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Sunday, 14 August 2016

Cheap & Convenient - not me - food!



14th August 2016
A ship is always safe at shore but that's not what it's built for!
I've done the cola challenge, I compared diet Coke, with Lidls Freeway diet cola and Waitrose essential diet cola and the truth is I can't really tell the difference, all three had that saccharine aftertaste.  The only thing I have learned is I don't like diet cola unless there's a whiskey in it!  Two drink's I don't like to drink on their own but combined they are made more palatable because I know they will get me drunk!  Not something I drink very often, as it's my silly drink, the chemical reaction between them has in the past made me silly so it's kept for special occasions :) what a great memory flashback to have at 8am on a Saturday morning.

This week in my meetings we've talked about cheap and convenience where food shopping is concerned and I've got to say I've learned a lot!  If you are a diet coke drinker, then try the cheaper versions because honest I can't tell, I'm sat here now sipping from the 3 cans and if I wait a few minutes before my next sip, the one I choice to taste first always tastes the best whichever can I pick up!  6 cans from Lidls of Freeway is £1.29 (21p a can), 6 cans of Waitrose essential £1.50 (25p a can) and 8 cans of Coke £3.50 (44p a can), they were on offer 2 packs for £5 but that's still 32p a can.   Food/drink snobbery is an expensive game!

Did you know you can make sandwiches on frozen bread and they'll defrost overnight and be fresh for lunch the next day!  I didn't, but yep lots of my members do just that.

Did you know you can make an omelette in a food bag in the microwave!  Yeah just mix eggs and other ingredients together in bag and leave a little gap then pop it in - sorted. 

Oh my I'm turning into my mom with the 'did you know', we had an hour of them Friday in the garden as she read them too me from her crossword book ;)

I think the biggest saver for me this week was writing a list, looking in my cupboards to see what I already had, thinking about what I was going to cook, making a meal list of sorts and buying the ingredients I needed.  I also shopped online which allowed me to compare the prices of same/similar products per kg, I noticed that if the product is really expensive they give you the price per 100g instead of kg, sneaky!   For the first time ever when my shopping was delivered it didn't leave my fridge heaving with food, there's just enough to last for the meals we'll be cooking.

I just mixed these cans up again and tasted them blind, no idea, no idea at all which was which, if I had to pick a 'best' it would be the waitrose from the blind test I just did but I bet if I wait five mins and do it again that result will be different again!

Another money saver is waste nothing, eat those leftovers, only cook the portion sizes you need, weigh the pasta/rice etc before you cook it.  They say the average family with kids throws away almost £60 of good food every month - ouch. 

With fruit and veg we decided markets, lidls and Aldi were cheap and good, we agreed no fruit or veg seems to keep very long these days so it doesn't matter where you buy it.  Frozen and tinned are great, they come pre-chopped and ready to use, they're just as good for you so have some on standby for the skint week before payday.

Yeah just tasted them again and this time I chose the Lidl one and thought the Waitrose one was the sweetest.  So drinking coke with your eyes closed really leaves you clueless!  Well it does me anyway.

There are lots of ways you can save money and lose weight if you need too, you just need to want to make that little bit of effort and put in that little bit of thought. 


I made a meal yesterday that was completely vegetarian, was meant to feed two and I easily got 3 meals out of it, instantly saving money by eating less.  That meal cost about £5 to make so instead of being £2.5 a portion, it was £1.75 a portion.  It was posh nosh too, Wild Mushroom Penne using a SimplyCook kit, so the kit cost £2 of the total cost!  I'd definitely have it again, it was so tasty, basic mushrooms were fine, I didn't need expensive ones.

Well I'm off, I'm buzzing from drinking 3 cans of coke, still can't tell the difference but at least I'll have the energy to go clean the living room now!  Here's to making it through Sunday on track, I'm thinking Thai Grilled Chicken for lunch, another simply cook kit, they take 20 minutes, few ingredients and little thinking, and that's what I need right now to get me back into cooking.

Enjoy your Sunday BeYOUtiful. xx




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