“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.” -Jim Davis
It has become pretty clear to me and my bank statements lately that I have been wasting a lot of money! And not just money but food as well, something I am extremely conscious of! I am lucky enough to be able to buy what I want more or less when I want! I food shop at Marks and Spencers almost daily, eat out a lot and in a week probably throw out 4 or 5 meals. Believe me this is not something I am proud of in the slightest in fact when I decided to do this post and write it all down I felt physically sick with myself. I am very aware that there are millions of people in the world who can’t afford to eat, food banks are struggling to keep up with demand and girls are skipping school because of period poverty! I have probably been spending £70 a week on food shopping then eating out 3 or 4 times a week. I buy toiletries and make up when I want! This is something I plan on stopping certainly for the waste point of view!
So I decided to see if I could live off £3 a day for food and toiletries not for a set amount of time I am actually hoping this will be ongoing with eventually cutting out plastics too. £3 a day actually sounds like a lot and I did consider going lower and I may in the future but for now its £3. Over night tampons and coffee have become a luxury to me and I will have to learn to sacrifice food for make up! I apologise now for the pictures, when I decided to do these posts I wasn’t sure how they would go and I am sure over time they will change but for now! It is this!
Because my life is super busy at the moment I decided to start by doing my shop every two or three days and in the hope i might find something good in the reduced section. For me eating healthy as possible is still a priority so eating as many veggies as possible is a must. I will say the first couple of weeks is easy as I have lots of toiletries at home, washing powder, coffee etc. As the weeks go on I know it will become harder. This is £6 worth of food which would be two days worth of food. The cereal will last me longer but I will run out of milk, the biggest shock to me was the amount of plastic. Everything has plastic on it!
Asdas own Bran Flakes, which to make last longer I actually weighed out the recommend serving of 30g’s! The only thing that puts me off cereal is all the hidden sugars but I think the box was something like 69p so for now it works! I took a banana to work for my mid morning snack!
Lunch was soup and two bread rolls! Usually I would pick up a take away coffee and snacks on the way to work but not anymore! I had an apple for my mid afternoon snack!
Went to Aqua Fit after work so dinner was sweet potatoes and veggies. I don’t ever cook meat or fish at home, I am not sure why but usually I just want something quick and easy that I can pick at!
So my second shop was for three days, friday, Saturday and Sunday. My life is very different at the weekends then in the week so I had to plan to have enough food for different things. I work at my local hospital on Saturday mornings 6-2pm and on Sunday I knew I had an 16 mile hike which meant energy was super important to me. This is £8.20s worth of food and again everything is wrapped in plastic!Ii was 80p lower then I thought I would be on the shop.
This might look awful but I have become obsessed with it! During my food shop I remembered about 9p noodles which are now 22p basically just the cheapest version of super noodles possible. Although super noodles on there own are neither tasty nor a proper healthy meal. I add extra water with a chicken oxo cube to the noodles along with some veggies and ended up with a noodle broth, I am pretty sure I have eaten this every day since. It works for me, its quick and easy I can fit it in between work and going out!
During my hike I had two bagels with cream cheese, 2 eggs and peanuts to snack on! Which were perfect, exercise decreases my appetite quite a bit at which point I am only eating for fuel. I reckon this will be my go to food option when it comes to hiking!
With the 80p I had over from my shop I treated myself to a twix! In the past I would stop for sweets and chocolate whenever I liked sometimes a couple of times a day. Now chocolate is a luxury! Not going to lie because I had gone 5 days without it which has not happened in the last twenty years, it actually tasted different. It tasted like a luxury.
Noodles and veggies again! So that is the first few days done! I would say I have probably another two weeks before the £3 a day becomes tight, I will eventually run out of tampons, shower gel, toothpaste etc and need to decide between them and food. In fact as I am writing this I have remembered I am on shampoo away from no shampoo! I am going to try and write something every week and hopefully I will learn something and decrease the amount of plastic I get.
