Fishing around

  

I went to that shop I'm not keen on, and did the business with the vouchers.  This is the little haul I chose to use the Frozen Food £10voucher which cost me a £5 Clubcard voucher.

I knew that our freezer had no fish left in it, so that was my priority.  The two boxes of Cod in batter at the back should have been £3 each, but then there was an offer to get two boxes for £5, so that seemed to be a good place to start.  But I can't eat that, with the batter, so I also chose some plain white fish, which is cheap and cheerful at £1.75 a bag.

Two bags of mixed veggies are always useful to have in the freezer - carrots/cauliflower/broccoli.  I can throw them in the steamer over a pan of rice or potatoes and have alongside the protein part of the meal, or I can add them to a risotto, or use in a pasta dish for a quick supper, so I was pleased to find these.

And then there was the ice cream.......and that is where the £10 budget got blown!  I got 50p worth of this included and paid for the rest, I guess - it is the summer holidays and the YFG in particular is partial to an ice cream now and again.........so would the EFG be but she is being good about her healthy eating.  As a treat, £3.50 for two small tubs of ice cream isn't going to break my bank this week, so I let them find their way into the trolley!

So all that came to a grand total of £14, which cost me £4 in cold hard cash.  Not too bad.

As for the pet food voucher, I stocked up on tinned cat food, getting three 6-packs of chunks in gravy (her favourite) at £2.79 each, and then making up the difference with four individual cans at 47p each to reach the £10 total - we went over by 25p in order to use the whole £10.  I didn't buy dry cat food there as I know I can get it in Lidl's for 99p/kg and I couldn't find anything in this shop to better that price, so I bought the tinned stuff.  She is OK with dry cat food, but she does love the chunks in gravy too, so that little stash will last a while.

Having avoided this particular shop quite well last month, I wasn't very impressed with their fruit and veg prices - the mushrooms are 12p more expensive than Lidl's, the kids reckon that the cherries aren't as nice, and the apples are more expensive too.  Walking round the shop, I noticed several things that were on offer at really good deals, and thought I would stock up, but the shelves were empty.  I was also peeved to find two shelf stacking ladies chatting on their mobile phones whilst they were stacking, so I felt that I was interrupting their conversations to ask them where something was!

We'll be back in Lidl's next week, and avoiding this one for another month, until we need another major shop.  If I can manage to only go there once a month, I think I will feel better - I could feel myself getting cross with things in there, and the trolley was rather a pain to push...I can even see me going back to a once a month delivery if I can find some cheap delivery codes on the internet, rather than have to go to the shop.

Rant over!  Hope you are having a pleasant evening - we have been watching the cycling and rowing today and heartily congratulate Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins on their double skulls Gold, and Victoria Pendleton on her Gold in the Keiren today. The men's team also brought home some medals, too!  Rebecca Adlington made Bronze in the 800m freestyle in the pool, and she did a cracking job to manage that against the 15 year old American Katie Ledecky who just flew through the water!   Michael Phelps added to his medal haul, and he is such a great sport in it all, so generous - I'm sure the USA is really proud of him.  Jessica Ennis is doing a great job in the first day of the Heptathlon so we hope she continues the work tomorrow.  Team GB has risen to about 4th in the medal table today, and although that is great, the athletes are showing great sportsmanship, team spirit and friendliness towards other competitors, and I am so pleased to see a world united in sport in this way.