Tale Weaver – #245 – 17th October – Shopping

We either love it or loath it.
Shopping.
A necessary evil or a joyous blessing.

Such is Michael’s challenge for this week’s Tale Weaver.
Food shopping is a necessity, and I am old school as I prefer to do it myself rather than on line. I like to check my fresh produce and bread, not wanting substitutes that are a far cry from what I may have ordered, or a more expensive brand. Of course should we be unable to afford to run a car, we may have no other option, but hopefully that’s some time off yet.
Besides, our food shopping is spread between four different supermarkets so we do our main shop once a month and have a field trip then top up locally once a week.

I used to do my clothes shopping by mail order, having a little fashion show in the comfort of my own room and mirror, and what fitted I usually kept. Shoes are the same.
Being on the rather large side, it was too hot and bothersome getting changed in too small cubicles, banging my arse, elbow or head on the walls or falling out through the curtain in my underwear, and with shoes my feet swell so getting my trainers back on was a nightmare.

Cost is always a major factor no matter what we buy. Old habits die hard and we have always been restricted by a tight budget. Saying that though, we buy pretty good quality meat but less of it, and plenty of fresh veg to pack the plate out. Today for instance I made our two day chili with 200g of lean minced beef, a tin of red kidney beans, 4 standard sized fresh tomatoes, a large onion, 3 chestnut mushrooms, 2 cloves of garlic and a diced carrot. With rice, this served three of us as we invited our neighbour in, and I have enough for tomorrow with jacket potatoes or more rice.

Pre boat, our three questions to ourselves when looking at something ‘extra’ were:

Do I want it?
Do I need it?
Will my life end if I don’t have it?
Saved us a fortune, though we did weaken occasionally.

On the boat these were revised to
Can I eat it?
Can I wear it?
Where am I going to put it?
Saved us even more as we didn’t have any spare storage space.

Now post boat it’s:
Is it really necessary?

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