Sunday, November 16, 2008

November Challenge Update

I have had a few people ask how the Supermarket Free Challenge is going. So here is an update.

Well, not going to the supermarket at all in the last 16 days has been really nice. No queues at the checkout, no "This weeks specials" to con me into buying stuff I don't need, no nasty trolleys that don't go were I want to go, less impulse buying (how did that packet of Tim Tam's get into my trolley?), and no near misses in the car park.


The vendors I have been visiting instead:
* Bin Inn - how fabulous! This week I got more organised and went in with two shopping bags (reusable of course) full of my empty containers, including 2 empty cleaning product containers. The lovely lady at the checkout cheerfully weighed and marked all my empty containers for me before I filled them. And the friendly, hard-working owner of the store paused in his sweeping to stop and chat while I filled my olive oil bottle.
* Organic Fruit and Veg - Yum, we had the most delicious pumpkin ever - no exaggeration. But certainly $$ and is perhaps out of reach of the average household budget.
* Local (non-organic) fruit and veg shop - excellent. They also stock milk, butter, and yogurt from a local dairy. The butter is the most novel. It comes as a blob wrapped in a bit of gladwrap and it is so creamy and delicious that I am nervous about our cholesterol!

So overall it is going really well and has not taken much effort at all. The only downside is that we have had to be more organised. No more saying at around 7pm, "what shall we have for dinner?", then popping down to the local supermarket (open 8am-10m 363 days per year). Instead we have to plan ahead, or just make-do with what is in the cupboard.

Also, the challenge was the final impetus I needed to start blogging, as it gave me something to write about for my first post. So that's kinda a good thing to. :)

1 comment:

Andrew and Alice Brown said...

that's awesome mandy! it's certainly very encouraging :)