Bobby Beale, you little tinker. Cost me £10 at the bookies, that did, plus my dignity for sitting and watching it (and enjoying it!). I’m alone in the house tonight as Paul’s down South. I’m not too good at being in the house by myself, and it doesn’t help that I’ve got the score from Scream 2 playing as I type. If my ex and Paul’s mother burst through the door waving a knife at me then at least I can say I died doing what I love, typing with one hand and scratching my balls with the other. Though I do hate the thought of being discovered in my ‘lay around the house’ boxer shorts with the hole burnt in the behind – from an errant cigarette back when I used to smoke, not from any particularly violent flatus.
No recipe tonight, but instead, a response to the many posts I’ve seen dotted around saying how expensive SW is, especially for new joiners. So, I thought I’d rattle off a few ways around saving money on slimming world – our shopping bill normally comes in at around £50 a week, and we generally shop at a combination of Waitrose, Tesco and Morrisons. I’m just going to scattershot type the article mind, so don’t expect structure and hilarity – I’m sitting here freezing my bollocks off but if I don’t type it before my bath I’ll never bother! I also plan to turn this into a pinned page at the top and keep adding to it. Oooh I’m the gift that keeps on giving!
Bulk buy the staples
Long time readers may remember The Cat Hotel – we cleared out our shed, fitted shelving and use it to store bulk purchases of anything that is either on a considerable discount or cheaper to buy in bulk. So to this end we always have masses and masses of Slimming World staples – chopped tomatoes, beans, pasta, spaghetti, chickpeas, tinned veg, stock cubes, salt, vinegar, sauces, rice. We generally buy these in bulk from Costco – to give you an example of savings here, you can pick up 24 tins of excellent quality chopped tomatoes for around £7, or 28p a tin. Yes, you can buy them cheaper in Tesco if you go down to the ‘Aren’t I a cheapskate’ range, but you’re getting red piss in a tin with a tomato crust. There would be more tomato flavour if you sucked the tomato on the tin wrapper. Bulk buying nearly always pays for itself in the end plus you’ve always got something in – many a time Paul and I will just have a tin of beans for dinner because we’re too busy illegally downloading TV shows and living the life of Riley. By the way, our cats don’t bother with it, and why would they? Yes it’s warm, safe and dry, but they’d much rather crap in my flowerbeds and track their muddy paws across our white tiles.
Cook twice, freeze once!
Most of our recipes can easily be doubled or halved – but if I say it serves four, then cook for four and freeze two portions – or serve three portions and take one for lunch the next day as we normally do. You’re cooking the meal anyway so it’s no hardship at all to freeze a bit up.
ALDI/LIDL
You can save money in these shops, but I don’t like them. I have tried, I swear I have. We went to an Aldi once and it was just too stressful – I don’t like a shop that puts garden shears next to petit pois tins and tumble drier balls next to the Daily Malk chocolate. I find it too confusing, with all the off-brand rip-offs and impossible layout – it’s like an Escher puzzle of abject poverty. Plus when you go to pay for your items the cashier throws them through the checkout like she’s going for gold for Great Britain’s curling team. I like small talk and chit-chat, not fucking carpet burns from a pack of floor wipes swishing past my hand at the speed of light. If you can deal with the above, all the very best to you, you’ll definitely save – but if not…
Don’t be afraid to scrabble in the bargain bin
Listen, I used to avoid the bargain bin like the best of them, but since I discovered that my local Tesco actually do decent meat reductions, I’ll happily get in there and elbow an old biddy in the face for £2 off a pork shoulder. You’ve got to be savvy though – get what you need, rather than what you think is a decent deal. If you weren’t going to buy that six pack of yoghurt reduced to 8p because the fork-lift ran over it and a fox shagged the strawberry crunch, it’s not a bargain. But the flipside of this is – don’t be one of those fucking awful people who grab items as soon as the poor supermarket worker has stuck the reduced sticker on it. Have a touch of class. Yes, you might have a trolley so full of reduced bread that you could use it to stop a raging river, but what price dignity? I’ve mentioned before that I’ve seen people actually fighting and nothing is worth that.
Get yourself a countdown
Clearly not a countdown as in the game-show for the piss-flow challenged, but rather where you bulk buy Slimming World entry costs and get 12 weeks for the cost of ten, plus if you time it right you’ll normally get given a free book that you can immediately sell on ebay for further profit read and enjoy. Mind, this is good for two reasons – yes, you’ll save money, but if you’re as tight as a tick’s bumhole like I am, the idea of wasting already spent money will make you go to class! WIN WIN.
Right – bath now, more tomorrow!