Bathroom Cleaner - Product Swap Test

So I just ran out of my regular bathroom cleaner, Flash. While shopping in Lidls I saw that they had their own bathroom cleaner in the W5 range. I thought there could be no harm in giving it a go to test the difference. 

So let's start off with the price, Flash comes in at £1 if you buy it from Poundland if you do buy Flash; don't purchase it from Supermarkets as it is always more expensive. Tesco sell it for £1.50 with an extra 50ml but it's not worth the extra 50p. The W5 ranged bathroom cleaner comes in at 85p so 15p cheaper. You might think that 15p isn't really much but it is when the sizes of the bottles are completely different. The Flash has 450ml of product inside whereas the W5 cleaner has 750ml. So you're getting 300ml MORE for 15p less.

Is there any difference?

Firstly I checked the ingredients, they both have exactly the same ingredients, down to the same amounts except W5 has one more; Methylisothiazolinone. It has one extra added preservative. 

Secondly it comes down to the actual product test. I thought soap scum is the best test so here with have a soap scum shower.

I sprayed Flash on the right and W5 on the left.

No difference right?

Just using W5, no water.

There is absolutely no difference in this product. In fact I found the W5 actually lathered up and the Flash doesn't. I also found the W5 has a finer spray, more like a mist than a foam but found it actually needs less product to clean. I only have one negative point about the product and it's that the smell is different. I found the smell of the W5 more chemical than fresh, it stung my noise slightly whereas Flash has a nice scent. This is one product I shall definetely be swapping, I can't find a reason why not.

Chilli Con Carne - Recipe

Chilli Con Carne is another easy dish that can be added too or kept simple. It's a cost effective meal if you're trying to budget.

So firstly lets break down the ingredients into price:

1. Onions - Tesco: 1KG cost 75p for the Tesco 'Brown Onions'; they do cheaper onions for 59p with the 'Redmere Brown Farm Onions'. I only use half an onion per meal and a bag roughly contains 12 onions; therefore costing 3p per half onion per meal.
2. OXO cube - Lidl: 18 cubes cost £1.19 rather than Tesco costing £1.25 for just 12. So per meal this roughly cost 6p per cube. 
3. Tin of Chopped Tomatos - Tesco: 400g for 31p, Lidl do sell tins of tomatos for 29p if you wanted the cheapest option. 
4. Tin of Kidney Beans - Tesco: 400g for 30p, same price as Lidl. I also only use half a tin and put the other half into another meal. So 15p per meal.
5. Beef Mince 20% fat - Lidl: 500g for £1.59, only in recent months has this price increased, it use to be £1.29. Tesco do a cheap mince for £1.69 but the meat is a lot thicker and I find it doesn't go as far.
6. Basamati Rice - Tesco: 5K bag cost £6.50. Hard to work out the cost per meal as the bag last so long, I've had this bag of rice for 3 months and it's only half empty. Although I've actually only got a 2K bag but can't recall the price; still imagine how long a 5K bag would last! I roughly use 1/3 cup per person per meal. So 2/3 is 137g; 5000/137g = 36; that's 36 meals for two people from one bag of rice. Making it cost 18p per meal.

Optional ingredients:

1. Sweetcorn - Tesco: 907g is £1.00; Lidl offer cheaper for 99p and it's a Kilo so I shall be making this switch once I've used this bag! I use 1/2 cup which is about 82g so per meal costs 9p.
2. Worcestershire Sauce - B&M: 290ml for £1.49 which is £1.01 cheaper than Iceland and £1.11 cheaper than Tesco. Of course this is branded Lea & Perrins and you can buy shop brand Worcestershire sauce. 

You can obviously add more vegetables like spinach, lentils, peas and any other kind of beans you like. Beans are a cheap way of getting good nutrients and work well with mince dishes.

It may seem like I've left out the key ingredient, Chilli, but this is purely because my jar of Chilli Powder is from Sainsburys and it is more expensive than any other shop and for less grams. Tesco are the best to buy spices from as they 50g jars for 85p. I've never looked into buying bulk but perhaps that would be a cheaper option, from Indian supermarkets.

So price of the meal; excluding salt, pepper and worcheshire sauce and chilli powder (purely because of the difficulty in working out price) this meal costs me £1.55 for two people. Including sweetcorn, £1.61.

The method is easy, you brown off the mince, drain the fat and add your salt, pepper, onion and OXO. Fry the onion off and add Worcheshire if you want, then the whole tin of chopped tomatos, finally followed by half the tin of kidney beans. Add however much chilli powder you feel you'd like, everyone handles spice different!

If you're curious about Tesco Values.. well value for money then you'd be surprised. I assume most people think that the value products are watered down, not the case. The above picture of the chilli is the whole tin of chopped tomatos added, no extra water needed. 

Below is the tin of kidney beans, drained. Full of the way to the top!

I let the chilli simmer for about 30 minutes and then cook the rice. I added sweetcorn at the same time as adding the kidney beans just to add some vegetables and pack out the mince.

If you want to try using half a mince but think that the portion won't be big enough you can always buy tortilla chips and have a side dish. A bag of 200g will cost you 46p at Tesco, Asda and Lidl. I actually prefer the Everyday Value bag rather than the next step up Tesco offer; which cost 85p. We use half the bag per meal and I really enjoy these chips; massive recommendation for brand alternatives.