Nutritious November - half way through

I may have been lax at keeping you updated, Clanettes, but I haven't been lax with my shopping, my budgeting or my planning!

So far this month I have done three online food shops with Waitrose, using mysupermarket.co.uk to make the best use of deals and taking advantage of my incremental saving code. I have two more codes to go, next time I will save £20, and the time after that I will save £25! As a reward, I will get another £25 voucher in January.

Below are summaries of my three delivery totals:

Totals without promo codes £80 + £100.93 + £97.46 = £278.39
Totals with savings and promo codes £74.14 + £79.51 + £72.32 = £225.97

£278.39 - £225.97 = £52.42 it

I HAVE SAVED MYSELF A WHOPPING £52.42!!!!!!!!!! SMUGGY SMUGGY SMUG SMUG!!!!

Ahem. Anyway.

The challenge is going well as you can see. I have done one 'top up' shop at the pound shop, because they sell branded snacks for, well, a pound! I spent £7 on that trip and I am still comfortably within my challenge budget.
Because I am planning so well (which I admit is soooo dull, Wednesday comes round so fast!) I am finding that I don't need to do co-op top ups and I always have food in... gasp! Shocker!

Paul came home with a new recipe book for me yesterday, so next week I might try something new.

I'm not sure waitrose is a long term solution for us, because I don't know if I will be able to shop smart enough once my beloved promo codes are gone. It may be a case of shopping at different online locations alternately, and figuring out where everything is cheapest. One thing is for sure though, waitrose do the best quality fruit and veg in my experience and their eggs are brilliant. I almost want to gush and say that they even make wholesome coco pops - if you see what I mean! Everything just feels quality, and whilst I do love a bit of quality, I also love a lot of food and I think alternating my shops going forward is going to get me the best all round options.

Maybe that's a challenge for December!!

As ever, thanks for sticking it out and reading this far - you know you love it - especially you Clare, my newest known reader!

Food shopping update

Clanettes! Its half way through the first of my 'Nutricious November' shopping weeks, and we are doing really well. I can't tell you the joy it was to receive the shopping from Waitrose last Friday. The chap was lovely, brought all the shopping in for me and generally made me feel like I was the only important customer in the world!
I had a small little cheat involving the purchase of a tub of ice cream over the weekend, but I'm over looking that. Yesterday I did a small top up shop in the local co-op, more because the reductions were so great, than because we actually needed the food. I got 2 bags of spinach, a pack of bagels and a punnet of plums for a total of £2.05 - who can turn that down!

Our meal plan looked like this -

We tweaked Sunday night, because we had left over Nut butter soup, but apart from that we are on track! I am frustrated that its only Tuesday and I have to think about next week already, and make a plan and order my shopping to come on Friday (This is why I always get behind/run out of food/lack inspiration!) but I will crack on and get it sorted.

Since incorporating 'juice' into my diet (see here), and trying to watch my refined sugar/processed food intake, I have found that Nakd bars are a real treat. I have also experimented with making my own!

Equal parts unsalted cashew/raisins/dates, flavoured in this instance with cocoa and orange essence.

 Blended until it is smooth

And then popped into the fridge to 'set' before being cut up into portions. The children have these in their lunch boxes too. They are circa 130 cals per portion (I could obviously lower this by making the portions smaller, but frankly, they are so delish that you need a decent mouthful!) and to keep the cost down, I generally buy 'broken cashews' from my local Indian supermarket, £4 for 750g, value raisins from tesco and dates from a health food shop - its hard to buy dates from a supermarket because most brands are injected with sugar!! Arg! Then cocoa and orange essence.
Yum!

Thanks for reading x x

Saving money on my food shopping...

Yesterday I went through all my options for online food shopping and the cheapest way to get food delivered to the house. Following the astonishing revelation that Waitrose may actually be the cheapest way to embark on this plan, I set to the freezer and checked out current food supplies.

I hold my hand up, I am starting November very well stocked on meat and bread, and on packed lunch snacks. This will make the first couple of weeks shopping to budget, very easy.

My four main points of attack are:
Meal plan, meal plan, meal plan! Everything. Scrupulously.
Buy seasonal fruit and veg.
Bulk buy where appropriate.
Make small savings - ie we can have UHT milk in porridge, and fresh milk on cold cereal.

So this is our meal plan for the next 7 days

 After I had my meal plan, I went online to mysupermarket.com and began ordering my food.

Mysupermarket.com is marvelously easy to use and every time you select something that is being sold cheaper if you buy an alternative, it flashes up and lets you decide on the savings to be had.

