The £10 Challenge; Day 2

Money to start: £10

Money Spent: £9.74

Money Left: 26p

What a difference 24 hours make! Today was shopping day, and although I did stick within the £10 budget, it was a close thing...

I walked the greengrocers first thing this morning and spent a total of £2.37. I brought 6 satumas for £1, which I thought was a brilliant bargain, however when I got got Tesco to do my main shop they had a net of oranges for 50p. I’ve decided I don’t feel too bad about this for two reasons; firstly the satumas taste really good, and secondly, because I was supporting a small local business.

Today's shopping for a grand total of £9.74

On the way to the greengrocers I decided to hand-deliver a letter I had to, as I was walking past anyway. I also refrained from buying my normal pastry for breakfast. Although I missed my weekend treat, by eating a bowl of cereal before I left the house I found I could easily avoid the temptations in the shop and focus solely on my shopping list, mainly wondering around Tesco.

On a normal weekend I pop into town on the bus and back again with my shopping, however on a work day I walk in, as I have no heavy bags to carry. Therefore today I walked to and from town to save the bus fare, even though I had shopping. This means I had a whopping extra 110 min (or 1 hr 50 min) walking in total today- not bad on the exercise front. I also got hailed on, but I figure that’s all part of the fun!

After dropping the fruit and veg from the greengrocers at the house on my way to town, I visited Boots the Chemist first to see about deodorant and moisturiser. After a bit of a look around I found an own-brand roll on, that smelt ok, for 68p, which is less than half what I’d normally pay. Sadly the all of the moisturiser was well out of my price range; so I carried on to Tescos.

I’d already thought about the meals I’d like to make this week, and wrote my list accordingly, thankfully having had breakfast, and with list in hand I found shopping a lot less tempting than normal. I found an own- brand moisturiser for 80p, which I thought was pretty good, until my friend Ally let me in on one of her fabulously good value finds. In the baby isle, just 3 away from where I was looking, Tesco do value baby lotion at an amazing 9p. Now it is, as the name suggests, pretty basic, it’s quite thin, and not as soft and silky as my normal choice of moisturiser. However, the smell is pleasantly fresh, and at 9p it’s just what I’m looking for as a moisturiser/ cold cream. I was feeling very confident at this point and continued down the rest of my list.

There were no major surprises until I got to the cereal aisle. Normally value bran flakes are 66p, but today they had shot up by a staggering 22p. I therefore chose the much cheaper wheat biscuits. Normally I’m a staunch Weetabix fan, who won’t eat any other type, but in keeping with the challenge I choose to have the value biscuits this week; I’ll let you know how awful or not they are after breakfast tomorrow.

Now the two, possibly, surprising items on my list are chocolate and biscuits. I could have left them off this week and saved myself some money, however I am aware of my own weakness, and decided that rationing, rather than abstinence would be the way forward in completing this challenge on budget. Accordingly, I choose the super-cheap (and as it turned out super-gritty) Ryeland’s milk chocolate. I have to admit at 89p I wasn’t expecting much, and my low expectations were met. However, it has a minimum of 20% cocoa, rather than the value 14%. Again, not my normal choice, but it does as an oh-gosh-I –must-have-chocolate stand-by. Chocolate bourbons are my biscuit weakness, I love them, and at 45p for 400g I thought a pretty good bargain. I did forgo my normal pack of Jaffa cakes, because they have yet to survive more than 24 hours in my presence, and therefore, would make rubbish biscuits to last the week. I chose Penguins, the perennial favourite, as my lunch biscuit this week because they were half price at 87p. For this price I could have had Club biscuits instead, but they contained 116 calories, over Penguins 106, and there were 8 in the packet instead of 9.

Things I’ve done differently to save money;

·        walked to town instead of taking the bus. Saving: £2.90

·        hand delivered a letter. Saving: 46p

·        not had a pastry from the bakery for breakfast. Saving : £1

·        not brought Jaffa cakes. Saving 79p

·        Chosen own brand wheat biscuits instead of Weetabix. Saving: lots

·        Ryelands instead of Galaxy or other chocolate. Saving: 69p plus.

Meals Today

Breakfast: Branflakes, saltanas and milk

Lunch: Peanut butter sandwich and a statsuma

Dinner: Beef stew and mash potato

Drinks: water, orange squash

Snacks: 6 chocolate bourbons and about 30g chocolate

Supper: Marmite on toast

A few of the things I had form last week

The beef for stew and the potato came from the stores, the rest from shopping today. There is also left overs of the stew, in keeping with my plan to be able to feed 2 people for 2 days.