Done the shopping - that's the easy bit

I did most of the shopping for my challenge yesterday, leaving just a loaf of wholemeal bread for 47p at Lidl's to buy on Tuesday.  I almost splashed out 30p on a whacking great bag of value cornflakes, but then I thought of all that refined carbohydrate and how it would give me a blood sugar crash mid-morning that I would have no way of reversing, and put them back.  Besides, I can't afford 59p for a litre of value soya milk.  I started to get quite anxious at this point and had to do some deep breathing and remind myself that this is purely voluntary, I *want* to do it.  Apparently a small, worried part of my brain really doesn't.  ;o)

Fresh fruit and veg has a walk-on part, with 2 bananas (23p) to give my morning porridge some interest and carrots and onions to enliven my evening meals.  Other nutrients will be provided by pulses (kidney beans and mushy peas from Lidl's), wholemeal bread and whatever vitamins remain in tinned potatoes (at 15p per large tin, quite possibly cheaper than fresh!). 

I astonished the checkout girl in Sainsbury's with my purchase of a solitary pack of 10 value vegetable stock cubes for 15p, paid entirely in pennies.  I could have got them for 12p from Tesco, but they had milk in them.  Just what you want in a stock cube - not!  And I'm afraid that any street cred I may have had (pretty non-existent if I'm truthful) evaporated completely upon my purchase of a 20p pack of value instant mash from Tesco.  Beware bargain hunters - the exact same thing costs 48p(!) in Sainsbury's.

I also have tins of value baked beans, but they are an extravagance at 25p, so will be used in halves.  Tins of Asda spaghetti in tomato sauce are cheaper at 15p per tin, but of course nowhere near as filling.  I also bought a pack of value spaghetti for about 20p, but I may well not use that.  Refined carbs again.  Which won't stop me having a pack of Lidl's noodles for lunch each day, with half a tin of mushy peas, because I know that will stop me from being too hungry through the afternoon.

I discovered that passata is cheaper by several pence than tinned tomatoes, so I have a tetrapak of that which I may or may not use.  Likewise a pack of vegemince type stuff from Asda.  If I can use that and beans to get several meals then I might, but I don't think it's going to be affordable.  We'll see.

My one real indulgence is a packet of 40 Rich Tea biscuits from Lidl's, for 23p.  If I can have 8 biscuits a day I can weather a lot of hunger pangs.

So just today and tomorrow to go now, then it starts.  I am curiously nervous.