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As well my cats might be in my kitchen, eating my foods, after doing a shop for the month last week. I’ve been meaning to write a follow-up post ever since, but things kept getting in the way, not least of which was a little tumble I had on a patch of wet floor.
Oh, nothing broken, but my dignity and derriere got bruised. That made it a bit uncomfortable to spend much time sat at the computer. And, as ever, living alone, nobody to bring me tea and sympathy. 
For those who have arrived half way through the story, what I’ve done this month is to actually make a menu and a plan, which to this detail, is something I have never done before. At the following page, you can read about the Kitchen Audit and a Menu Plan for May, for the background.
Executing the plan: problems we have identified
In general terms, the shopping went quite well, I think.
A problem you will surely not have in “civilization”, but I do suffer here, is the availability of items. For once - I don’t expect this to be repeated - I did get everything I planned to get, even though I had to “make do” with a couple of frozen items, where I would much rather have had fresh.
The next “problem” I found with my plan is that I should have scheduled myself to eat something instant or junk food on the day I had lugged all the shopping home. After doing that, I was too tired to cook.
The answer to that, I suspect, is to shop at a store that delivers, or grocery shop online and certainly to shop again BEFORE you run out of food and the ready meals that you prepared the previous month.
The next hardest part has been “shoehorning” all the made dishes into the small freezer - which is, I’m sure, a problem most people cooking for one will have - and, I’m fortunate that I have a reasonable sized freezer. Different brand, but similar to the type shown left, where the fridge is the top 2/3rd, with 3 freezer drawers below.
It has been possible to make enough space, but it has required a bit of juggling.
As frozen veg have come out to go into dishes, that has created the needed space, but to get some of the items in, I’ve had to put them in freezer bags, instead of plastic boxes so they took up less space. I didn’t really want to do that as much, because, obviously, the boxes can be reused and the bags can’t, creating waste and not being as “green” as I would aim for.
Actually, I probably wouldn’t have a problem with space at all, if I didn’t have a hundredweight of bananas filling the largest bottom drawer, but it seemed worth a mention, because, this planning lark really depends on not having much else in the freezer - certainly no extra pizza boxes - especially if yours is not quite the “family size” I have.
Did I manage to save money?
Here, I can really only talk in costs relative to what I might normally spend on a month’s shopping without such a strict plan, since we all live in different parts of the world with differing costs of living.
Food here in the Canary Islands, is not that expensive, I don’t think - say, compared to UK prices. Well, unless you buy expensive, imported goods, but I don’t often. There was an article in our local press the other day that said Tenerife had one of the lowest “shopping basket” costs in the islands. Properly “translated” (i.e. with the “spin” removed) that really means, compared to the rest of Spain, it’s expensive! 
Keeping to a low budget was an issue and I am happy to say that I feel I was successful in this aim. After deducting the vast amount of cat and dog food, odds and ends not on the list (who put those chocolate things in my basket?) and non-food items, (like bathroom tissue in bulk because we seem to eat that too in this house), bearing in mind I did start with a few items in the cupboard, I spent only around €35 (£24 / $47) on the remaining ingredients for 30 main meals.
My average cost, per portion, is roughly £1 / €1.5 / $2.
In relative terms, I estimate that by planning and cooking, you can eat for a whole month on the cost of a week’s worth of ready meals and convenience foods. You’d probably spend an equivalent amount in 2-3 days if your idea of “cooking for one” is ordering pizza to be delivered!
Even then, I could have done better, perhaps if I had bought fruit and veg at the market, but that would have meant shopping on two separate days. I could also have done better by going to one of the larger supermarkets further afield, where I would have had more choice too, but by the time one gets there and with the added costs of transport, there’s not a lot in it, so I chose to patronize two local stores who each have different ranges and, between them, most of what I wanted.
So how was the cooking and eating experience?
Watch this space, because I intend to serialize (or should that be cerealize?) the finished dishes in all their gory. No, I didn’t mean glory.
My photos are crap and my culinary skills average. This has never been meant to be one of those food blogs that makes you feel inadequate and incapable of producing results to match the fantastic illustrations. Once you’ve seen my efforts, you’ll KNOW that you can do better!
If nothing else, I hope this whole experiment proves entertaining.
Sponzurz
