Day six Summery taking on more than I can chew

06.07.19

FOOD HUNT FOR THE ALTERNATIVES

So this is where I start to think that this task is harder and less achievable to go completely plastic free. I went to Lidl yesterday and took photos of some of the alternative options to my weekly shop that I know my household cannot do without. Again this is only one suprmarket others may offer more options, this is also where I will struggle though. I have 3 kids, a husband, a 18 year old nephew and myself and we all have our habits of how we eat certain foods. Sausage sandwich the kids love ketchup for instance and chocolate spread is a total must. So how far do I go??? Chocolate spread plastic lid?
The one thing i'm also noticing is that to complete this task of a plastic free home Lidl and Aldi offer the best prices to save money, some of the alternatives will need these extra pennies to buy, therefore shopping in Lidl/Aldi they offer the cheaper branded items saving and replacing the pennies that I will need to spend on plastic free alternatives elsewhere.
The elsewhere comment is the one that makes this challenge become hard work as I am finding that I will not be able to do my weekly shop under one roof meaning time, travel and organisation is needed to pull off my shop. The time issue is definatly going to be the hardest one due to everyday commitments and I can now understand why many people would just go for the convienence shop. Driving to different shops more miles, more petrol, more damage and more money. With the impact cars have on the environment with regards to the climate emissions I question this option as i'm trying to drive less. Electric car option then!!!!! More money?

Chocolate spread is a must in my house the kids have been snacking with fruits and a blob of chocolate spread instead of snacks in individual packets. Not sure if I can make it as hazel nuts all come in plastic packaging. The jar is also reusable and this is one item I may have to keep buying. 

Baking we use chocolate chips again they are in plastic in every shop. The alternatives are that I buy bars like these and smash the chocolate in to little pieces. 

The only sauce available in Lidl in a glass bottle, other shops have may have different ones but this one but I brought as it was there and our plstic bottle at home is running out. so for the weekends sake this was coming home. 

The glass bottle size difference is a lot so once again plastic is cheaper.
I need to find a refill option

Olive oil worked out more expensive in a glass bottle but this is a good alternative.

This is a big one that i'm questioning too. Yogurt all in plastic I have been making smoothies and ice creams with yogurt again saving on our usual packeted ice creams, lollies etc. Plus yogurt is healthy for the kids and a must buy as an essential part to their diet. If anyone has suggestions please help me and comment below.

Oh its just a great price, a brand the kids love. I can't wait to find the glass bottle branded alternative, see how this brand lurs me to plastic and the difference a glass bottle is going to cost. This is where I am getting more annoyed as we should not be lured to plastc because its cheaper.  

Cream another essential to make ice cream and homemade deserts what to do??? please help with any suggestions however I do not know how difficult making cream myself is. I would like the convience of buying cream due to this challenge now proving more daily essentials are needs to be made at homemade.

Lidl does offer a great selection of plastic free wrapped to chocolate, I know it's not Cadbury brand but the kids seem to be enjoying the alternative so this is an easy change to make.

Again any help needed on gloves as i'm skin sensitive and must where gloves when washing up.
now there is more cooking/baking going on I need gloves for all the extra washing up.

Squirty cream Nooooo i could hand back the plastic lid recycle it locally but then i buying plastic and feeding money into the plastics industry. What to do??? HELP



Jelly Nooooo
lemon juice i need it for dishwasher tablet making Noooo plastic

Glass pop 99p an absolute bonus thank you Lidl

Glass bottles smaller and more expensive but an option I may have to go with.

Came home and my nephew had made chocolate concrete cakes WOW his not gong back to uni I need his baking skills. LOL

Oat milk turned out great easy to make and a great alternative to goats milk that may also help with my food intollerences.

This was brougt for my family at christmas many years ago and one of the most used items in the kitchen. My children are melting the chocolate bars and dipping in the different fruits from the weekend shopping, i'm going to have to shop more in  the week to replace the eaten fruits.  Still looking at the sugar intake more sugar is involved in the packeted chocolate bars that they would usually snack on, Mars, twix, pinics,snickers etc. so again looking at the healthy option and looking after their teeth too can't be a bad change over.

My nephews chocolate concrete and my homemade flat jacks using up the oats from the homemade oat milk. My 12 year old has just stuffed one in his mouth stating "this plastic free stuff is ok you know" LOL approval of the highest in this house. 

