The silliness made this episode one of my favourites in this series. Also kind of depicted how you might eat one one of those days when the only food left in your house is the weird stuff in the freezer and you try to make meals out of it
The app is kind of fun to use because of that. Bakerys give out the best stuff but my international food marked is also fun because sometimes you get stuff i never seen in my life. I sometimes googled vegtables after that. ( I also get a lot moldy stuff i need to thow out thats not fun ! But the result is mostly Vegtable soup for 3 days for 4€)
Mike, that was NOT a failure. The items in the bag were beyond your control as was the limited choice in Morrisons. The fact you made anything is impressive. The sweet potato boat with 3 sausage sailors was quite innovative😂
"even if it was just laughing and watching me fail" I only laughed at the names of the dishes. When you came back from shopping and showed the haul, I saw your love for Jenny in not inflicting it on her - and your love for your viewers by inflicting it on yourself to give us a video. All through the cooking/eating I was in sympathy with you. I have a lot of respect for you Mr Shrimp. Looking forward to the next budget challenge vid. They are my favourite.
The stress you had at the store finding things in your budget triggered me. I remember having to do that but not in a challenge way but because when someone would give me money that was all I had. I know no one was paying any attention to me but I always felt like all eyes were on me and judging me. I am glad I am in a much better place in life thankfully.
Yes, I know the feeling. But I don´t think you should feel ashamed when you are so poor you have trouble buying food.. Others should be ashamed for that.
There is no shame there. ❤ My first year as an apprentice, living in a shared house, I cleared $30 a week. I bought 'less-than-fresh' vegetables from the market. I stole, unmercifully, from the fridge. I cooked meals for the 5 of us, even though, mostly, only 4 of us ate them.
No shame in living on a budge lt and making do with the resources you have. That was my childhood. I'm thankfully also in a better place now, thanks to my mom's efforts to keep us in a good school and make sure we worked hard and made a more comfortable life, but growing up was a struggle and we ate a lot of poverty meals.
Most RU-vidrs would have just started again the next day and hope for better ingredients, we’d have never know. It’s a thing I love about this channel that you don’t do that. Failures and successes get equal billing because you know they both teach things.
most youtubers would do a video like: "I'm spending $100 on a massive crazy breakfast. Let's be stupid and waste money" Because they know they'll make $300 in ad revenue on the video. it gets really old because it means random viewers just want to see people being stupid with money, and then the people who are stupid with money get more money in ad revenue, which they didn't need, because they had enough money to act stupid with it in the first place. And it just becomes a lot of one-upmanship and wasting of money and resources. Like the guy who made a video (when the PS5 was released) of throwing a playstation 5 down the stairs, because he knew he'd make more than the MSRP through ad revenue from idiots who want to watch other idiots being wasteful. It's a vicious cycle of jack-assery.
Personally, I make a point of subscribing to RU-vidrs who show their mistakes and go over why they were mistakes, and what they’re going to do about it. I do this for many reasons. One, I like to get inspiration from others on how to deal with all sorts of mistakes. I mean, I’m 70 and am definitely not done making mistakes, so the more help I can get, the better. Two, I believe that everyone deserves to feel like an idiot at least once a day, to stay humble. (I’m about a thousand years ahead on that so far)
@@Boogie_the_cat Ugh, I hate those gratuitous food waste things. That said, I do enjoy watching Ordinary Sausage, and I appreciate the work Ann Reardon does "debunking" viral videos, but she could just explain how it wouldn't work rather than wasting a load of eggs and wrecking her microwave.
I've found that M&S TGTG bags are normally more of a 'fun' thing, rather than a budgetting thing. Once, I got a £3 Budgens TGTG bag and the bag was stuffed with all sorts, from parsnips, to smoked kippers to a whole chocolate cake! Petrol station shops, typically have a lot of junk food (crisps, chocolates, pastries, cans of drink).
Yes an M&S garage couldn't be a worse combination for value from TGTG unfortunately. Bakeries, in my experience, are where the extraordinary value is found
@@MegaLarriot Yes my local bakery does the TGTG back and I could not be more pleased with what I get from them. High quality loaf of bread (very filling compared to the supermarket sliced stuff), donuts, pastries and slices of cake, and once even gave me some coffee beans.
The local co-op is almost always a good shout too for grocery items. They get a lot of stuff that has a relatviely short shelf life but not enough of a market for them. I have gotten multiples of their fancy pizzas and a bunch of staples like bread loafs for 4 quid from there
@@MegaLarriotYeah TGTG is best at places that need to constantly get rid of/cycle their stock: bakeries, sushi shops/fishmongers, buffet-type restaurants, etc.
Still Atomic Shrimp was rather foolish all the same. We’re currently in the grip of inflation epidemic and he rocks up at Sainsbury’s equivalent supermarket with a pound to spend… Of course he’s going to be going home with nought!
@@vaalalves both I would say. Too good to go is mostly high end junk food items, like the stuff he was given. Not to say this isn’t entertaining stuff but it’s not the sort of down to earth nosh our man Atomic Shrimp ever envisioned being given.
@@carlost856 to good to go is almost exclusively ultra processed food items. Be it what he got or breads and cakes from a parsons bakery or cakes and sandwiches from a coffee shop. Actually receiving a pack of onions was the special treat as that’s not you would normally receive in your to good bag. Even if you get one from a supermarket, those onions would have gone in the fruit and veg box not a to good to go bag.
