Thursday, 02-03-23: more-low-spend March

 Morning, everyone!

Again, apologies for yesterday.  I was rather rushed in the morning and didn't realise I hadn't published.

I did an early morning shop and am now all nicely stocked up again.  It feels great but has to last me at least ten days, preferably longer so I won't be tempted to use anything up too quickly.  Entering the amounts into my finance spread sheet was rather sobering but sign of the times . . .

I was so pleased to see plenty of tomatoes at both M&S and Aldi.  Tomatoes are my all time favourite veg (fruit?), I eat loads of them (as if you hadn't noticed).  There were also plenty of cucumbers, peppers, lettuce . . . in fact, I didn't see any gaps in the F&V section.  I did notice the prices are still rising but it's the same all over, isn't it?

Back home, I realised that I had four broccoli stems so, as I don't have a broccoli based soup on the radar at the moment, I got out my chopper thingy and reduced them to dice and they are now happily sitting in the freezer until I do want them.  I hate wasting broccoli stems, they have so much flavour.  On YouTube, I saw someone making broccoli 'chips' in their air fryer - they didn't go crisp or anything but they looked nice.

Do you use broccoli stems for anything?

Yesterday's meals:

Not the prettiest breakfast ever but it was delish!!

When I was sorting out the fridge to put in the new stuff, I found that the older carrots were starting to go a bit so I peeled them to finish off through the day.  I didn't have them all for lunch but they were gone by the end of the day.  I do like munching on a carrot!  :-)

There's a very unlovely splodge of brown sauce for half a syn on the corned beef pie thingy but it tasted good.

I saved my fruit until after personal training when I used a quarter of an apple in some coleslaw and the rest as a snack.

Dinner was this big old plateful! However, when you look, it is pretty much all speed food.  There's one syns-worth of 70% less salad cream (I love this) and the chicken was one syn for both bits.  There weren't that big so I had both.

No room or wish for anything else.

Today's plans

B:  fruity omelette

SW:  half a syn for some Mullerlight yogurt

L:  tomato and roasted red pepper soup, bacon strips, croutons; fruit

I have about 2/3 of a can of chopped tomatoes so I will add it to some onion, carrot and roasted red pepper (from a jar) and make some delicious soup.  I will make the croutons and cook the bacon together in Nellie to garnish.

SW:  one healthy extra B for bread to make the croutons

D:  SW Korean style beef noodles; yogurt

To be honest, I'm not sure about this one.  It's a SW ready meal (from Iceland) and it's not making me feel excited or anticipatory.  Generally, the SW ready meals don't impress me at all but I have it, it has to be used at some point so . . .

(or I might change the plans!)

SW:  half a syn for a yogurt

Ex:   SET class online

Summary:

no healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

one syn

What do I mean by low spend?

At the beginning of this year, as part of a de-cluttering thing, I did a detailed audit of all the food I had in cupboards, fridge and freezer and was somewhat horrified at how much stuff I had.
So I determined to make a huge effort to reduce it down and use it up with minimal waste.

January and February were no spend and low spend months respectively.  March is going to be another low spend month with just a few exceptions and, of course, all the essentials.  It has got to work with Slimming World.

'Essential' means  food such as fresh fruit, veg and dairy/eggs and other essentials including things like cleaning products and toiletries as needed.  A few other things will come up through the month but generally it is just real essentials as I see 'essential'.
Of course, all regular bills, direct debits, etc, will still be paid as usual - hey are essential.

It's really helping in these difficult times.  I am still able to save a wodge of my income (which is all pensions now) as I have done since I retired, plus a bit more.  After all, at some point, I will have to start replacing things - just not yet.