April 14th 2015 - Aldi
Prior to moving North nearly 2years ago I hardly visited Aldi for my shopping, despite there being 2 where I lived. Both were out of town and involved 2 different buses each way - not fun or easy with kids and shopping! So we would occassionally nip over in the car.
When we moved house, we started off by shopping at Morrisons for most things as thats what we had got used to as our regualar supermarket. However, on the same site as Morrisons there was a Lidl, so we would nip in there and get few bits. We then had to go to the other retail park to go to Iceland for any other bits we had't managed to get. Next door to Iceland is Aldi!
We decided that we would try and do our shopping at Aldi as they say its much cheaper than the other supermarkets. Yes they are cheaper BUT we still found we had to go elsewhere for few things. But on the whole we manage to do most of our weekly shopping at Aldi and Iceland.
We were sppening in the region of £90-100 a week in Morrisons and then extra in Iceland. By swapping to aldi we have reduced the main shop down to £60-70 a week. Which is great, this extra money comes in very handy with 3 boys who are growing out of clothes and ruining school shoes like you wouldn't believe.
I wish I had started using Aldi alot sooner than I did and would certainly reccomend it to anyone. As I said abov we do have to get a few things from elsewhere but I would say 85% of main shop is done at aldi, 10% at Iceland and 5% elsewhere - for the reason Aldi don't sell the product or don't have it in or we don't like Aldi's version.
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
January 27th 2015 - FIMO
January 27th 2015 - FIMO
Today has been one of those mad days. We usually go shopping on a tuesday morning, today being no exception. Except for the fact I needed to do some bits in town as well. So rather than leaving food in the car and then doing town we did town first. Makes sense right??? Well you would think so but it seems the world and his wife were in town and the supermarkets all at the same time.
We usually get to the supermarkets just after 9am once we have dropped the kids off at school and the shops are very quiet and we get really quickly. But today with going into town first which was really busy we didn't get to the supermarkets until nearly 12. And it was heaving, you couldn't move down half the ailses and people were pushing and shoving! I'm NOT doing groceries this late again!
Well after finally getting the shopping and lunch and getting home there wasn't much time left before getting my boys from school so I hav done a very easy pin for today - the instructions for how to use FIMO Modelling Clay. I have bought a white sparkly pack of it that I am going to turn into 2 unicorn horns to go in jars to be added to my witches potion shelf for halloween.
I have even found instructions on how to make them from air drying clay, so it wont be much different for the oven baked clay which FIMO is.
I remember when I was little me and Mum had loads of FIMO and I was always making things, beads and animals and things for in my dolls house. I didn't know it was stilll made until I was looking for clay to make the horns from. Then to the madness of it I asked my friend if she had used it and could tell me how long to bake it for as it came with no instructions...... see bottom left of picture! DUH. LOL! I didn't even see it on there until she asked me for a picture of what "Type" I had bought, as they vary slightly. Never mind.
I also bought a book in the charity shop for 99p to start making my old spell book from. I did look in the old/secondhand bookshop in town and he had some LOVELY really old leath bound books which would have been ideal, the only downside was the price of the £6.50 for an A5 and upto £50 an almost A3 size. They would have been great but I can't justify the cost of it for use of a few hours 1 night a year. Watch this space for the advancement of the spell book.
Today has been one of those mad days. We usually go shopping on a tuesday morning, today being no exception. Except for the fact I needed to do some bits in town as well. So rather than leaving food in the car and then doing town we did town first. Makes sense right??? Well you would think so but it seems the world and his wife were in town and the supermarkets all at the same time.
We usually get to the supermarkets just after 9am once we have dropped the kids off at school and the shops are very quiet and we get really quickly. But today with going into town first which was really busy we didn't get to the supermarkets until nearly 12. And it was heaving, you couldn't move down half the ailses and people were pushing and shoving! I'm NOT doing groceries this late again!