This is not a fail. This is a damn good illustration of what happens when people ends up with very random foodbags (it be from charity or toogoodtoogo), and have to rush to the only store they can get to before or after work, trying to get SOMETHING to eat. And when you? With your level of knowledge, a full belly and clear mind? Still ends up getting this stressed, and end up with this kind of mess to eat? It terrifies me to think of what students, parents, front line workers, and so on are relying on to fill their and their families bellies these days. I have said it before, and I'll keep repeating it, what you are doing is valuable. It uses poverty as entertainment, in a dignified way, that makes it real for people that are not living in the thick of it themselves. It is damn rare to see, and you are pulling it off brilliantly.
I am not going to insist on a suffering Olympics when there are people that are unable to keep themselves reasonably warm, fed, and medicated. For someone that ends up with sepsis due to a cold induced UTI from having their flat unheated for weeks or months? Or losing toes due to not affording shoes to keep them from frostbites? It does not matter that others are even worse off. But you do you.
I worked at a food bank in 2019-2022, and trying to assemble functional, usable, useful hampers was a nightmare. We'd receive the most bizarre donations, like you see here, we'd get 400 expired danishes, a few sacks of onions, and frozen chicken portions. What the heck are we supposed to recommend hungry people really do with that!? It became such a huge issue in our state (Victoria, Australia) government was funding food banks but only if we used a major third party redistributor like SecondBite and AusHarvest (companies that would collect and redistribute surplus from major stores like Aldi and Woolworths) And that's how we'd get these strange deliveries. Because their logistics teams were not prepared to be handed a states food security crises during a global pandemic. Part of my job, after unloading the government donations and doing stocktake, I'd sit down and type up recipe suggestions and pour through IGA and ALDI catalogues, and call the local markets so I could tell people where the cheapest rice, bread, milk etc was that day. Then we'd do our best to make 400 identical hampers, and open for service, 2 hours later we'd be out of hampers, clean up, and get in the van and just start driving to small businesses before they close to get more donations for the next day. Small businesses were so much more generous, and they'd be thinking ahead, they really cared about making sure their donations would be enjoyed and appreciated. Unlike Woolworths and Coles who would donate actual garbage. For example, we went to pick up a crate of leftover curry one night from a local Indian, and the restaurant owner asked if the people getting the donations would have rice or naan at home to eat with it, we said "I'm not sure, SecondBite will give us a carb, it might be rice, it might be bread, it might be a 200g bag of arrowroot starch like it was last week." she started counting how many portions of curry were in the crate then frantically started scooping cups of dry rice from her storage bins into produce bags and trying them off. We quickly bagged up 30 portions of uncooked rice to at least be able to give something with the curries. That wasn't "spare food" that was rice she might have sold that she decided needed to be donated in order for the other donation to make sense. It was shops like that which kept our service functioning while Second bite struggled with logistics of feeding a nation, and the department of human services failed to allow food banks to use their state funding to buy wholesale rice and lentils and useful staples (or wages...) We'd spent 3-4 hours after our shift driving around getting as much as we could, because 30 curries is amazing, but we had 400 clients to help feed, so we'd have to find 10+ local businesses. We had some regulars. It worked out to be a 12-14 hour day. For which the two of us (yes, there were only 2 paid staff, gotta love government aid programs) were paid minimum wage for 6. By 2021 I was using the service myself because I was not making enough money at that job to survive, but I am severely allergic to a few things so often there was nothing in the hampers I could eat. One week I remember my lunch every day was 10 sugar packets from McDonald's, because I needed fast calories while at work, and I couldn't exactly make a meal with 200g of arrowroot starch while stuck in a warehouse and a van. I lost 25kg (the manual labour of warehouse work didn't help), fortunately I had the spare weight to lose. My heart broke every day in that job as I watched our regular clients, many of whom were already malnourished, quite litteraly fading away as the months dragged on and the nutritional content of donations did not improve.
I actually cannot believe you did a £1 a day challenge not so long ago. It really does show the struggle we as a country are all going through! Thank you atomic for another brilliant and informative video
It's certainly a good reality check on the last few years. To basically go from having a decent shot with £1 or £2 of making something creative to practically being stuck with extremely bare minimums while stuff we were used to being reasonable is now priced higher than Snoop Dogg. I saw a sleeve of Thomas Bagels the other day and I don't know what grade of crack they were smoking to be demanding $8.50 for it. It was just a normal sleeve of bagels, not a bulk box.
We've been feeling this in the US for a long time. 1or 2 GBP a day would never feed you for a day even when his old videos were filmed. Now, when I enter a store, im shocked to see a price that starts with a 2, much less a 1 or 0
@@byeFofiko1There's a wide difference of prices in the US from what I understand. From living in big cities like NYC or LA to living in rural areas and being able to stack coupons. It mostly depends on how an average salary compares to average living costs that you can really compare.
My gut reaction to that "too good to go" app was that it reduces grocery shopping to gambling. I'm sure it's fun if you're just doing it to save a little money and be surprised, but If you're the kind in the position of *needing* to live like that, I imagine it could become soul crushing.
It's fine if you live in a big city. Lots of seasonal fruit and veggies, tons of bread from bakeries, and meat from buffet after the close. Once you know what you usually get at each spot, it's like grocery shopping with a little twist. But the bag he got would have ruined my day. Maybe worth 1-1,5£ at most.
