Everyday Reductions

Today I did my food shop for the week which included food shopping for weekend treats and I managed to buy a lot more than I anticipated. This was due to my arrival just at the time that food was being reduced for the second time of the day. I called in at a different Tesco store than I normally use because I had to travel to the other side of town on business in the afternoon and drove home a different route than usual. I decided at the last minute to visit one of their larger stores and just hit it at the right time for some bargains and so I bought a wide selection of reduced meat to stock up one of my freezers.

I find meat expensive and we don't always have meat as the main focus of our meals. I cannot recall paying full price for meat and normally only buy meat when it has been reduced. We tend to eat chicken, ham, sausages or mince because these can be bought cheaper than beef or lamb. My partner does not like pork so I rarely buy this.

 Today I hit the jackpot and managed to find duck breasts, venison steaks, rump and fillet steaks all reduced. They varied in price and could be seen as expensive to some but as these have been bought as weekend treats I was delighted to have found so much for my freezer. I also had a coupon for £1 off steak so managed a double reduction.

I also found Finest Senga Strawberry yogurts reduced from 70p to 8p each so bought four of them. Two will be lovely as a dessert tonight and the other two for breakfast tomorrow morning. Their use-by date is today but I do not think that eating them 6 hours out of date will kill me. I have been doing this for years and have never had a problem. I also bought a delicious looking chicken & red pepper couscous salad for my lunch which had been reduced from £2.20 to £1.08. I also found two pots of chicken and sweetcorn sandwich filler for my partner's sandwiches for his lunch tomorrow and these had been reduced from £1.25 to 66p each.

I finally bought a selection of fruit and vegetables which included Finest Large Flat Forestiere Mushrooms reduced from £1.75 to 52p a pack. I bought three packs and one pack will be used in our cooked breakfasts at the weekend with the other two packs being used to make soup. I have already made a chicken stock from the chicken we had on Tuesday night and I will use this as a base for the mushroom soup. In addition I bought some lovely looking Finest mini San Marzano tomatoes which were again reduced from £1.75 to 52p a pack. I will use these in a Greek Salad to go with a roast chicken either on Saturday or Sunday night. I also bought two bags of reduced mini baby new potatoes which we will have tonight with the Salmon en croute and julienne vegetables (bought on Tuesday night from Marks & Spencer)

I also managed to buy four loaves of bread at 55p each. The date on these loaves is 2nd August so I am unsure why they were reduced as there are another two days before their best before date. I also bought 2 Finest Chocolate and Orange Croissants at 75p for the two and a Finest Carrot Cake for £1.25 which will be wonderful with morning coffee when my Dad comes and visits on a Saturday morning.

Monthly Plans

At the beginning of each month I like to think about what I plan to do that month at home. The plans sometimes go out the window because of other demands or like many others I simply don't have time or can't be bothered. However there are many months where I do achieve some or all of the plans that I make and I always feel so virtuous when I manage to achieve some if not all of them.

My plans for August are as follows:

courtesy of a pair of pears

• Organise our garden shed that has numerous pieces of garden equipment simply dumped on the floor. At the back of the shed are some treasures that I can just glimpse. Some candles and some Cath Kidston style cushions for our patio chairs spring to mind. I need to retrieve these so that I can enjoy them while the summer weather lasts.

• Sort out the front garden into some kind of order due to my neglect. I have concentrated too much on the back garden because I can see this from where I sit in the lounge, but I cannot see the front garden. Out of sight and out of mind. It needs some reorganisation with the removal of some shrubs and plants that have outstayed their welcome.

• Continue with the Sunday Car Boot sales (weather permitting) to gain as many bargains as I can while the car booting season is in full swing.

• Empty one of my 5 (yes I have 5 smallish freezers!!!) to a level that it can be deep cleaned and provide some space for new fresh reduced food. I want to prevent food sitting in the freezer for too long and getting freezer burn and in addition there are some items towards the bottom or back of the freezers that I have forgotten about. Time for some pot luck evening meals!!