Well after finally getting the shopping and lunch and getting home there wasn't much time left before getting my boys from school so I hav done a very easy pin for today - the instructions for how to use FIMO Modelling Clay. I have bought a white sparkly pack of it that I am going to turn into 2 unicorn horns to go in jars to be added to my witches potion shelf for halloween.I have even found instructions on how to make them from air drying clay, so it wont be much different for the oven baked clay which FIMO is.
I remember when I was little me and Mum had loads of FIMO and I was always making things, beads and animals and things for in my dolls house. I didn't know it was stilll made until I was looking for clay to make the horns from. Then to the madness of it I asked my friend if she had used it and could tell me how long to bake it for as it came with no instructions...... see bottom left of picture! DUH. LOL! I didn't even see it on there until she asked me for a picture of what "Type" I had bought, as they vary slightly. Never mind.
I also bought a book in the charity shop for 99p to start making my old spell book from. I did look in the old/secondhand bookshop in town and he had some LOVELY really old leath bound books which would have been ideal, the only downside was the price of the £6.50 for an A5 and upto £50 an almost A3 size. They would have been great but I can't justify the cost of it for use of a few hours 1 night a year. Watch this space for the advancement of the spell book.
Thursday, 8 January 2015
January 8th 2015 - Monthly meal planner
January 8th 2015 - monthly meal planner
Since the begining of December 2014 when money was abit tight we have sat down and worked out meals for that week, and bought the things we needed only (plus the odd snack type bits for lunch times and weekends, health n beauty bits, fruit, cereal etc) and we have saved LOADS of money compaired to when we just went and bought "stuff" or "everything". WHY I haven't done this sooner I never know!!!
Well I decided if we can do it for a week can we work out a plan of food for the whole month? The answer is simply yes! I sat and made a list of all the meals we eat/cook regularly and it came to 33, now I know my maths isn't great BUT I do know that no month has this many days in it, so i'm already onto a winner.
The hardest part was actually working out what to put on what day and what week, so that we didn't have all chicken in 1 week or on consecutive days (if possible) but as chicken is the main meat we eat this wasn't a totally easy task. But I managed it.
Then there was a harder task of working out what we needed for each meal so as to compose a shopping list. So I worked my way through each of the meals from list 1 noting down what we needed for each 1, and things that were used in multiple meals I changed the font colour to red.
Even though we have the planner things may change on it if my knee is playing up and I can't stand to cook, or if we are ill or not at home or decide to have a take-away. But by doing it and saving money we will have extra money to be able to get a take-away every now and then.
I found the idea of the monthly meal planner here on pinterest, so used this for todays task. It doesn't seem possible that I have done over a week already.
Since the begining of December 2014 when money was abit tight we have sat down and worked out meals for that week, and bought the things we needed only (plus the odd snack type bits for lunch times and weekends, health n beauty bits, fruit, cereal etc) and we have saved LOADS of money compaired to when we just went and bought "stuff" or "everything". WHY I haven't done this sooner I never know!!!
Well I decided if we can do it for a week can we work out a plan of food for the whole month? The answer is simply yes! I sat and made a list of all the meals we eat/cook regularly and it came to 33, now I know my maths isn't great BUT I do know that no month has this many days in it, so i'm already onto a winner.
The hardest part was actually working out what to put on what day and what week, so that we didn't have all chicken in 1 week or on consecutive days (if possible) but as chicken is the main meat we eat this wasn't a totally easy task. But I managed it.
Then there was a harder task of working out what we needed for each meal so as to compose a shopping list. So I worked my way through each of the meals from list 1 noting down what we needed for each 1, and things that were used in multiple meals I changed the font colour to red.
Even though we have the planner things may change on it if my knee is playing up and I can't stand to cook, or if we are ill or not at home or decide to have a take-away. But by doing it and saving money we will have extra money to be able to get a take-away every now and then.
I found the idea of the monthly meal planner here on pinterest, so used this for todays task. It doesn't seem possible that I have done over a week already.
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