I think it's mostly location issue, TGTG is definitely fine in my area but that's because I live in tourist hot spot and biggest city in country, so a lot of places with a lot of varied food that goes unsold and ends up on TGTG or in the shop's own program. Still, since those are products one step away from being thrown out, the only guarantee is that you will get some calories, but over long term unless you know the shops/restaurants/cafes and rotate them accordingly you will end up with horribly unbalanced diet.
It's decent to supplement your groceries after already buying. It can also be good to mix up your food if you've been buying the same things over and over and can't think of any other recipes. I have used these services alongside buying the essentials, then anything in the box/bag just feels like a treat on top of that. If I get veg in there, I can make my meal a bit nicer or go for a slightly fancier preparation. The point of the boxes was never to make it something someone lives off of, and (at least where I live) they are not and were never advertised in that way. It is to reduce food waste, which it does. To act like it's a scam because it doesn't work for a purpose it was never intended to fulfill is ridiculous. It's like calling a ruler a scam because you can't use it to write your English essays. That wasn't the point of the product, and that doesn't take away from the fact that rulers are successful and efficient at completing the task they were intended for.
@@madeleine61509 This is my first time hearing about the app. My first concern wasn't it seems like a scam; I was wondering what the effectiveness is. As long as someone uses what is given to them, that reduces waste. If someone ends up throwing away the food anyway, it's still waste. That's not a knock against the app/program. It seems you use all or most what you get from the app and as long as most people do, it's incredibly effective. It seems the people it would benefit the most are those who need a cheaper way of getting groceries. But, as you said, that's not the purpose of it. So they people still end up in a bad place. It would be great to have a solution that was optimal for both problems.
Greggs and Costa gave us the most food when we used too good to go. Costa actually said to take anything we wanted 😂 I ate banana and pecan loaf cake for many days and had no regrets
I'm glad you did publish this video! Even though the meals were somewhat depressing, you still managed to put your own charm into them. Three men in a boat put a smile on my face!
I feel like reduced items are so rarely reduced enough to be worth it in the last couple years. 20p off a £3 item that won't last more than a couple days isnt exactly appealing! I feel for you on this one, that was a tough deal! Thanks for still making some cracking content anyway
They used to reduce things a great deal more, but I guess post-COVID profiteering has taken over. If you time it right you can sometimes get a decent reduction, but you'll be fighting off likeminded folk for the chance. The other week I managed to snag "£25 worth" of lamb for £3 because my wife and I were in Waitrose about 20 minutes before closing. Pure chance though. You can always try and find a store person and ask if they can reduce things even more. Sometimes it works.
Still around 50% here in Poland, depending on how far away from the eat by date. It does sound extremely annoying that they don't reduce it much where you live!
Wonderful aspect of our late stage capitalism. They'd rather you look at the "reduced" prices and opt to pay full price for something that'll last a few days longer rather than you picking up something a little cheaper.
Depends in Tescos the sandwhiches will be like 95p sometimes and theyre worth it have seen the big breakrast ones. Just gotta be lucky. Millions of people xx
Used to live near a Morrisons that did fantastic reduced stuff from the meat and fish counters. Joints of beef for 50p, massive tuna steaks for a pound etc.
I really love how you always take a "failure" as an opportunity to learn. This is something I think would make the world a better place if everyone learned that.
I love how thoughtful you are of Jenny (I mean, of course!). You're like, this is my thing, I'm not going to punish my wife for clicks. Refreshing honestly, some of these "family" channels seem to encourage torturing your own family members for the enjoyment of others. I'm glad you aren't about that!
On a more positive note, I recently moved out into my own apartment and never really got taught a lot of cooking. I have been watching you for a few years now and you really managed to ignite something in me that made me very passionate about cooking. You tackling these challenges in very clever ways and your various other cooking videos have taught me so many good skills that I got an excellent head start and tons of motivation for cooking myself. There is a very unique thing about how methodical you go about cooking that always stood out to me. You know very well what components any given dish needs and how you can improvise if you don't have the right ingredients at hand. I learned to think about certain ingredients in recipes more like a suggestion for what specific *type* or category of ingredient is needed, instead of being too fixated on it being that exact ingredient. It sounds like something so basic but I think that this mindset of seeing ingredients for what they bring or add to the dish is fantastic and I love how you incorporate this way of thinking into your videos. I certainly could learn a ton from you and I love watching every new video. Thank you!
Great to hear how Mr Shrimp's videos have helped you. I would always recommend going to get a few spices and things from a world supermarket if there is one near you. Cumin, smoked paprika, all purpose seasoning, garlic powder, tomato puree and chilli flakes are a great place to start. With some those and an onion you can turn a bland tin of beans into something you'd enjoy a lot more and the spices etc can be used in so many dishes. All purpose seasoning helps bring the flavour out in so much.
Same here!! Never liked cooking, thought it's not all that interesting since all I knew about cooking was following recipes. Now I'm really adventurous and I like to experiment a lot. It's super fun. Without those videos I'd have never thought you can use ingredients like that
A suggestion for a couple of books you might like, both by Niki Segnit: - The Flavour Thesaurus - Lateral Cooking They both really helped me with learning about the logic behind cooking and figuring out substitutions or alterations if I don't have the exact right ingredients. The Flavour Thesaurus is about figuring out what ingredients will work well together, e.g. "this recipe asks for a parsnip but I don't have one; what could I use instead that will still be tasty?" Lateral Cooking is about what happens if you alter ratios/ingredients in standard recipes, e.g. "the recipe calls for 300g flour but I only have 250g; will I still get roughly the same result or do I need to reduce other ingredients?"