 

It also has a nifty little barometer that shows you how much your shopping costs at each of the super markets as you go along.. You can see that Waitrose was the cheapest when I bought like for like at each supermarket,

But it wasn't the cheapest if I wanted to buy cheaper brands (ie Tesco own brands) and in that case, the cheapest, Tesco, could save me £8.52.

So I decided to use the cheapest brand total, placing Waitrose in fourth place, and work out my totals when I included vouchers and delivery charges etc.

Waitrose shopping total £78.64 - £5 voucher (and no delivery fee) = £73.64

Tesco shopping total £70.12 + £5.50 delivery fee = £75.62

So Waitrose came out on top saving me £1.98!! This also means I have £6.36 to spend on sundries should the need arise, before I hit my upper limit of £80 for the week. It also means that I have a £10 voucher to spend on Waitrose next week..

Lets see what the shopping looks like when it arrives! Well done for getting this far Clanettes, keep with me! Ha ha!
Lots of love x x x

Nutritious November

A member of a Facebook group I'm also a member of, has set herself the challenge of feeding her family on £100 a week throughout November. I love the idea of setting yourself a strict budget and being inventive.

I used to meal plan religiously, bake everything going and feed us all for peanuts. Then fusion occurred, cue laziness, then my job happened, cue less time for baking (excuses I know!). Then juicing became a way of life (for me, not my family) and I became even less inspired in the kitchen.  Cue easy (dull) one pot meals.

WELL NOT ANYMORE!

For the month of Nutritious November, I pledge to feed my family the best food I can for £80 a week and I'm going to blog the entire thing. Oh yes Clanettes, I'm going to shop around for the best deals, keep track of my expenditure, whip up a veritable feast in the kitchen. And log it all on here. The good, the bad and the hungry. You KNOW you love it.

I'm in the fortunate position of going into November with a well stocked larder, and a good amount of meat in the freezer. We eat a good mix of supermarket own and value brands, and the only real rules I'm setting at this point are:
1) All meat and eggs will be of a good welfare standard
2) Any corner shop 'tops ups' will need to be emergency only, the cost scrupulously recorded and then deducted from the weeks allowance.
3) I will use mysupermarket.com to do all my shopping and save money!

So the 01st November is a Friday. We have been at my parents this week, and I have spent some time looking at the supermarkets and their delivery 'options'. My usual supermarket of choice is Tesco, this is more out of habit than actual preference. In the Uk the 4 main supermarkets that deliver shopping are Ocado, Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda. I think of Ocado, I think Waitrose, I think expensive. I know they brand match, but that doesn't help when you don't necessarily buy branded food.. Sainsburys I think is more expensive than Tesco, and I always think of Asda as being cheaper than Tesco.. I like to think Tesco offers value at a snobby band higher than Asda. It is time for me to lose my pre-conceived supermarket ideas and actually go back to each website with fresh eyes.

Sainsburys
Their byline reads 'Get FREE DELIVERY any day on orders over £100 delivered between 13 October and 1 November. Orders below £40 will be delivered for a £6.95 charge. You could still get delivery from £2.99 - £6.49 when you spend just £40.'

Asda
Here the deal is an introductory 'delivery saver' price of £15 for 3 months. Usual price is £24.

As many deliveries as you need over 3 months. Choose any Groceries home delivery slot. Minimum order value £40. Great value – the same as £5 per month – no auto renewal. Standard delivery on ASDA direct and George. Or choose a one month Asda.com delivery pass for only £8. Use your pass on groceries immediately and use on George.com and Asda Direct in 24 hours.

Tesco 

Tesco 'Delivery Saver' starts at £7.50 a month for delivery anytime on Tues/Weds/Thurs. Choose any delivery slot on the days your plan is valid regardless of cost. Pay upfront or spread the cost with monthly payments. Minimum order value of £40 with up to one order a day. Priority access to Christmas.

Ocado
Upon logging into Ocado, the first time this year, they offer me a monthly 'Smart pass', where the charge for delivery on a Tues/Weds/Thurs is £2.99 a month, for a minimum of 6 months. Bargain! It then lists 776 items that I can have for discounted price by purchasing the 'smart pass'. My minimum order value is £40.

Waitrose
Well now. Waitrose want to offer me £5 off my first £75 shop, £10 off my second, £15 off my third, £20 off my fourth and £25 off my fifth £75 shop... If I shop 4 times before 17th December, they will give me a £25 voucher to spend in January.. TEMPTING!! 

HOLY COW. Deliveries from Waitrose are FREE. Minimum spend £50.

So at this point in the plan, Waitrose and then Ocado wins. Hands down wins on their 'Smart pass'. But what will mysupermarket.com say once I shop for my food - will they still be cheaper...?
I'm on the edge of my seat Clanettes!