So much for good intentions

I know I said I was going to make do with the food I had in the freezer, fridge and cupboards but...

It's Tesco's fault. 

Now, I don't often shop at Tesco since I find them quite expensive and our store is outside the town so needs a special trip to get there. But...they sent me an email with a code for £12 off a £60 online shop. I also had a £1.50 clubcard voucher. A £13.50 saving was too much of a temptation, especially as I did need to stock up on toilet paper, disinfectant and cat food. To make up the £60 I also bought frozen meat (pork chops, minced beef and pork, and white fish fillets) and various vegetables, plus some other store cupboard bits, and I took advantage of some multi buy offers. By booking a 4 hour time slot I got free delivery.  The value of my total shop after offers was £61.92 and with the coupon codes I paid £47.82.

Secondly, as I had already fallen down on my good intentions, I decided to complete stocking the freezer and use a £2.50 off a £25 shop voucher for Farm Foods. There I bought Princes corned beef (2 tins for £3), John West tuna chunks in brine (12 tins for £7 ie. 3 packs x 4 tins), 4 frozen beef products for £10 (2 x diced beef, 1 x minced steak and 1 x 6 large beef burgers), 2 x 500g frozen mixed peppers for 89p each, 2 x 500g frozen sliced mushrooms for 89p each, 1 x 500g frozen sliced onions and 1 x frozen mixed stew vegetables at 69p each.

Yes, my good intentions did go by the wayside, but in the long run I will have saved money instead of wasting that £12 voucher and I now have a pretty well-stocked freezer again, enough loo rolls, disinfectant, loo cleaner etc. for the next 3 months and enough food for my 2 cats for a month. 

And today I bagged some more bargains; yellow-stickered items in Asda and Morrisons. I bought 2 bags of diced onions for 24p each, 2 bags of mixed diced swede and carrot for 25p each, 2 bags of sliced carrots for 25p each and some lovely juicy fresh raspberries for 99p. 

The diced veg gets chucked in the freezer and is perfect for use in my soup maker, taking out all that work of finely chopping mountains of veg. 

As well as food stuff I snapped up theses gorgeous roses reduced to £1.49. 

Not having a garden I've started to enjoy having a few flowers in the house and often manage to get reduced priced bunches really cheaply. I only paid 9p for a previous bunch of chrysanths and carnations. 

DD2 is coming to dinner tonight as her new husband has a late shift at work and she's bringing the wedding pics round for her dad to view (I've already seen them once). I've made veggie sausage 'meatballs' done in some of the tomato sauce from the freezer that I made in my slow cooker a couple of weeks ago. The 2 packs of dried sausage mix I used are from Approved Foods and 2 years out of date but still fine and cost only 20p a sachet. I bought mountains of it at the time but only have 4 packs left and will be sorry when it's all gone. Served with 20p Everyday Value spaghetti from Tesco this will make a cheap, tasty dinner for 5 of us. Dessert is chocolate Cornettos, £1 for a 4 pack from Farm Foods.

The weather should be lovely over the weekend so DH and I are planning on having a day out tomorrow, leaving the car at home. Using his weekly bus pass and buying a £6.20 explorer ticket for me we can go all the way down to Hastings if we want, but think we might settle for Rye. On Sunday there's a summer fayre in the village of River just outside Dover and since there's a dog show as part of it that's where we'll probably be on Sunday afternoon.

Well, that's about all from me. Hope you're having a good day and enjoy your weekend whatever your plans.

Today's Bargains/Christmas in July

I hadn't done my usual charity shop search for over a week so decided today I'd do the rounds and I came up trumps.

I got this pair of three-quarter length cotton trousers in the Barnados shop for £1.99.

 They're C&A, a great fit and will go on holiday with me at the end of the month (in the hope of some nice weather). Barnados are one of the cheaper charity shops in town with most of their clothes and nik naks priced at £1.99 and their books at 4 for £1.99. There is a Scope £1 shop but there's not usually much worthwhile in there.

In the YMCA shop I got this Slimming World recipe book for £1.49. 

Although I don't follow the Slimming World plan to the letter any more I do still use it as the basis for my everyday eating and the book has some good ideas for fast, healthy meals.

By far my best bargain wasn't even from a charity shop but from W H Smith. They were selling off the remains of last year's Christmas cards (no doubt clearing the shelves to stock this year's cards which seem to be in the shops in August nowadays). I bagged this lot for 10p a pack, normal price £3.99, paying 40p for 40 good quality card. 

I generally make my own cards for family and friends but there's always a need for a few shop bought ones, and DH and the boys also like to send a few to friends and work colleagues each year so these will not go to waste. 

And to finish with, and just because the picture was in the same file as my bargain purchases, here's one of Halo chilling out in the hallway, the coolest place in the house.