It looks a bit funny entering a supermarket with a big shopping cart knowing that you can only spent 1 £. I think the Marmite was the star of the dish for lunch . ❤️
Thank you for being kind to Jenny. I know you would’ve regardless, but I think it’s very healthy to show on video the consideration for your partner. I’m very excited for part 2!
Having to switch to service station for the TGTG bag was definitely a killer. Not only do they have very limited stock, especially of things likely to be reduced, but if your are anything like ours they start out at around double the price of a supermarket, maybe even more. Thanks for trying though, and not just giving up right at the start.
TGTG is a nice concept thats worked out great in other countries (such as Denmark where supermarkets will mostly give you vegetables and baked goods, and there's a restaurant around every corner that'll give you a meal for close to nothing) but frankly unless you have some standout store managers in your locale it'll probably be disappointing in the UK. Best UK TGTG experience I've had has been through the local food bank, except now I just visit them regularly and make a good donation for food instead.
Absolutely, we've gotten it a couple of times from our local supermarkets and gas stations here in a small town in Denmark, usually we'll get a paper bag almost the size he got, usually it's a mix of items that the store can't sell the next day, like baked goods and some pre-mixed salads, Last time we got 4 loaves of bread (2 Rye and 2 soft white breads) around 12 smaller buns for a small sandwich, 4-5 "danish pastries" some milk and juice and a couple of salads. When we get it from 7/11 it'll be more heavy on the quick snack food items as mini hotdogs or protein salads, but getting 4 identical salads with salmon that has to be eaten that night was a bit much for us since we're only 2 people and had already had dinner. But we've also had them from two or three stores that was the last time we ordered from them since they were very small bags with more or less nothing worth eating (from our perspective) so we usually go for TGTG from places we know will be "bread" heavy since we can freeze the bread and not waste it
There's a few carvery pubs here which towards the end of the day will give you a really large container, a few slices of meat, couple of pigs in blankets and then you help yourself to the stuffing and vegetables. Pretty good
As you say it all depends on te manager of the shop/supermarket. I've struck luck each time I've used TGTG in Netto or Lidl or such, it's been moldy, 5 days past best before. Mushy veggies/fruits and the list goes on. So for me, I believe that in my area, we've got bad managers..
There's nothing managers can do beyond ensuring the bags are a minimum of £12 (at least for my shop) and somewhat diverse. We have to make up the bags AFTER all the reductions have been done and sat unsold all day and with times being what they are, reduced food usually flies of the shelves now. Most of the times we can't even make the bags because we simply have nothing left to make them with.
You may think "I've just made boring food" but I think these challenge videos are incredibly useful and informative no matter the outcome. It's a real insight into cooking on a budget. Actually you show that even with the slimmest of ingredients you can make something. It might be basic but when you're at the bottom it could mean the difference between eating and not eating. Ideas never to be dismissed as "too basic"
I have to say that this channel and especially these challenges are an absolute inspiration for me and my partner. We were also talking about how these challenges have perfectly documented the absolute mess of food prices rising in the UK and hopefully one day you are able to return to actually being able to do the £1 challenges of old. Damn good channel and an absolute inspiration to us all.
I think it's wonderful that Jenny was willing to be such a good sport, and that you protected her from the experience. Presentation was lovely; although I bet Jenny was super happy she didn't have to eat any of it, well, except for the danish. Looking forward to the second part.
(SEE EDIT) Those reductions at the Morrisons were pretty appalling really - you can tell that it was all going to go in the bin at the end of the day. I do most of my shopping at a combination of Tesco and Waitrose, and both of them have much better final discounts (usually ~75% off, with occasional extra discounts if they have loads of a particular item, my best find was a 800g pack of chicken wings from Waitrose for 45p) and there's almost nothing left on the discount shelf even half an hour after they apply the final discounts, let alone by the end of the day. Such waste... Edit: on closer inspection of the use by dates in the video for those from Morrisons as opposed to those from M&S, those items do appear to have been dated for the next day or two, and probably hadn't had their final reduction. I rescind my soapbox!
Ok, i live 5 min away from a Morrisons supermarket, the items reduced less go bad the following day. The ones going in the bin at the end of the day are probably reduced by 50% around lunchtime, and they get reduced by around 75% at/ after 7 pm. And people fight over thrm like hawks, it's disgusting how much the prices went up!
@@AlissaSss23 I work at a Morrisons and i basically get swarmed the moment I walk onto the shop floor with my reductions, honestly quite a bad show of manners really. But yeah we tend to reduce the day before by a small amount, and then the following day we do a final reduction in the evening.
Thinking about the timing of your visit to Morrisons, I think it is highly likely that the reductions which were due to expire on that day had already gone into their own good to go bags to reduce wastage.
I think you should revisit this but buy multiple bags from 4 different places and pick the best bag out of the 4 but you don’t get extra money, you get to pick 1 item out of each of the remaining bags so an extra 3 items. I think this would be great to see the difference in bags from different places and give us the chance to see if they are worth it. I do get that it would be difficult to collect 4 different bags all near closing time but that’s all part of the challenge
@@amara560 from watching his videos over time I’m fairly confident nothing would be wasted as he has the ability to freeze and dehydrate. I think what we need to remember here is with these bags as soon as the store is closed the food ends up in the bin anyway (it does in the store my sister works in)
@@liamwoz1861 Freezing and dehydrating works well for produce, but is a little tougher with ready made meals for example. Any saving is better than not ofc, even done imperfectly, but there might be other people that would be able to use it up since 4 bags for one person is a lot. If atomic shrimp can make it work great. I just think it's something to consider.