Do you make plans that you manage to keep or do you have moments like me where you just can't be bothered?

High End Low Cost

I cannot see the point of paying full price for food that can be bought at low prices and I class buying reduced items in high end supermarkets as a kind of sport.  I had a long journey home from work today and after sitting in a traffic jam during the rush hour for over an hour I found myself sat in slow moving traffic due to roadworks outside my local Marks & Spencers.

I worked out that as it was beyond 6pm that were likely to be some good reductions and so decided to spend a quick 30 minutes seeing what I could find. I spent a little over £18 but came away with a fridge full of food.

Firstly I found a bunch of my favourite white lilies reduced to £3.75 which look beautiful in my dining room. 

I then noticed over 10 rotisserie style chickens reduced from £5 - £7 to £3, so of course I picked out the two chickens that were over £7 for my trolley. I then found two double packs of already baked cheesy baked potatoes for 85p and several packs of julienne vegetables reduced to 60p. I bagged two of each along with two packs of garlic mushrooms for 60p.

 I also found a Gastropub pack of  two Lochmuir Salmon en route for £2.10. Which has gone straight to the freezer along with three packs of Applewood smoked ham reduced from £3 to 90p a pack. Again these have gone straight into the freezer for use at some later date as sandwich filling.

We had one of the chickens with one pack of jacket potatoes and one pack of vegetables for our evening meal.  Not all the chicken was used and I will use the remaining meat from the legs and thighs for a pasta dish later in the week. I will then simmer the carcass to make a tasty chicken stock for soup. Eating from a high end supermarket could not be easier at these prices.

Bargain Hunting

Well here we are again in the midst of the car-booting season. The car boot sale that myself and my partner go to during the summer is in Cheshire and about 10 miles from our home. It is held on Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays. My sister who lives in Yorkshire travelled down on Saturday to spend the weekend with us, so she came to the sale with us too on Sunday morning.

I love the serendipity of  the sale and we rarely go looking for anything in particular with a shopping list as inevitably you will come away disappointed. If you go with no wish-list then you invariably come home with a whole host of bargains that you did not know you needed.

I was delighted it find a Dualit Filter Coffee Machine today with chrome detailing for £5 and a lovely set of 4 white ceramic tea-light holders which were new and unused. These had the letters NOËL carved into them on one side and will look so simple and classic during the festive season when lit on a dark wintry evening. These were an unbelievable 50p for all four. I love finding things for the home above all other finds at the sales.

I bought 4 DVDs for between 20 - 50p and 6 home magazines: Ideal Home, Country Life, Country Homes & House Beautiful from April, May & June this year for 25p each. These still had the advert flyers inside them and looked unread.

Finally I found 2 T Shirts for my nephew. Both were brand new with their tags still attached and were £3 and £1. They had £25 and £6 on their price tags so I managed to spend £4 instead of £31. I will put these away for him for Christmas so that he at least has a few things to open along with the cash gift that I give to him now that he is in his late teens.

My partner came home with a whole host of things that he was delighted with. Included in his list of bargains was a Sony minidisc player complete with case and a minidisc that had some of his favourite music recorded on it for 50p. He also found a set of 5 new Sony minidiscs for £2.50 and 2 new 4 hour videotapes for £1. (I know - we are still living in the 80s in our house by having a video recorder/player but why give up using something when it is not broken and you have a certain affection for it)  He also bought 10 CDs for 20p each and a further 4 for 50p each so plenty to listen to over the next few weeks.

The one draw back is that it takes up a full morning to get round the sale and we both have a habit of scrutinising everything in case we miss something interesting. This means that the house and garden becomes a little neglected and I end up working late on a Sunday to try to gain some semblance of order in the home. However it is good exercise walking round the field and it is a an enjoyable way to  spend part of the weekend.