Tenner Week: Day zero: Taking stock of groceries

Tenner Week day zeroTenner Week starts tomorrow – when we find out the hard way how to live on £10 a week for food, entertainment and everything else. Today is ‘Day zero’, where it’s time to get ready and to start taking stock of all our resources for the week.

So, have a good look around. Start with your food and drink: check the fridge, the freezer, the cupboards, the biscuit barrel, the shelves, the cake tin, the fruit bowl, the herbs on the kitchen windowsill, fruit and veggies in the garden or on the allotment, your sweetie jar, and that hidden chocolate stash.

Then move on to the rest of your home. Look at toiletries, mending kits, unused clothes and sports equipment, gift vouchers and coupons, hobby and crafts materials, toolkits, and anything you want to tidy up / fix / sell.

My food & drink stocktake

I’ve had a good look around my kitchen this evening:

  • In the fridge there’s a box of six eggs, milk, cheddar, mozzarella, butter, leftover potato salad, leftover chicken, sourdough starter, green salad, cooked beetroot and some yoghurt.
  • In the cupboard there’s longlife juice, muesli, oats, fruit snack bars, noodles, rice, potatoes, tinned kidney beans and chick peas, tinned tomatoes, a can of mushroom soup, sugar, dried fruit and flour.
  • In the freezer there’s mixed berries, peas, spinach, scampi, prawns, sausages, veggie ‘grills’, some weird meat-free mince I was given as a free sample, and half a packet of flour tortillas.
  • In the garden we have loads of herbs, rhubarb, salad, spring onions, carrots and oriental greens ready to eat.
  • On the windowsill we have the first couple of home grown chillies.
  • On the rack we have a few beers and two bottles of wine.
  • In the fruit bowl we have one sad-looking apple, a lemon, and an orange.

What’s wrong with this picture? No bread and no onions, that’s what. Anyway, turns out there’s all kinds of other stuff in the fridge, freezer, cupboards etc that I didn’t know we had – probably sneaked in during one of Beau’s shopping excursions.

I decided it would be good to have some home made bread in stock, so I’ve just finished baking a couple of sourdough loaves. One is dried apricot, hazelnut and chocolate chip, which I’ll slice up and freeze for weekend brunch treats. The other is wholemeal with poppy seeds and fresh thyme leaves, for healthy lunches. They took ages to prove and rise, but they were pretty easy to make. Hopefully easy to scoff too…

Available now: The ‘How to Live on £10’ ebook

To make your Tenner Week go with a bigger bang, try ‘How to Live on £10 a Week: Take the Tenner Week Challenge’. It includes a real life example of a shopping basket and menu, and plenty of free and cheap ways to keep yourself entertained.

It’s on sale at a low introductory price of £1.53, so please buy a copy while it’s on offer and help support this site. You don’t need to own a Kindle to read this book – there’s free, safe official software you can download to read it on your phone, tablet or computer.

 

Are you ready for Tenner Week?

 

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