How to fill your Morrisons trolley for £30

So what can you get with a £30 Morrisons voucher? The Sun newspaper’s social media agency got in touch to say that they would bestow a voucher for this very sum upon me, if I told y’all what I’d spend it on. I like a good challenge (and a good voucher!) and I said yes like a shot.

Now I do have a distinct advantage here, as right now I do our monthly shop at Morrisons. (I had been shopping at a big Asda, but the homeware aisles proved too distracting.) Right now I shop for two people on a budget of £80. I’ve posted before about how the best time to go shopping is during the hour before the store closes, when all the best bargains are to be found. Well, this is yet another example of what you can do with limited means, if you are prepared to trolley dash.

So here is how that £30 would fill a trolley, based on the latest offers on the Morrisons website and my most recent grocery receipt:

• When I go in, I go straight to the freezer section and begin filling the trolley there. I go for the bags of veg – they are cheaper, often fresher and keep for longer than the stuff from the vegetable aisle. Broccoli, green beans, cobs of sweetcorn, peas and spinach. TOTAL: £5.46.
• I also get some frozen fish . I never get fish from the about to go off bargain section – fish that is nearing its sell-by date is woolly, unpleasant and not worth eating. Last time I went for a packet of coley, which is cheap (£1.74 for 368g) and makes great fishcakes.
• A bag of cocktail prawns to go into curries. £1.99.
• Hake was also on special, so I got 2 fillets of that. I like hake: it’s a delicious white fish, but tends to play second fiddle to cod and haddock over here. £2.00.
• I do go to the fresh fish counter though, for a small tray of sardines. When we get home I freeze them – they don’t last for long in the fridge. Sardines are inexpensive – £0.89 for four, last time I was in – and great on barbecues at this time of year.
• 4 x Covent Garden Soups, £0.07 each from the about to go off bargain section. When I got home I put them straight into the freezer; perfect for when I get home late and can’t be bothered to cook a proper dinner. TOTAL: £0.28.
• 2 x loaves of freshly baked white bread, sliced. Also, a loaf of sliced sourdough. Again, straight from the Morrisons reduced section into the home freezer. The loaves are fine to freeze – I don’t know some people get funny about freezing fresh bread – and the slices defrost very quickly. Lunch sandwiches. The sourdough also makes delicious toast. TOTAL: £0.86.
• 1.5kg of Be-Ro Plain Flour and 1.5 kg of Be-Ro Self Raising Flour. Both reduced from £1.18 to £0.72. Our flour goes straight into airtight containers, so that it keeps well and doesn’t get mussed up by any crawlies. Even so, when I went to make cheese scones the other week and they came out of the oven as cheese biscuits, I realised it was time to renew our stocks. The raising agents in self-raising flour begin to fizzle out after a couple of months. TOTAL: £1.14.
• 4 x tins of Branston Baked Beans. (The way to my husband’s heart.) Currently reduced by half, from £2.45 to £1.22.
• A slab of barbecued pork from the hot rotisserie counter, for my husband (I don’t eat meat). The store was about to close, so the pork had been baggied up and reduced from £3.45 to £1.45. My husband had some of it for dinner – and the rest in his sarnies.
• Fruit and veg. I don’t get this from the about to go off section because, to be honest, the stuff that Morrisons staff put there is already looking pretty scroggy.  Also, we cheat as some of our fruit and veg is homegrown! So there is nothing special to see here and I’ll leave it out of our £30 trolley – with the exception of the pineapple, reduced from £2.00 to £1.00.
• Oh, and also 2 x punnets of blueberries, as a treat. On special right now: 2 punnets for £3.00. We do grow these at home, but they aren’t ripe yet.  🙂
• Talking of grow-your-own, at this time of year I always pick up a couple of bags of Morrisons compost when I’m in. It’s okay compost – not amazing, but it does the job – and it’s usually on special. Right now you can get 2 x 40 litre bags for £3.50.
• They aren’t strictly within my grocery budget, but I also pick up a couple of garden plants. There is usually a good selection of young shrubs and climbers, going for 2 for £3.00. Last time I was there I brought home a honeysuckle and a hollyhock.
• Cheese. There’s always one cheddar on special. Last time they had slabs of mature cheddar on special: £2.00 for 400g.
• There should be £0.47 left, which I guess I’ll spend on a pint of semi-skimmed…

Ta-da: one trolley and £30!

The reason why The Sun got in touch, in case you are wondering, is that every day this week the newspaper is giving away a £5 Morrisons voucher, valid when you spend £40 or more in a single transaction. Each voucher is valid for a different week (Monday’s was valid for this week, Tuesday’s for next week and so on). There is a voucher published today – and another one tomorrow. More information here.

Finally, do you have any supermarket savings, tip-offs or pointers to add to the list that I have compiled above? If you do, I’d love to hear them…