getmoney: Yellow sticker challenge.

Good evening from Tightwad Towers. I hereby claim my title as Queen of Mean. No one can live as cheaply as I can, unless you are living in a tent. Every meal I make has to be below the £1 mark, often it is way below, a few pennies sometimes. Cheap food doesn't mean it is rubbish food. Healthy food is what I look out for when I go shopping. I don't take a list, I go shopping with an open mind. I am not a fussy eater, as long as it isn't meat, and not stodge or junk, I'm ok with whatever I can find that is a good price. I happily buy Value or Basics, and search out yellow stickers in the supermarkets, out of date food at the cash and carry, and any other reductions I can sniff out. More and more shops are reducing stuff when it is near to going out of date. If I see a good buy I will stock up on it. I buy on price, not what I fancy having for dinner.

So, what's for dinner tonight. I've started another stew, there were a few dregs from the last one finished yesterday, so I've added it to this one. Reduced celery hearts, reduced swede, reduced spinach, three onions from a big sack, a tin of red kidney beans 21p, a handful of Quorn mince, and the usual curry powder, sauce mix, garlic powder, turmeric, and porridge oats. There's three big size meals in this pan, could easily stretch to four if I had it for lunch as well. I will eat it on three consecutive days. I won't be bored with it because it is delicious, and I won't have to bother with cooking until Wednesday, so saves on gas and time.

Just out of curiosity I have been saving these yellow stickers, to add up how much savings I have made. I started collecting at the beginning of January, but these are not all of them. I haven't cut them from the yogurt pots, or other packaging which made it difficult to remove them. These are from mainly fruit and veg, and bread. The total value of these items was £63.72, I paid £11.89, a saving of £51.83.

We still have some days to go before the end of March and I may well do another yellow sticker shop, so at a guess, if I saved another £10 that would take it to £60 approx saved in three months, £240 per year. I consider that the effort I make in searching out the best prices is well worth it.

Starting on April 1st, I am going to keep a diary of my yellow stickers only. Noting everything I buy which has been marked down because it is going out of date. I'll do it for three months, and it will give me a more accurate figure. I get a feeling my above estimate might be a bit out, and I am saving more than I think. We shall see. I'll add a separate page at the top for it and you can follow my progress. If you don't have yellow stickers, why not challenge yourself to search out the bargains wherever you are. Make it a new rule, don't just pick up the first thing that comes to mind, the same thing you buy every week, look for something which is better value, where you get more for your money.
That's all, thank you for visiting, Toodle pip.

EDITED TO ADD.
LATE NEWS.
Can you see what I have been waiting for these past few nights? 10.30pm, nearly there.