I usually have a smoothie for breakfast, and occassionally cereal. My husband prefers museli. How are we off for those and other options?

Ok, so breakfasts fairly sorted - will have to start making our own non-dairy milks soon, and when the next couple of batches of museli get eaten, then will have to either buy more rolled oats, or switch to porridge for a while. I'll let my husband make that choice.

The 5+-a-day folks say we should eat 2 servings of fruit a day (and at least 3 of veges). If I'm not shopping for a while, what will I do when the fresh fruit on hand runs out? What other fruit servings do I have available?

I decided to do a fruit stocktake - or should that be "fruittake"? 

Fruit doesn't have to be fresh to be good for you (though obviously that's optimal). It can also be frozen, dried, canned/preserved or juiced. Here's what I found we have available:

Seems we won't have too much problem getting our servings of fruit for a while! I usually have a smoothie made with a banana and some frozen berries for breakfast. We can use applesauce on cereal or porridge - or on yoghurt, or by itself - and make snack items with dried fruit. Canned fruit can be used on breakfast or in desserts.

I hadn't realised just how much frozen berries I had, so rearranged the freezers a little to group them together - a small quantity for first use in one drawer of our upright freezer, and the rest in one corner of the chest freezer. If you can't rearrange your freezers completely at this time of year (hard to pull everything out as it will defrost so fast in this heat), then do it a little at a time. It's way more efficient to group like items together - so you can easily see what you have and find what you need. 

Today I decided to go through my bathroom cupboards and check how much I had of all the usual toiletries, so I would know what will run out first, and therefore where to focus my first efforts on making my own alternatives. After discarding empty containers, setting aside items belonging to my daughter and our boarder, both of whom moved out recently, I grouped remaining items together. Turns out I must have been very concerned about biting insects at some point - as I have 4 containers of bug spray!! Which I almost never use. If I'm in the garden and mozzies start to be a problem, I just grab some rosemary and rub it on my skin. Hmmm. Let's see how else I'm stocked for things we do use.....

Soap - plenty of regular bars plus 2 natural ones and an antibacterial bar (which I would not have bought) and 2 1/2 refill packs of liquid soap.

Three bottles of shampoo, four of conditioner, and a bottle of all-in-one. Plus some baby shampoo (might give that to my DIL) and a hair treatment thingee. There's also half full bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the shower. I had stocked up recently when there was a really good price on Pantene, though ended up giving some of it away.

                      Two bottles body wash, which only my husband uses. 

My favourite facewash has run out, but turns out there are plenty of others to use up. I don't like them as much, but will work through them, discarding any I react to (I have sensitive skin and multiple allergies). With three daughters, various things got accumulated!

Maybe I should start using toner again? Halfway through the Olay (my preferred moisturiser). Again, others I could use up. Will see how they go.

Oral hygiene - check! Mouthwash nearly out. Will see if my husband would like me to make him up some. 

Shaving is clearly not going to be an issue any time soon.

I stocked up on toilet paper when there was a good recent sale. Plenty to last a while!

Hmmm...ok, so no desperate needs in this department! It will be good to use up some of the extras, or pass them on. We will see how long the shampoo/conditioner lasts, and meanwhile decide what alternatives to try when it gets low, and look at mouthwash options if needed. Otherwise, just keep an eye on stock levels and go from there.