Doing without...

How's the planning for the £7 challenge going? We've decided that it's porridge for breakfast, a lemon curd or peanut butter sandwich for lunch - or maybe poached egg on toast for a couple of the days, and then either lentils or rice for the evening meal. We'll have coffee and water to drink. (As there are two of us doing it together we have a total allowance of £14.)

So far our shopping list consists of:

Yeast £0.82
Curry powder £0.39
Rice £0.40
Porridge oats £1.09
Flour £1.02
Lemon Curd £0.22
Oil £1.00
Lentils £0.88
Stock Cubes £0.65
Coffee (Instant and Fairtrade) £1.89

So that lot comes to £8.36, leaving the two of us £5.64. With this we need to get:

4 pints of milk £1.00
Salt (about) £0.20 - this will be for the bread - it might be cheaper to buy bread depending on what offers are around on Saturday!
Peanut butter £0.52
Garlic £0.30
Onions £1.20
Bananas £1.39
Eggs £0.69
3 tins Kidney beans £0.48

So that lot comes to £5.78

Which is too much and obviously leaves no money to buy the carrots (£0.50), mushrooms (£1.00), cabbage (£0.90) and some other fruit (kiwi fruit (£1.00), apples (£1.00)) that we'd hoped for...

So back to the drawing board with the planning...

Probably get two loaves of bread for less than £1.20 - so that would save about £0.80.
Forget the eggs - saving £0.69.
No peanut butter - saving £0.52.

Total now stands at: £12.13 meaning we could afford mushrooms and carrots...need to visit the shops and see what special offers are available.