Budget for this week

My budget for this week is 50 euro.  I am going to try again to keep 10 until Wednesday.  I had a list of things I need to buy for, among other things, making a cake for tomorrow's seed and plant exchange at the garden and later in the week, food for film club, a lot of which I will get from the market tomorrow but some of which was supermarket fare.  Since I need to bake the cake this evening, I decided to go to Aldi on the way home for the supermarket stuff.  I had flour and raw cane sugar but not enough butter and no eggs.  Although I normally buy eggs from the farmer at the market, I know Aldi do organic and free-range as well and that will do when pressed for time.  I went in with the aim of spending no more than 10 euro, which will leave me 30 for the market tomorrow.  As I'll be buying meat I think that will take up about 10 euro and the rest will be for fruit and veg as well as some cheese.

My total in Aldi came to 9.60, which I am pleased with as it was difficult enough to not be tempted to stock up on things just because I was there and it's so cheap.  It's five minutes walk from my house and not like I can't go in and stock up any time! I did treat myself to a jar of olives though.

Aldi grocercy shop

1. Cornflakes 600g (I don't know the brand but the ones they had in Ireland were nice so hopefully these will be too. - 99c
2. 1 litre organic milk - 89c
3. Packet feta cheese - 85c
4. 2 balls of mozzarella cheese - 69c each
5. 1 kg white sugar - 69c (I usually buy whole cane or raw cane sugar from the fair trade shop but at 3.10 a kilo, that's a big difference, especially since I'm making a cake for people who probably usually use and prefer white sugar.  Is that presumptuous of me?)
6. Baking powder sachets - 29c
7. White flour - 25c (I wasn't planning on getting flour although it was on my list.  I usually buy organic flour but this price is ridiculous in comparison to the nearly 2 euro I normally pay)
8. Buttermilk - 29c
9. Olives - 79c
10. 10 free-range eggs (the organic ones had no mention of whether they were free-range or not) - 1.59

Total: 9.60

I've decided (aided by a timely recipe in today's Mother Earth Newsletter) that a veggie lasagne would be a better idea than a bean casserole so if I can get a butternut squash at the market tomorrow, I'll do that.  That means I still need to buy some lasagne.  I also have a bar of chocolate on my list and would like to get some bananas for eating so if I have money left after the market tomorrow I will go to the fair trade shop too.

Since we are having the seed and plant exchange day at the garden tomorrow it's not likely we'll be doing any harvesting so that means no extra free food this week.