@@amara560 ok then he can buy one bag a night note down what he’s had and when he goes to make the video he can go in and buy the exact same items at full price
I really love the idea of the Three Men in a Boat dish. I think another good name for it would be Boatato. I commend you for going ahead with publishing the video despite how tricky the challenge was. These videos are always good for teaching people not to be afraid of failure since it is as much of a learning experience as, if not more than, success. There's also "If despite limitations, you produce a good end result, then great, but that's not always going to happen, and that's okay."
I legitimately want to see a "recipe redemption" video on it; not because it's bad (because it's not), but because I wanna see how it'd be without the budget constraints
Supermarkets are definitely gorging their prices at the moment - thanks for persevering with the project, I’m glad it’s not just me who struggles to fathom the price of everyday staples! Look forward to seeing what Lidl had to offer!
as a german looking at these prices this sounds utterly ridiculous... even unreduces most of the staple items we saw in this video cost less than half of what they cost in here is staple food in britain subsidised? because even if i assume its vat free this wouldnt make up the difference
Unfortunately no, food in the UK is not subsidised, supermarkets are allowed to govern their own prices to the consumer and the local produce providers. No one appears to benefit greater than the large supermarkets these days which is an unfortunate state of affairs.
@@TheScarvig Yup, same in Sweden. The cheapest equivalence of bread I could find at my discount store is £1.45, and it's not whole wheat. At discount I recon it would go down to £0.76, almost exactly the same as that bread was at full price.
Theres a real desparation and frustration showing in mr. Shrimp's voice during this shop. Ive noticed also the cheapest items at the store are the ones whove increased the most here in Belgium. Items that were solidly below a euro now like 1.20, 1.50. Crazy.
This started a bit depressing but what you managed was extremely impressive for me, a person that's mostly learning how to cook and work with ingredients by watching you. Thank you for not giving up while recording this, felt really good that even when you were dissapointed and didn't know what to make of your situation, you still didn't give up.
For me (in the Netherlands) TGTG works out quite well, and I get solid quantities of food with surprise bags. I think this went wrong because of the BP surprise bag. I assume that groceries from a gasstation will already be more expensive then at a supermarket, and like you said readymade items also tend to be more expensive. In my experience I get the items in the bag at an average of a 50% reduction, so a surprise bag from a cheaper supermarket will get me €8 of groceries for around €4, which is usually decent value. I think you will have better luck if you try this with a surprisebag from a supermarket.
Same country, never managed to get a TGTG bag because they're sold out within seconds. Not to mention every other supermarket is now switching to an equally unavailable but more expensive/less good version :(
@@ShaCaroIt's been so sad. I always got the Lidl bag when I could and on an incredibly tight budget that was a way to survive. But now they left TGTG and they decided to do their own thing, but I haven't seen any of those bags around. I wish there was a way to get the bags to the poorest people that need them most.
@@amara560 I'm not up to speed on that subject but I really hope shops arent now monetising food that otherwise would have gone to initiatives like the voedselbank
I tried many TGTG in the Netherlands and it almost always was disappointing. TGTG isn't worth your money in NL. Maybe the Lidl or Macro.. but they are sold out within a minute and you have to hunt them, wait 10 minutes at the time they usually place it online refresh and hope you get one. But even then the Lidl bag I got wasn't worth the money.
I don't think you failed at all, you did a wonderful job putting theses meals together. They were very creative and actually looked appetizing. You can't go wrong with spaghetti hoops anyway. I used to eat a lot those , they are called Spaghetti Os in the US. "Three men in a boat" was very cute.
You've always approached these challenges with kindness and a great deal of empathy, but this is the first time I've felt as if you've really *felt* how it can be when you have a severely limited budget. It can be gutting when you just want to eat and try something new and it turns out that all your money just goes nowhere because you got it wrong (like you tried a new food or a cheaper brand and it tastes really bad.)
Yeah, there's some truth in that. I mean, I don't suppose I felt the true depth of it, because I had the safety net of knowing I could just stop recording and have a normal day instead, but I did get a little taste of despair at the realisation that nothing was going to work properly.
@@AtomicShrimpthere’s a lot of value in being able to feel even a bit of that weight. I’m glad you decided to post this, because even though you could have just quit, you didn’t. You did the best you could with what you had, mistakes and all, and made it work. And that’s what we’re all trying to do at the end of the day, I think.
seeing the presentation of "three men in a boat" and seeing the name pop up made me really really happy and honestly my entire day, just extraordinarily cute in every way! thank you :)
"Seriously loaf of bread £2.10." Welcome to my world, that's Gluten Free bread, normally £3.50 for a small-medium loaf, I would have been excited by £2.10. I rarely buy bread unless it's on reduced or special price. Having dietary restrictions is hard on a budget.
Yes I 100% agree with you. I live with a coeliac who has been vegetarian since he was 4. (34 years and a coeliac diagnosis he's not changing his mind). Sometimes our meals are super cheap, veggies and rice/potatoes go a long way. But if he wants the "luxury" of eating bread one day its suddenly three times the price And they rub salt in the wound when you see how small the slices are in comparison!
