Can You Eat 3 Meals a Day for £1 in 2026?

Those of you who know me well, will have realised that blogging the other week about the trend that has recently popped up, mainly on YouTube this time, of asking the question 'Is it possible to eat for £1 a day in 2026?' the way so many of us in blogland did it quite a few years back ... would set me off on a mission to see if it was actually possible.

So I decided to do it last week.

My food buying has gotten very erratic recently, what with buying enough food for both me and Alan to eat together at dinner and teatime while he is so busy renovating our bungalow, so I thought that taking a break to concentrate on something like this while still making Alan good but simple meals of his choosing would be a way around things.

I made plans, checked the pricing out online on both the Aldi and Sainsbury's websites and then I visited them both armed with just £7, to see if I could actually manage it with what was available in our small branches.  I had to do a mixture of both supermarkets as Aldi sell very few things loose, whereas in Sainsbury's I could weigh out produce to fit exactly into my budget.  I did get the baking potatoes from Aldi as there they are priced individually and I could choose the largest ones possible at just 24p each.

The Aldi shopping and my receipt are above.

This is what I managed to pick up from Sainsbury's.

The receipt.

Here is my basic menu plan, the prices of the food and my workings out for the calories, protein and '5 a day' information.  I thought that 1282 calories, 50g of protein and 4 of my '5 a day' per day were all quite reasonable for what was going to be just one week of eating.

I wrote out the ingredients list for my very basic recipes, soup, stew, dahl, carrot soup ...

... pizza sauce, lentil soup and slaw.

I decided that I would allow myself the use of minimal amounts of oil for cooking, and anything I needed from my stash of saved sachets ... and of course to keep my sanity intact over the course of the week, and to try and keep myself as human as possible there was always going to be instant coffee allowed.

Then there was only one thing for it ... time to get stuck in and actually eat the food that I had purchased over the next seven days.

I'll be back next time with a round up of the food that I ate and the leftovers ... yes, unbelievably there were leftovers!!

Sue xx

A Busy Year, A Busy Weekend

 

September from my 2026 Lucy Almey Calendar 

It's been such a busy year and my calendar has seen lots of fillings in over the last nine months.  Fillings in with times and names, and then ticks as each job round at the bungalow is done by the professionals.  We don't keep tabs of all the work that Alan has done ... his poor old knees are telling the story all by themselves.  😐

Art by C.  Burnett

There has been a lot of reading going on this month.  The darker nights and slower mornings are very conducive to it, and I'm into a really good book at the moment.

I can't believe there are only three months left of this year, this past week has really flown by with a very busy weekend at the end of it. We've been selling on Facebook Marketplace, there have been visits to us by ex-family members that we bumped into in town, and visits by us to see Mum.

It's been nice to have a quieter start to the week.

Sue xx

Summer to Winter With Old Clothes

 Autumn, my favourite season.  🤎💛🧡

A very lucky score on the charity book table this week.  

I've always wanted to read this but somehow never gotten around to it, now I can once I finish the book I'm currently halfway through.  Isn't Michelle Obama such a very beautiful person, in looks, intelligence and attitude.  

My Summer to Winter changeover is now almost complete.  My t-shirts were removed from the drawer ...

... and the jumpers and pyjamas replaced them.

Now the weather will turn hot and sunny, but this year I have left a few summer weight things out, it's not fooling me again like last year.  😄

The only drawback to doing this over the past week has been the near constant rain, so things have had to have a quick wash and dry overnight on the airer instead of on the washing line.  Some of my jumpers are ten years old or  maybe more, and a couple around five, but they come out at this time each year and go away again in Spring.  The changeover each year feels like having a new wardrobe of clothes, but at the same time somehow it's like welcoming old friends back into the fold.

I'm not completely against new clothes, and after a completely fruitless trawl of charity shops I have added a couple more new checked shirts from good old M&S to my collection of Autumn wear this year.

I love reusing my 'old' clothes season after season, and I am completely in favour of the ban that France and a lot of Europe are bringing in on the advertising of fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu.  I have never and would never buy from either company, but each to their own.

Sue xx

Random Bits ... I am Themeless

 

My £2.69 Aldi flowers that lasted for over three weeks before suddenly falling apart.  What an absolute bargain, better than any expensive bouquet.

I don't know what I had in mind when I took this photo, it's simply a bread crust, toasted with homemade marmalade and that all important first coffee of the day.

I take photos all the time as I use them for a starting point on most of my blog posts ... I don't know what this post would have been.  😄

Ginger's 'Tasty Licks', only he doesn't lick them from the tube the way cats are supposed to, he has a special little flat dish that he licks them from.  I can never remember the name of them so they are nicknamed 'squidges' ... well I do have to squidge them out of the tubes!

I buy them as it's the best way to get his thyroid medicine into him.  They must taste good together, he's always begging for them at breakfast and teatime.

One of this years teeny, tiny harvests, three little potatoes from a volunteer potato plant that was growing in amongst my spring onions.

My breakfast yesterday.

The quickest breakfast in my repertoire thanks to my silicone egg poachers that go in the microwave and cook two eggs in one minute and ten seconds, while the toast pops up and gets buttered.

There that cleared a lot of photos from my September photo file, and no doubt confused a few of you.

Yep ... today I am themeless.

Sue xx

Posh De-scaler, Random Meals and Happy Finds

 

This is possibly the poshest de-scaler that I have ever used.

My kettle was suddenly furred up, a very rare occurrence here in the north-west of England, so I rummaged in the cupboard for some bog standard vinegar.  There was none to be had, I checked Alan's under sink cupboard as he tends to have sachets of de-scaler under there, nope none at all.

So I bit the bullet and tried it with some of my very out of date Apple Cider vinegar.  Oh well better for it to be used in some way as I had never gotten around to using it much in recipes ... I hate vinegar flavours. Why had I bought it then, I have no idea!! 

It worked but it took four boilings of the kettle whereas malt or white vinegar takes two at the most.

Making Alan's dinners and teas while he has been working so hard at the bungalow, means that I am going through the contents of the freezer satisfyingly quickly.  The bottom drawer is now full of homemade items rather than convenience foods and as they are used up only a few of them are being bought again.

Fish fingers are a good emergency standby for a quick and tasty, even if slightly naughty lunch, so they will be replaced ... occasionally. 😁 

These garlic Plant Menu Kyivs are also a good standby, but I don't eat them very often these days, so again another occasional purchase from now on I think

Rummaging around definitely has it's advantages, as I found a single block of homemade soup and half a garlic baton yesterday ... it made for a very tasty lunch.

Sue xx