I lived off of the reduced section for a week

Student loans are for booze, new clothes you don’t need and more booze. The old proverb eating is cheating leads you to one place, the reduced section.

This yellow stickered haven often throws up some gems, but could I live off the reduced section for a whole week?

In short, it isn’t easy. Eating might be cheating but, when you’re ill, a smorgasbord of tuna and sweetcorn filling, dry toast and sausage sandwiches with no ketchup or butter don’t quite cut it.

Full of hope, I went to Asda to find breakfast for tomorrow morning. I wasn’t disappointed. A twelve pack of sausages was reduced from £2.25 to £1.20 and a loaf of bread was reduced from £1.00 to 68p, both of which could be frozen for as long as I needed. I saved a total of £1.37.

Day 1

An unbuttered and ketchupless sausage sandwich to begin my week, washed down with a glass of tap water as no drinks had been reduced. Dry is an understatement but I was going to have to get used to it as this and cardboard-esque toast was my breakfast for the rest of the week.

Lunch consisted of another trip to Asda to find something near the end of its sell by date. I was in luck again – a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich filler, reduced from £2.00 to 76p. I nabbed a reduced roast dinner ready meal for later as well.

Day 2

Another tuna and sweetcorn sandwich for lunch and another trip to Asda for dinner. The reduced section was unusually full for a Tuesday afternoon, but I wasn’t complaining. Two cheese and garlic chicken kievs reduced from £1.95 to £1.07, I had one that night with a reduced pack of veg and froze the other for later in the week.

Day 3

The tuna and sweetcorn filling was now “out of date”, but I took their use by date as more of a guideline and had a sandwich anyway. Dinner resulted in my third journey to Asda in three days, I said hello to some of the workers as I walked in, I was becoming a regular.

Fortunately there was a chicken casserole reduced from £4.00 to £2.16 which I split with a housemate so I only paid £1.08.

Day 4

After my fourth day of drinking tap water and after another dry breakfast I was determined to find a flavoursome drink of some sort. A pack of 7UP cans reduced from £3 to £2.10, despite being battered and bruised they replenished my thirst perfectly.

Seeing as it was now two days out of date I decided to ditch the tuna and sweetcorn and had another sausage sandwich. At least this time I didn’t have to wash it down with tap water. Leftover chicken kiev and a pack of wedges that were reduced by 20p made a satisfactory dinner.

Day 5

Boring dry toast again. For lunch I managed to get a garlic pizza bread for 50p and used the rest of the sausages and potato wedges for dinner.

Day 6

After my many sausage sandwiches, I’d ran out of bread for breakfast so visited my friends at Asda for another loaf, reduced of course. I also grabbed a pack of well-deserved reduced chocolate cake bars for lunch saving 61p and a reduced chicken and gravy pie for dinner.

Day 7

To finish the week off I had my last ever dry pieces of toast, it’s safe to say I will never eat dry toast again. I’d also got a steak and gravy pie and a quiche at Asda yesterday, so I finished my week off with those meals.

Living off of the reduced section was much more difficult than I thought, I was fortunate enough that I found something I liked everyday and that something had been reduced. I definitely won’t live solely off of the reduced section again but there is nothing wrong with grabbing the odd bargain.