My personal experience with TGTG is that if you're choosing grocery stores, aim for a store that has a rating of at least a 4.1-4.2. There's one store in particular that has a 4.6 rating average from nearly a thousand people, and for 6 CAD (converted I estimate about a little more than the amount you spent on the app) I always get a MASSIVE amount of groceries, including lots of fruit and veggies, leftover bread, pantry staples, snacks, etc. I even got lucky once and got a dozen eggs that are very good quality that normally cost about $10 CAD. My point is that I think the app is still worth it. It just takes some researching and risk taking to find a consistent option on TGTG.
It also depends on the market too. At least in Houston, you better enjoy bread, donuts and cookies because that's pretty much been the early adopters here at this point unless you get really lucky.
Same. My strategy besides the reviews is go every place once (within reason). Chat with the people to see if its average what they give you, go home and check it out. After a bit (and admittedly some money wasted) you'll know the top spots around.
This challenge really reminded me of when I had to cook for myself during summers growing up. Emboldened by my love for Iron Chef, I would combine pre-made foods and ingredients together with no real plan aside from knowing I wanted it took look fancy in the end. The results were almost never any tastier than their constituent parts, but making them definitely helped me learn and grow in the kitchen from a young age. I'm glad you ended up publishing this video as it gave me quite a lot of joy to watch.
Love these budget challenge videos! Interesting concept, never heard of Too Good To Go before this. Editing some thoughts after watching: I think it was the inclusion of highly processed, pre-prepared food items in the bag that really upped the difficulty here - what can you really do with a Danish pastry? Perhaps scoop the custard out for use in something, use the pastry as a sort of crouton-analogue for a soup? I suppose at that point, one has to consider the value of spending time and energy deconstructing an already complete food item vs just eating it. Definitely pushes the challenge close to falling outside of the "stretch-achievable" sweet spot.
There's definite potential for a sub-series of "Atomic Shrimp gets politely, disappointedly angry with weak reductions in supermarkets". Really was some impressively terrible reductions there, a lot of crappy ready meals seemingly ended up in the bin at the end of the day there.
He was just there at the wrong time. Morrisons tend to have the best reductions around 4.30-5pm in my one. That stuff he saw would have been for the next day, not today.
This was no doubt your hardest challenge. I'm glad you decided to stick with it and actually show us the struggle instead of just scrapping the idea and trying again until you could get it perfect. I love seeing your creativity and adaptiveness when things don't go to plan
Actually the poachette ring isn't completely pointless! I've seen PlanD, a korean youtuber make several donut-shaped vegetable pancakes to get more crispy edges, so more of the best part :)
Nothing went wrong. It is a learning curve. Perhaps you don't really know the ardent fans you have acquired and how appreciative those fans are of your efforts. Keep up the good work, please.
I'd love to see some more TGTG "reviews". A bad fluke, a lesson not to get them from a service station, or just a dud app, it would be cool to find out more.
I'm in Belgium in a dense urban setting, and I quite like the app. You do have to pick your bag with care (service stations are truly one of the worst options), and even then you might just get unlucky once in a while, but over all I think it's worth it in my area at least.
There are reviews in the app, bakeries and grocery stores are usually the best places. Convenience or gas station stores are not worth it, since they have super high prices to start with. But after a few tries you learn which shops around you give the best deals.
What is very surprising to me is actually how cheap some good in England really is. For example you mentioned the carrots 30 pents being the normal price before inflation. Here in Germany he would pay 1.50€ which is 1.29 pound for the same amount of carrots. This is insanely cheap to me. Loved your video!
I know. Even now, those prices are cheap, from my point of view! I used to not pay much attention to the prices of basic food stuff, but that has changed recently 🫤
I've definitely had a mixed experience with TGTG. A surprise box from a proper supermarket was far more useful than the one I had from a Spar equivalent as it had more raw ingredients rather than things such as reduced pastry slices which, whilst they make up the 'value', are not things I would ordinarily get. Certainly an interesting project this time around!
You didn't explicitly forbid levitation in this ruleset. Are you reconsidering the ban, or was this an oversight? I'd like to finally see you utilise some form of psychokinesis in one of these challenges and I'm getting a little desperate here.
It doesn’t really work too well for this challenge as they don’t provide much variety, but bakeries and cafes are the best bet for too good to go. In my area they always have massive surplus, and you can come away with several sandwiches and pastries, as well as bread loaves sometimes. I live in London though, which may also be a bonus as it provides abundant choices.
Making the best of a bad situation seems to me to be largely the point of this series. Continuing on when the haul was light on useful things, making do, and coming up with something is inspiring (even if it's only a little bit so) still counts.
Just wanted to let you know your videos have been really inspiring and have made a massive impact on my life. You've taught me so much about creativity and resourcefulness with food and in life in general. I wish I could take away the price increases, negative comments, and pressure from the algorthm to make this a better platform for you. Please hold onto what makes you happy!
Looking at the dates on the Too Good to Go products and the ones on the reduced products in Morrisons, it seems you missed the final reductions for that particular day in Morrisons. The stuff in the reduced bays was reduced in preparation of the next day, when further reductions will be done with what doesn't sell in the early afternoon and early evening (the final reductions). That's why so little was taken off the price. I hope you try this one again soon, maybe avoiding a shop in a petrol station for the Too Good to Go bag.
Yes, when I noticed it was dark as he entered Morrisons, I knew that all the decent reductions had gone. The items we saw in the video were for the next day. 5:30pm is when they do the 90% reductions at my local store. There are always swarms of vultures crowding around the person doing the reductions, I usually wait until the crowd disperses.
