The £2 Challenge That Never Was

I had plans in place to do another £2 Challenge, following on from the first one, albeit a couple of months after.  Whereas the first challenge saw me going out each day armed with a £2 coin to spend on that days food, this time I had decided that I would go out with all £14 for the coming week and do the shopping all at once.

I thought that doing this, as well as challenging me, would also help lower this months budget, which thanks to last months overspend is over where it should be at the moment.

My plan was to use the same basic pantry items as last time, but swapping out the red chilli flakes for cumin.

I planned out the purchases carefully on the Sainsbury's online shopping website, chopping and changing the basket until I had what seemed like a good meal plan in place.

Then I went out armed with a shopping list, complete with the prices copied from the online shopping basket, and as you can see from the crossings out and price alterations ... filled in when I got back, some of the prices had changed before I even got to the shop and some of the items I decided to pick up from Aldi as they were cheaper.

My plan had been to call to Aldi on the way to Sainsbury's to pick up the things that I knew were cheaper there ... the sliced brown bread for example.  The cheapest bread at Sainsbury's was 75p, whereas the same loaf at Aldi was 47p, and when you are dealing with such a tight budget that seems like a huge difference.

Anyway once I was in Aldi I thought it made sense to also pick up anything on my list that was the same price or cheaper than in Sainsbury's as well.  After all our branch of Sainsbury's is pretty small and you are never guaranteed to get everything you want on any visit.  The apples were on the Aldi Super Six that week, so that saved me some money the minute I walked in the door.

Therefore, the Aldi shopping turned out to provide most of what I needed.

Aldi Receipt - £10.21 

Amazingly the peanut butter in Aldi had gone up to £1.49, and I knew from my online check that I could get it much cheaper in Sainsbury's.  I went for the own label version rather than the budget line as it had a higher percentage of nuts, 96% and a couple less additives.

Because of the eggs, apples and bread being cheaper than I had originally thought they would be, I managed to add a lemon and a carrot to my shopping.

Sainsbury Receipt - £3.73

A total spend of £13.94 for the week.

The store cupboard foods.

The fridge foods.

As I always do I counted out the things that I had bought, so that I could work out how many to allocate to each particular meal on the menu plan ... 18 potatoes. 🥔

It makes meal planning much easier if you know exactly what you have, when you have to make things last for a full week.

I got six slices out of the lemon, so I squeezed the twos ends into my cup of hot water on day one.  The slices as usual went into the freezer to be used one a day all week.

My first breakfast was a simple one of peanut butter on toast as I wanted to see what the peanut butter tasted like.  I don't know why I bought smooth, I've been preferring crunchy just recently, and they were both the same price.

The main reason for buying the peanut butter was to make some hummus, it's much cheaper than Tahini, and I've been finding I'm a bit sensitive to sesame seeds these days so it's good to avoid them when I can.

My first lunch was a couple of egg sandwiches, I allowed myself one of my mayonnaise sachets picked up for my freebie stash to bind the egg together slightly.

They were very tasty.

And that's where with one phone call the wheels fell off the Challenge wagon. 😐

It couldn't be helped and sometimes you just have to change your plans ... or indeed scrap them altogether ... at the last minute.  There's no need to whinge or complain when things like this happen, it's just a case of smile through gritted teeth and carry on along a different path.

I did sit down the other day and write out a neater version of the meal plan that I had come up with, to show you in case you were interested.  The only thing I forgot to add on there were the additional apples and bananas that were going to be available as snacks or additions to the breakfasts.

So, that was the £2 Challenge that never was.  

I've been incorporating the shopping into meals that I've grabbing here and there, and I will set too and make the Shepherdess Pie one day as I still have most of the ingredients for that.  It's not the end of world ... just the end of a challenge that never was.  😄

Sue xx

For information:

Exchange Rates

British Pound  £13.94

US Dollar  $17.78

Canadian Dollar  $24.79

Australian Dollar  27.19

Euro  €16.76

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