weekly shop

foodie66

ApeXaviour wrote: »

Hey where can you get cheap essential oils? Anywhere I see them they're horrendously expensive... €10 for a paltry little 15ml bottle.

Well, i have seen them cheaper than that. About 5.95. I;m sure if you went to the euro shops you could pick some up for even less. They may not be the fancy brands but you are just looking for something to mask the smell of the vinegar. And when you think about how long you get out of a bottle it isn't expensive.

It was just a suggestion - if it doesn't work for you then no big deal!

Nanazolie

you can get very good prices online on essential oils. The most common ones are also the cheapest and great for cleaning products: lavender, tea tree (but strong smelling), lemon and sweet orange

Mix half water / half vinegar, a few drops of EO in a spray bottle and hey presto! a very cheap multipurpose cleaner

ApeXaviour

foodie66 wrote: »

I;m sure if you went to the euro shops you could pick some up for even less.

Never thought of the euro shops, great idea! Yeah I'm just looking for the cheapest possible for some candles, couldn't care less about brand names. Cheers!

patwicklow

Do the same shop next week in aldi you will be amazed with the savings you will make thats for sure.

psychward

Nanazolie wrote: »

you can get very good prices online on essential oils. The most common ones are also the cheapest and great for cleaning products: lavender, tea tree (but strong smelling), lemon and sweet orange

Mix half water / half vinegar, a few drops of EO in a spray bottle and hey presto! a very cheap multipurpose cleaner

I don't think I've ever seen Tea Tree oil at a cheap price. In fact it seems among the priciest of the oils. Are any of those oils toxic when applied to surfaces which might later have food on them ?

Nanazolie

Essential oils should not be used neat (with the exception of lavender and tea tree), and caution must be taken when used on children and pregnant ladies. Some people use them in food, I would certainly not recommend it. I once tried some chocolate mousse with a drop of orange oil, it was still too strong.
They are extremely potent, so only a few drops are needed and never exceed the dose or you can burn your skin.
Because you'll be using them in cleaning products, you can just add about 5 drops of lavender to your vinegar mix, that's enough to mask the vinegary smell. A small bottle of lavender (or tea tree) is about 3.50 online and will last for ages
You can get books on aromatherapy at the library. This site is a good start: http://www.atlanticaromatics.com/index.html
and here: http://www.aromaweb.com/

snubbleste

Aldi sell 30ml tea tree oil for €3.49 periodically.

shellyboo

I know everyone's saying 'make a list and stick to it', but I find the opposite, actually. I tend to go to Tesco/Lidl (whichever I have time for, Lidl's further away) and plan my dinners based on what's on offer as far as meat & veg go. There are, of course, some items I get all the time, but aside from that my shopping list varies madly.

Granted, there are only two of us and I do all the cooking so it's quite simple for me to do this... I know what I can cook, I know what we'll both eat and I know what our schedules are so I can make quite good savings by availing of whatever is on offer and just making it work throughout the week.

Lidl is fantastic for basic staples... your rice, pasta, salt, pepper, herbs & spices. Same goes for cleaning products, I never buy them anywhere else now. The W5 range is great. Toiletries, same. Things I wouldn't buy in Lidl are meat & milk... purely personal preference, I find them not great quality. I go to the butchers for meat and Tesco/Supervalu for milk.

Jarred/packet sauces are a complete rip-off, don't buy them **anywhere**. I notice you say you're no longer working -- that's tough (I know well myself) but the upside is that you have more time on your hands. Whereas before you might only have had time to tip a jar of Spag Bol sauce into some mince, now you might have that extra hour to make your own sauce from scratch and leave it to simmer for an hour. It tastes 100x times better, is fresher and better for you, and is cheaper. Have a think about the kind of meals you might eat on a regular basis and look up the recipes for the sauces.