As a general rule, all baked goods, legumes, vegetables, fruits, vegetables and that kind of thing are always more expensive in a supermarket. Try buying simpler things, like rice or noodles.
I SO want to be able to avoid waste by using ‘too good to go’ but the random ‘ready made’ contents available locally put me off as I’m not sure how to use them…I think you did BRILLIANTLY with what you. Kudos to you and look forward to the next instalment - I imagine you and Jenny will eat VERY well in comparison! Thankyou for posting 😊
One of my favourite moments of this has to be the slow and gradual fade into the 'supermarket montage' music, such that it sounded like Morrisons was playing the selfsame tune. Lovely.
I don't see it as a Fail. Just a reality of things and "offers". These challenges are always worth it. Entertaining and creative. Thank You Atomic Shrimp
The TGTG haul was due to being an M&S as part of a garage. TGTG sets a recommended value for the bags. Normally £10 down to £4, or a similar 60% reduction in price. That means if you go to an expensive store, you get less grub. Thats why places like Greggs are so good for TGTG, because there is a lot of food for £10. But other places are terrible. I went to a fancy patisserie in London and literally got two stale croissants and a sandwich for £4. The sandwich priced originally at £5.50 and the two croissants were over £2 each. TGTG is becoming less and less worth it as the prices of food goes up, and the popularity of the app means the good ones go days in advance. The best ones to get are the Pasty Co in stations like waterloo and victoria. You normally get 2-3 big pasties in each one. Greggs, and Spa or other smaller or independent corner shop style grocery stores.
It's sad that they'd rather bin all that stuff than reduce it to a reasonable price so it sells. Every day is a budget meal day for me, so these videos interest me greatly. I tend to buy enough food for around 4-6 weeks at a time, that way the average cost per day is extremely low. I batch cook, supplement from the garden and preserve. Only buying ingredients, nothing pre prepared. Thanks for the video, Mike.
I work as a delivery driver at For one of the large supermarkets. Our warehouse has a daily collection from a local charity, who pick up a considerable amount of products (including lots of meat, vegetables and fruit), which is about to become unsellable. I may be wrong, but I think all of the big supermarket companies have similar arrangements. Of course this doesn't help individuals on limited budgets, but I guess has more impact across the communities the charitys are located in.
@@ganainm5113 That is nice to know. Thank you. I do know an awful lot still gets thrown though. I can see the bins behind, stuffed full. One of my friends used to go and grab what they could u till they improved security 😅 hehe.
It looks like those reductions are in preparation for the following day, so the items have to be sold by the end of the day after. That means they'll be reduced to a reasonable price by around 5pm the next day, when the store is busier and the items all get snapped up.
I think this video is actually up there for me. You've done an absolutely fantastic job of dealing with failure to the best of your ability and making do regardless, a truly commendable effort!
I know you thought it was a fail, but the onion soup looked nice and I wouldn't have thought of having it with sweet potato, and I'm going to try it because it appeals to me. So you gave one person an idea at least!
I'm thinking of living off TGTG and foraging for Lent next year... TGTG is very hit and miss. My first few mystery bags from Morrisons were really good, then i got a couple that were pretty much all baked goods so put me off getting any more... I haven't watched it all yet but loving this video already ☺️
Excellent video as always. I just wish we could get food so cheap over in the USA. I know the pound is worth about 30% more than the dollar currently, but it's still amazing how cheap many things are over there. 19 cents for a can of Spaghetti-O's? The no-frills store brand here is around 99 cents! Name brand can cost $1.99 it the more expensive stores. A whole loaf of bread for 27 cents? The other day I got a SMALL loaf of bread from the clearance rack at my local supermarket for $1.49 and that was 50% off. Canned beans are usually $1 or more for the regular size cans, but can sometimes be found on sale for around 75 cents. Yes, I know I said cents instead of pence several times, but at only 30% difference in "value" I didn't think it mattered very much to correct myself.
My heart sank when you said you had switched to getting your bag from BP... I knew exactly kind of "food" you'd be getting. Seriously, though... the 'three men in a boat' was a clever concept and looked like it should have been quite a nice combination.
I love this app. Had to use it because it was even cheaper and more diverse than budgeting. Now I have some hidden gems I use now and then but I don't have to rely in it thank god. In fact I'm getting a family size sushi bag (for portions) for 20€ tomorrow that would set us back 100+ in a Restaurant
Great names for the dishes, and 11 out of 10 for creativity under the testing circumstances. Thank you for publishing. An interesting learning experience. With gratitude, from Herefordshire.
That bag is definitely not representative of every TGTG bag. I often get a bag from my local Morrisons which has £30+ worth of food and lasts me days for £3. Just have to find the right ones.
i used to love seeing the reduced bakers trolley full of things for 20p now that's just not a thing anymore they would rather throw it away than give it away so cheap
I am in the USA but before The big C , I could find a bag of 24 rolls ( like Brochen types) for 75 cents on clearance. I use to buy them, make mustard, ham, and cheese sandwiches. I would freeze them for my husband to take for his lunches at work. Now I find 12 similar rolls for over $2.50 on clearance. The items are discounted about 20% to 50% depending. I never see items reduced beyond the 50%. The deli items ( ends of cheese or lunch meats) are no long deals. I used to find the thick end cut for cheap. I would cube them and we had them on crackers. ( as a quick easy meal usually on shopping day so I didn’t have to cook)
Such a disappointing 'reduced' section. The prices are ludicrous right now, even worse seeing as you were there late at night! Your disappointment is very understandable and I appreciate you not having Jenny eat a veg she cant eat too much. Growing up poor, i can safely back up your remark-the things we bought definitely lacked protein and vitamins. Sugary, carb-heavy items are always cheaper, sadly. Three men in a boat looked delicious, well done for always doing your best with what you have.
