We’re nearing the end of our journey. We’ve completed over 3 weeks of eating all our food for just £100 a month using as much local Oxfordshire produce as possible.
But how have we done?
Whilst we’re coming in a little over budget, I think that we have learned an awful lot about how to keep the cost down. If we continue for another month or two I reckon we could manage to consistently keep with in budget. I’ve also noticed that our plastic waste has been reduced a great deal – this is because we’re now buying all our vegetables covered in soil rather than cellophane, which has become my new motto! And because we’re now eating 100% organic I no longer peel but scrub our fruit and vegetables instead. This saves on food waste too!
Highlights of the week were home made chicken, leek and mushroom pie made with chicken thighs from Alder’s butchers on Cowley Road, Mackerel and beetroot salad, French onion soup and home made chocolate brownies.
We also learned how to sprout chickpeas which were a delicious addition to our salads. I even attempted making falafels and raw hummus which is said to contain very high amounts of many vitamins and minerals – read more here.
I appeared on the mid-morning show at BBC Radio Oxford talking to Howard Bentham about how we can reduce food waste in the UK. Please click here to listen.
Our vegetables and fruit came from North Aston Organics. It arrives on a Thursday at a secret location in Cowley Road. The shift of delivery day meant that we had to eke out the previous weeks veggie box, which actually helped us reduce the budget.
As a result I still have quite a few vegetables left for next week including leeks, carrots, pumpkin, lettuce and half a cabbage.
Here’s the breakdown
Veggie and fruit box = £14.50
Yoghurt – £1
Butter = £1
Chicken thighs = £2.50
Stock bones = £1
Mackerel = £1.60
Cheese = 75p
8 Eggs = £1.60
Anchovies = 50p
Chocolate = 30p
Tinned tomatoes x 2 = 64p
Pasta, rice, flour, olive oil & sugar from the larder = £1
Avocado = 50p
chickpeas & yellow split peas = 28p
Lemon & lime = 50p
Garlic & herbs = 20p
Total for the week = £29.87
Total spend over 3 weeks = £93.60
I can see we’re going to be eating plenty of rice and dahl next week to try and reduce our budget even further.
Thanks very much for reading and following. Your emails, tweets, facebook messages and comments are very welcome. Please continue to drop me a line if you have any frugal recipes or know of any hot deals around Oxfordshire.