Your Dolmio sauce (€2.59 or whatever) can be recreated with two cloves of garlic, a tin of tomatoes, a bit of tomato puree and a shake of basil -- under a euro, given that you'll get many more dinners out of the puree, garlic and basil. Same goes for the Old El Paso Mexican-style packet stuff... Chili powder, cumin & paprika are under €1 a jar in Lidl and you'll get at least 15-20 Mexican meals (burritos, fajitas, stews, soups) out of those three jars in total.

Of course, you might do this already and cook every meal from scratch! But it really is amazing how simple these kinds of things are to throw together, and there are real savings to be made by cooking from scratch with basic ingredients.

wonderfulname

Nanazolie wrote: »

Essential oils should not be used neat (with the exception of lavender and tea tree), and caution must be taken when used on children and pregnant ladies. Some people use them in food, I would certainly not recommend it. I once tried some chocolate mousse with a drop of orange oil, it was still too strong.

Orange oil is not produced in the same manner as most essential oils, and is an ingredient, not all are. To be honest you're just talking about your own taste here (either that or too much orange oil), orange oil and chocolate is an incredibly popular combination.

Nanazolie wrote: »

They are extremely potent, so only a few drops are needed and never exceed the dose or you can burn your skin.
Because you'll be using them in cleaning products, you can just add about 5 drops of lavender to your vinegar mix, that's enough to mask the vinegary smell. A small bottle of lavender (or tea tree) is about 3.50 online and will last for ages
You can get books on aromatherapy at the library. This site is a good start: http://www.atlanticaromatics.com/index.html
and here: http://www.aromaweb.com/

Just to add to this, vinegar is not that smelly when it's not with chips, and actually a deodoriser, to use it in your day to day cleaning you don't need to buy essential oils, I've never mixed these and I still don't wholly understand why you would, vinegar gets rid of smells, oils just mask them.

My three favourite cleaners...

Macy0161

shellyboo wrote: »

Your Dolmio sauce (€2.59 or whatever) can be recreated with two cloves of garlic, a tin of tomatoes, a bit of tomato puree and a shake of basil -- under a euro, given that you'll get many more dinners out of the puree, garlic and basil.

For those that don't have the time, the Aldi "premium" bolognese sauce is under a euro, and I think the Lidl one is circa a euro too. We actually prefer the aldi to dolmio anyway. Can't remember when we last brought it, but is it really up at €2.60 a jar? Wow...

Just to echo again, the butcher for meat - for quality and price.

shellyboo

Macy0161 wrote: »

For those that don't have the time, the Aldi "premium" bolognese sauce is under a euro, and I think the Lidl one is circa a euro too. We actually prefer the aldi to dolmio anyway. Can't remember when we last brought it, but is it really up at €2.60 a jar? Wow...

Just to echo again, the butcher for meat - for quality and price.

Spose it depends what size of a jar you get, but the bigger ones that you might get 2 meals out of would be around that, yeah! But having learned to make my own, I'd never go back to jars tbh.

Manda76

I can't do a big shop in Tesco it's so expensive even after buying all the so called special offers, you can't leave that shop without spending nearly 160..if you have to buy everything like washing powder nappies and so on. I can spend 120 in Lidl/Aldi and get even more for my money.. I remember one week geting my child benefit going to Tesco spending 180 and 5 days later having barely any food left, you just don't get much for your money.. there is two adults and three kids here to feed, oh and a cat.
Aldi and Lidl are great value. I seem to pop into Aldi a bit more lately as I found Lidls products sometimes are more inferior. I bought cereal in Lidls for the kids a few boxes of different cereals and could not find any vitamins added on the box, I thought I was going loopy like why make cereal aimed at kids and they don't have added vitamins? they have changed their brand of cereal, for years they had a different type with added iron and 7 vitamins.
Aldi seem to make more Irish type products, their Spuddys crisps are very Tayto like! and their sauces/ketchup and mayos are lovely and so cheap. I love their little tins of tuna flakes with thai chilli and of course their chocolate is lovely..and you can't beat their special offers on fruit and veg, grapes for 79cent! cherry tomatoes were 27cent
Aldi can be stressful though as they do scan your food too quickly, and you have to go so fast to get it into your trolley but it is worth it financially.