I have now updated the 4th meal plan with current prices.  A couple of things have come up while I was doing this and the other ones. mySupermarket totals are inaccurate! I had  no idea, did you? I only noticed because I was creating the shopping list simultaneously with updating an Excel spreadsheet before posting. The totals were different and I checked it 3 times before I could believe that mySupermarket was wrong. It wasn’t by a few pence either, it was about 30p, which for a shopping basket of £14 or so,  was a high proportion.

Secondly, the 45p value loaf doesn’t show there, and it was pointed out that if I went direct to the Asda site I could see that it was still available. I then used the 2 sites both at the same time, so that if something wasn’t showing up on mySupermarket, I would check it directly on Asda.com. This then revealed that items showing on mySupermarket, weren’t showing on Asda.com, as well as the other way around. Confused? I was!

So this is a long way of saying that if something isn’t showing on mySupermarket, it’s worth checking direct, and even if neither of them show it, it may still be available in the shop.

Went to Sainsbugs today for a couple of bits and I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to have to pay 40p for a tin of value toms. I haven’t bought any for ages as we have been using the ones from the greenhouse. They are still 31p in Asda, so Sainsbugs are 22% more expensive, which if you live on a very tight budget is too much, although I appreciate that the majority of us shop at the nearest supermarket, anything else being uneconomic.

Wonder how much our greenhouse ones worked out at per kilo? The only expense was seed (which you could discount as I used seed from last year), 3 gro-bags and a little fertiliser. Oh and a bottle of wine to a friend who watered them while we were away 🙂

 

 

the spotty leaves

 

beans coming at the top of the vines

Vegetable crumble for dinner tonight. Have just picked enough runner beans for the two of us to have with it. The beans struggle on, they have lots of flowers at the top, but spotty, old looking leaves at the bottom. I an picking enough for just us every 2 or 3 days now.

 

The kitchen continues to progress. We have removed all the shelves and fixings from the old larder cupboard, hacked up the old ceramic tiles and put in the housing where the integral freezer will go. Next door to that is the housing where the integral fridge will be. Other cupboards are stuffed in there for now, because this is what the rest of the kitchen looks like this evening.

 

 

The instructions continue to confuse rather than enlighten. The integral unit housings, for instance, come with an instruction book for 12 or so different variations, all jumbled together, with no clear instructions as to which is which. All components are supplied for all variants, so we now have numerous shelves and fixings that we won’t use. When we were preparing to assemble the housimg for the freezer, we were pretty worried as there was no way the freezer would fit inside it. It took us 15 minutes of head scratching, repeated measuring and repeated reading of the assembly instructions to realise that if you were putting a fridge or freezer in the unit, you didn’t fit the back panels. They might have said!! Nowhere in the instructions did it mention that. Oh well, the fridge, freezer and oven all use the same basic unit. Fridge and freezer ones are done, hopefully we’ll be able to work out the oven one without too much trouble.