peppers (with pork mince/rice mix) and salad.
Chicken risotto
Maybe Toad in the hole with mash and veg
Gammon, egg and chips (if I can get to Notts for cheap eggs)
Possibly stuffed lamb (hubbys treat) with roast veg
Chilli stuffed jacket potatoes/enchiladas and salad
Thai green curry with plenty of veg
Probably cheeseburgers for a weekend lunch after the Sunday meeting
See how we get on I'll try and update with whatever we decide on. I try and menu plan but usually veer off course and end up with something completely different ;)