Day 5

05.07.19

So I shopped for the weekend today and came home plastic free. The products I was buying were fresh and healthy. The usual shop is full of pre made foods, snacks like biscuits, crisps, cakes, chocolate bars but today just the ingredients to make our own.

Take a look below

Lidl £16.70
Butchers £38.38
bells farm £15.29
Total £70.37

My total shop today totally plastic free even managed to buy tomatoe sauce

I have been shopping at the butchers with my own tubs for about a year now and i find the meat lasts longer when stored in tubs.

Brilliant achievement

It was like I was packing for a holiday leaving the house for my venture

Lidl offers a great fresh bread section quite cheap and we have fresh croissants for  breakfast too

This was my lidl plastic free achievement

These strawberries are getting used up quickly this is my second strawberry pick this week.

So I found oats to make oat milk for the hot chocolates and maybe the alternative to my goats milk dilema

School snacks for a trip

Day 5

05.07.19



What a girl

My daughter came downstairs this morning reminding me that she had a rounder's sports tournament and needs snacks.
Together we worked out what she could have, so I put the pancakes on and she did a tub of strawberries and a tub of ginger bread she made last night.
The water bottle was filled with iced water that she could refill when needed.

Team work again at last minute and my family going strong on plastic free.
 

Lush are you kidding me

So lush got a visit and I have to say the selection was huge and extremely confusing. A lady did her best to sell me some products but I was just overwhelmed and needed to get away after seeing the prices. When I looked at the shampoo bars I expected bottle shaped shampoo sticks but instead it was small round bars that she said gets 60-100 washes??? This I must question I have kids that would just leave them in the bath and it would dissolve in seconds all for the lush price of £8. Now personally I could not use any shampoo due to the chemicals SLS and MI so it would be no good me buying them as my skin would be flared up. 

I think with this shop there was too much on offer for me to get my head around but I have been there  and got prices. Maybe as my journey continues something might be needed from there.

This was interesting to me as my sunblocks all come in plastic bottles
I would give this ago just to see. Factor 30

Shampoo bars 

The soap collection, you buy this in 100g bars and some were priced high its makes me think though  as I use Dove soap at £2 a bar and it’s packaging is in a box do I need this Lush? 

This item is £5 you put your soap  inside it to make it a scrub apparently the soap lasts longer using a bag. Well I can crochet one for less but I liked the idea.

£2 for one reusable pad again I feel I should  have ago at making my own that can be washed. 

Conditioners contain the chemicals  that react with my Ezcema so again no option for me to buy plastic free at the moment. 

Scrubbing soap absolutely fantastic 

 

This I would buy amazing and my skim felt and smelt lovely

Just the amount to choose from amazes me

Brilliant

free from the chemicals I react to

When I think of £10 wow that's a lot but my shampoo now and creams rang from £8-£9

I will try to make my own by crochet

sold per 100g you would not get a huge amount

Check out me eggs

EGGS 4.07.19

Day 4

I went to three places to compare 12 eggs. I don’t know about your home but we can get through 24 eggs a week. We use them in breakfasts, dinners, pancakes and baking.

These prices are based on 12 eggs

What I found

Tesco 12 eggs = £2.40
Farm shop 12 eggs = £2.70
Local butcher 12 = £3.98

Tesco 

Compared egg sizes the butcher ones are much bigger  

Farm shop against butchers egg, butchers eggs are much bigger 

It makes me wonder why locally farmed eggs can be so different in colour outside shell and inside shell than the ones you get in supermarkets. Comparing weight, sizes and freshness due to colour these must be better. Tell me if I missing something? 

I never knew you could choose larger eggs so looking at the price this seems to be the winner some even have two yokes inside one e

Day 4 Summary

4th July 2019

So I decided today to venture out and about to investigate the options of plastic free alternative buying.

I drove to kidderminster to Eat.Love.Yoga and the shop assistance was really helpful and supportive of my quest to become a plastic free family.
Looking at the negatives I can only see part of my weekly shop here and maybe need to look at logistics of how to fit a visit there once a week.
When I stood infront of the products I will admit to being a little pessimistic when I looked at the prices but now after working them out they either work out cheaper than my brands in plastic or more expensive to my usual buys. Take a look at my blog from today. (Its been a busy day post)
I can however see the benefits way out the negatives, people say it's more expensive going to these kind of shops but the benefits are that you only buy what you need and it's plastic free. Supermarkets offer great prices but they also sell alot more to you per visit. You always end up with buying more products than you planned leading to more waste. I am definatly leaning towards a plastic free buying lifestyle using good quality, organic, eco friendly and generally knowing what i'm buying is quality, locally brought suplliers and not plastic covered rice for instance from abroad thats cheap.

