So I’ve not been great at updating this, so I’m going to post this today and on Thursday, resume posting on Thursdays! It’s a busy time for my brain right now so things are happening but the documentation is lacking!

In week two, I didn’t shop at all or eat much (stomach bug) and last weekend I spent £25.76, so my total is £41.69, for three weeks, leaving me for counting purposes, with £98.31 of the £140 budget I set for the eight weeks.

I didn’t take a photo of my shopping this week but from the allotment we’ve had cukes, tomatoes, kale, sweet corn and squash.

My food for work – Monday to Thursday (because I worked from home on Friday)

Breakfasts – breakfast sandwich with raw vegetables

Lunches – Tomato risotto and kale

Snacks – grapes, an apple, an orange, a cereal bar and a yoghurt

Dinners (Saturday to Wednesday)

Saturday Ma stayed and we had chicken thighs and tomato risotto (I made a lot of risotto and so it was lunches for the week!)

Sunday – I didn’t eat dinner

Monday – Steak with stir fried kale and bearnaise sauce (the steak was in the freezer!)

Tuesday – Courgette pasta with Sarah (there was enough leftover that I have two containers of it in the freezer for lunches next week)

Wednesday – Chicken drumsticks with corn and coleslaw

Menu planning, food prep and cooking is (like all other disciplines) a muscle, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I’m really finding this as I progress, I’m becoming more creative and much better at noticing what I have so I’m spending less. I’m also reviving old habits, say hello baking bread! (This is currently my go to but with half white and half wholemeal flour and no kneading!)

I do tend to try and get serious about habits as we enter autumn and winter and I begin to notice changes in my mood. There was a danger that with SAD and a new role at work, that choosing to reset my budget for food would have been too much but actually, it’s the been the other way around. When I found out about the new role, I went back into therapy and I’m aware that actually what a focus on how I eat and spend money is a great (outside of it just being good practice!) because it gives me control at a time when I don’t necessarily have it elsewhere! But this has been good and I’m not feeling overwhelmed by autumn right now!