Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What's in your fridge?

I know this meme has been going around for a while now but I always love a good nosey in other peoples' homes so I thought I would join in and show you mine. I am also interested in how much people spend on their weekly food shop. Living on the Isle of Man, we have a limited choice in terms of supermarkets, so unfortunately we are stuck with Tesco Towers or a Manx branded shop called 'Shoprite' (lovingly known as Shopshite by Islanders). We do have the odd Cooperative lying around (which I am starting to prefer for some grocery items) and we have an Iceland, but, call me a snob if you like, I am yet to start doing my weekly shopping there, in this house, Mum's do definitely not shop at Iceland! (Although they do do a really good Chinese curry sauce that I occasionally buy to go with chicken fried rice)

So, I am stuck with Tesco for our weekly shopping trip. It's not all that bad, they do have some good offers. I think I am right in saying they were one of the original 3 for £10 on fresh meat. I often buy these as they work out at really good value. We eat a lot of mince and chicken and these are always included in the offer. We tend to spend around £60-90 on our weekly shop, depending what I throw in. This time last year until about February/March time this year, our shopping bill was creeping up and up. I think after Christmas we just carried on drinking as though it was the holidays and a massive part of our weekly shopping bill was on alcohol! We cut that back though (and then I got pregnant and stopped drinking wine anyway!) and now we tend to spend around £10 on alcohol for the weekend only, or the hubby does anyway. I was a big wine drinker. I'm a teacher and perhaps I use that as an excuse too much, but I loved coming home and opening a bottle of wine, particularly after a rubbish day. That part of pregnancy (i.e. cutting out booze) has been a little tricky! I have the occasional glass of red with dinner but I have been trying out lots of soft drink alternatives (that's a whole other post I think).

Anyway, £60-£90 for the three of us I don't think is too bad. Granted we only have the step-daughter three times a week, but that's nearly half the week anyway. I always look for offers as well and try and buy cheaper alternatives where I can. However, a while back I was buying Tesco Value (or Market Value as they've rebranded it) for a lot of items. Some of it is really good and you wouldn't notice the difference if you hadn't seen the packaging. But other stuff is just pretty rubbish. I started wondering why I was doing this. We can afford our weekly shopping and I always budget for it. So why was I doing this? So I stopped buying value stuff - cheddar cheese (!), sausages (what was I thinking! but hubby insisted on these), rice, beans, cordial and occasionally chicken breast. I do not do this anymore. But I have noticed on certain value items that they are nearly identical - tinned tomatoes, just as good! Value crumpets - I actually prefer these to Warburtons. Value peppers and onions - how on earth these are value I have no idea, but they are just as good and last just as long.
What really confuses me is the price of milk. Why is Tesco milk and Isle of Man milk dearer than organic milk? I just don't get. With that in mind, I always buy organic milk.

So anyway, what do you spend on your weekly shop? And to the point of this post, below is the inside of my fridge. We have a much too small fridge for my liking. I want an American style one with an ice dispenser etc, but for now we are stuck with this little one. Contents list underneath and please do share the link to your 'What's in your fridge' if you have done it!





Top shelf -
Fresh orange juice
Bottle of lemonade
Hubby's insulin
Half a pot of greek yogurt (admittedly, Value!!)
Brown Sauce
A chocolate snowman wrapped in tin foil (this was supposed to be put away with the Christmas stuff, but it got left in the sun and melted!)
2 cans of non-alcoholic Bavaria beer!
2 cans of non-alcoholic mojito cocktails
1 can of non-alcoholic cosmopolitan cocktail
Double cream (actually think this is past the use by date!)

Middle shelf -
Three pizzas (3 for £5 today!)
Another can of mojito
Isle of Man mild cheddar cheese
Red Sauce (Value, no less)
More fresh orange juice

Bottom shelf -
Exotic fruit juice
Semi-skimmed milk
Butter
Chorizo ring
Pack of ham
A couple of rashers of bacon
Two packs of chicken breast
Pack of sausages

Door -
4 eggs
Green Thai curry paste
Lazy Ginger
Mustard
Korma paste
Oyster sauce
Chili and garlic sauce
Strawberry Jam
Wholegrain mustard
Harissa
Lemongrass
Lemon juice
Lime juice
Piri Piri sauce
Chili and Citrus salad dressing (bought in Summer, so just thought it may be also past its use by date!)
Cough medicine
Salad cream
Skimmed milk
Semi-skimmed milk

Salad tray - (very weary looking contents actually)
Button mushrooms
Reduced tomatoes that I actually bought 3 weeks ago. They are looking remarkably good for their age.
2 jacket potatoes
Rainbow peppers
Spring onions

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