Did you see my #StoreCupboadChallenge?

I made the most of every essential in my store cupboard and freezer and my Oddbox*, without doing a big supermarket shop for the week! I probably saved £40 on my food shop by only buying the milk/juice/bread/breakfast staples – oh and popcorn and jelly beans on a cinema trip (essentials, though right?). 

I’ve done a lot of work to build up my store cupboard so I could still make sure we got the right nutrients for the week and I’d got some good meals left in the freezer from previous meals.  We’re a plant-based household, so it’s not like I was going a week without meat anyway, which can push up the food bill, though of course, so can the good vegan processed alternatives.  I worked through the previously bought processed freezer foods that were still lingering there so it wasn’t just living on veg and noodles for the week.  I also had some evening events with some canapés to help me last longer between meals, but we still had usual good portions of food everyday – plus my Baby O gets her free school meals still, so I get the run down from her on what she’s eaten (or not!) in school. I made sure she got fed well too. I just cooked more consciously for the week!

Here are my takeaways from the #StoreCupboardChallenge:

1. I’ll think twice before buying the more frivolous treats that aren’t on my shopping list – I avoided the unplanned temptations by not going to the supermarket for the week;
2. Massively reduced waste and I was being really careful with ingredients to make them go further;
3. I discovered some delish food in the freezer I’d forgotten about so it wasn’t all boring;
4. but yeahhh – some meals were pretty basic (jacket potato baked beans stylee!), but we’re so programmed to have the food we want at our fingertips – or to have the fast food can be so cheap, easy…and fast. It was quite humbling to go right back to really simple basic whole food cooking for the week without the ‘luxuries’;
5. Saved a huuuuge amount of money for a week, so I can quite happily go for a guilt free meal out as a treat sometime soon – especially as even a meal for me + little one can equal a week of food shopping; and
6. I found some new recipes and got creative – googled a few on BBC Good Food. Enter in the key ingredients and it finds recipes that match the ingredients (felt like I was on Ready Steady Cook); and
7. it’s got me thinking more cleverly about my next big shop – what can I make sure I stock up on if I decide to cut my food bill again – might even have a go at the challenge once a month!

So are you going to try the #StoreCupboardChallenge? Let me know how you get on!

*use this code here for £10 off your first Oddbox. I’ll get £10 off too 😉