I used to live near a Brazilian steakhouse on this app. I could buy a week's worth of meat for £3, as long as I was willing to pick up at 11:45pm. Worth it, but everything else on this app was not such a great deal.
Please do this again! The mystery of the too good to go bags is so interesting and seeing how you figure out a meal from them with your limitations is super fun too! I've had a few too good to go bags and there are some shops I avoid 100% and others I know I'll get my moneys worth from, I'd love to see how this is in a different part of the UK
At least the presentation was great. 👍 I loved the little boat! 🚢 I suppose you could have made better choices (less starchy stuff and more veggies or protein) with a little more time in the supermarket - but you had to hurry and did the best you could under the circumstances.. And convenience food is ridiculously expensive, I agree. Putting those in a bargain bag doesn´t seem really fair of the supermarket. When people are in the market for cheap food, they are not looking for slightly spoiled dainties but for something to eat they can afford. Well, not every reduced item is a bargain. I am looking forward to the next episode. 🍽😋
I do TGTG regularly, and it can really be cost effective, but you do have to choose wisely which bag you get (I generally don't do any place that have ratings below 4 stars) and not every one is a win. I do enjoy the challenge of having to work around the ingredients you get. It forces me to be creative and figure out what to do with something I wouldn't normally have bought.
Looking at these ingredients I'm seeing roasted sweet potato & onion chunks, plus a spaghetti hoop & chopped meat casserole topped with bread crumbs, and a bread cube stuffing. That's just how I'd work those onions in the casserole, stuffing, and roasted vegetables.
I've used TGTG for a while and unless you land lucky everything gets sold out really quickly or you can pick it up after 8pm, and by that time out of date perishables are a bit ropey to use the day after. Good idea but in practice, for the most part it doesn't really work. Glad you've tried it.
❤ This was a GREAT video! The whole concept and execution was very well done! I love watching these challenges and to see what you were able to make with what you got was both informative and highly entertaining. The three men in a boat made me giggle and the dinner options name had me laugh out loud! Thank you for making these and being so real!
There's a grocery store here with terrible prices, but very cheap clearance. However, they seem to do their reductions by section, or maybe by shipment date. On one visit the clearance shelf will be mostly fancy nut butters, on another visit it's organic baby food. If they were on this app, their mystery bags would probably be really cheap but a poor variety, if that were going to be your main food source. Great for stocking up, though. I wonder if Too Good To Go varies by day of the week, or if there's some insider knowledge on how to game the system for scooping up the best markdowns.
Your limited budget challenges are great watching, and really helped me try to come up with new ways to use old items, thinking outside the recipe book. This video isn't a failure, it's a smashing success, knowing what to not do is at least as important as what to do!
My respect for you has just leaped, life throws a lot of curve balls at us and it is how we deal with them that matters. You didn't throw in the towel, you took what was not a great situation and made the best you could of it. I could sense your disappointment and a little frustration? The meals you made were still as imaginative as possible in the circumstances and that is a challenge faced by many on a daily basis. I applaud you and your thoughtfulness for Jenny was so touching.
@@buffys3477 2G2G isn't really supposed to be for making a meal, looking at the places in my area it's almost always bakeries with leftover stock they're trying not to waste. The app is based around reducing food wastage and really only seems to be for snack type things.
I've used it previously and collected a bag from a budgens brand of grocery shops. It was one of the best I've received having 2 cauliflowers, 2 avocados, a whole brocoli florret, a pack of tenderstem broccoli, pack of chopped carrots, two small ginsters chicken pasties, and a cheese roll. Went I went to morrisons I had stale bread, stale doughnuts, parsley, Box of rasperries and a box of tomatoes. I got lucky with the first bag. Haven't used the app since the morrisons disaster
you continue to impress me with your ingenuity despite the circumstances presented to you even though the challenge was a struggle I was still quite entertained so thank you for that!💛
I thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining video, so please don't think that It wasn't worth doing. I was saddened with the Morrisons reductions however. When there are people now really so poor that have to survive on such a very low amount of money, possibly less than your budget, I would hate to think of the Morrisons food being thrown away, just because it wasn't reduced enough to be affordable for the poorest in society. Like yourself, I hope it was reduced further the following day.
one time i had £2. I bought canned peas, canned tomatoes, canned beans and pasta. lasted 3. meals. Ps, i had oil and water prior. If i had 50p more, i would have bough onions.
Have you ever considered doing a challenge using one of the LIDL £1.50 fruit and vegetable boxes? There's a ton of stuff in there. The only downside is you have to get there early in the day because they sell out fast"
The one thing I have to give you tons of credit for is that when you do the budget challenges, they are always entertaining, AND you use the ingredients creatively. Those dishes were interesting and it was entertaining to watch you attempt to make something out of literally nothing. Good show!
While this was a failure i think this can be a very real look into what people struggling with finances will eat. They often go towards ready made items and maybe a very small smattering of fresh ingredients. I know these budget challenges do not intend to be a social statement but despite this being in your coin, a failure, youve successfully captured how the "lower class" eat in western countries. I know this because when i was unemployed for a long period of time my diet was probably not far off what you did in this video.