I went to Merry Hill to visit Lush as this was also recommended to me, my skin allergies and intollerences need to be certain chemical free. The shampoos here all contain the chemcals i can't use like SLS and MI.

For shaving products, suncreams, hair gels, soaps, moisturizers it all looks good but i do need to price it all up and i'm feeling a little deflated on this one, so i'm going to leave it till tomorrow. In fact the prices scared me. lol My arm though where the moisturizer was sampled is soft and still smelling lovely but i need to see if my skin reacts first before I invest my money.

Tonight the children had spagetti on toast and I made a paella for the adults then the kitchen turned into a fun baking household. One thing this journey is teaching me is that convienent food such as biscuit packets are easy to grab and run back to the ipads/computers/Tv's etc. But  my house has no convienent food left and if they want to snack then we make/bake it. We laughed and enjoyed ourselves too.

The egg buying was an eye opener check out my eggs post to see why.

My black bins are now emptied and power washed ready for my reduced waste throughout the next 2 weeks. I have the before bin photo and look forward to the after photo.

Tomorrow I plan to start a fast acting composter from a video I watch on you tube, wish me luck.
enjoy the photos below

However it does create more dishes to wash lol

One active kitchen tonight

Got eaten before they had chance to decorate lol

She makes it look easy

It's been a busy day 4 I feel a little deflated with shops

Day 4

4th July 2019

Today has had it's high's and low's regarding just how difficult a task I have started. I decided to act on some advice that I have received from my Facebook posts.

The advice was where to shop so I visited Kidderminster's Eat. Love. yoga shop and then went onto Merry Hill to visit Lush. (I will do a new Blog for lush products as I have not worked it out yet)

What I now know is a mixture of pros and cons and here they are.

Eat.Love.yoga

This is a vegan shop offering a selection of things I could use.

Positives are that the staff are incredibly helpful when I asked loads of questions as my worry is my sensitive skin when using their products.

products that I can use from :-

So here is All purpose cleaner from Eat.Love.yoga 700g = £2.10, so my cleaner from Tesco Detol surface cleaner 750ml = 700g = £2.50 I am aware there are cheaper alternatives to surface cleaners but this is what i have thats the most expensive in my cupboard.

Eat.Love.Yoga

So the hot chocolate I was delighted to see but the price I have to admit surprised me however once the ingredients were explained I could see why the price was the price. So here are the ingredients Coco £1.50 per 100g
Vega chocolate £1.89 per 100g
Coconut sugar 93p per 100g
So I brought after sampling a delightful hot chololate made with homemade Oat milk
54g coco, 38g vegan chocolate, 31g Coconut sugar = £1.82
I will get four servings of quality hot cocolate that serves 6 people per time. 24 cups in total not bad and at least i know what i'm feeding the kids as its made from scratch.
I was informed i could also make oat milk myself which may help my goats milk plastic issue and my doggy skin and intolerences.

I paid £3.18 for 854g of organic brown rice
knowing very well rice can be cheaper in supermarkets when buying organic
its not dearer. Tesco organic for 500g is £2.00 meaning its about the same but without plastic.
plus brown rice is heathier too

ingredients to the shampoo

My shampoo is a difficult one as I buy Medicated sampoo in 200ml bottles at £7.49 per bottle.
This bottle above does not list the ingredients I am intollerent too so again 200ml = 250g so this would be cheaper in my refillable bottls too at £1.56 

The hair conditioner ingredients are also are free of my chemical intolerences I usually buy Dove conditioner at 350ml/500g £2.70
This conditioner above would be £2.60

Comfort is my bottle brand 3L at £6
The above works out for 3L at £7.20 with reusable bottle

Again my usual brand is Harpic toilet cleaner at £1.75 for 700g
the above works out £2.24 with my own bottle

My usual brand is persil non bio
6.5kg 100 washes = £10
For the same it works out about £24 this is
a rough estimate but the product is eco friendly to the planet.



450g = 450ml
Tesco £50
This one above £1.67
 



This is some of the other things they offer in the shop