If you are going to be taking part in the £7 challenge
next week then now is the time to start planning your meals and
shopping list. With only £7 to spend per person for all your food and
drink for the whole week careful preparation is going to be needed if
you are not going to run out of food half way through, or find that
although you have a whole box of sugar puffs to eat you have no milk
left to eat them with.
Also, you don't want to forget
those items such as cooking oil, coffee/tea, milk, herbs, salt, sugar,
spices...remember the £7 per person is to cover everything that you will
use in your cooking and everything that you will eat and drink.
So
far the cheapest option for oil I have found is £1 for 250ml of olive
oil - but I can't remember if that was from Sainsburys or Morrisons.
In
terms of drinks probably going to go with a reasonable own label
instant (caffeinated) coffee, and then go without tea, and drink water
for the rest of the day.
As I am doing this challenge
with my wife we have £14 to spend between us which does allow for a bit
more variety - in that we can afford both rice and lentils. We can also
afford flour and yeast so will be able to make our own bread. Fresh
fruit and veg is a challenge so will probably have to do with one piece
of fruit a day. Protein will mainly be coming from kidney beans, which
we have found for 16p a tin.
Probably go for an own brand jar of lemon curd, and peanut butter - and go without margarine/butter.
Breakfast
is going to be porridge - so have to get up a bit earlier as it takes a
bit longer to prepare, and a lot longer to wash up afterwards! I think
we've got 1kg of porridge for £1.09 which will do about 25 portions -
and by the end of the week we may have got used to eating it made with
water instead of milk, and without salt, sugar or syrup.
3 comments:
I think I spent my £7 on drinking water! Tap water here is very expensive. I have my heating on - also expensive. We have supplemented with home-grown vegetables which makes a difference. Tonight we're eating dal, curried vegetables and lentils and some rice - delicious!
Sounds good. I know I'm making the rules up as I go along but you can have the clean drinking water for free! Someone did suggest that we were cheating and that we should drink puddle or river water - maybe next year - or not. The home grown veg. is an interesting one - I've gone with 'No' on this one - although with several kgs of raspberries in the freezer and tomatoes still growing they would have made a great addition to our diet. See tonight's blog (day five) for some reflections on this.
Thoughts/conversations I've had this week:
wish I'd started on saturday not monday!/
missing yoghurt, cheese, eating out, costa decaf mocha, alcohol, meat, lettuce/
wish I'd bought curry powder (anyone want to swap kidney beans for some?)
how fortunate are we in London that we can have such variety of foods available/
Isaiah 58/
discipline in budgetting for things in general and food in particular/
self-control on eating habits in general/
opportunities to share this week with those at work that ask what on earth I'm doing - especially those on a diet/
how refreshing is water compared to all the fizzy drinks I usually have/
prayer for those living today in need of water, power....meals for family or medicine for their sick child/
fasting in general especially when I'm surrounded by chocolate on the wards and theatres/
what about donations - how do you not become dependent as a nation living on a budget supplied by other nations.....?/
My grandad who used to organise his village in Jamaica so that they could go on mass to market to sell their oranges to the highest bidder...
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