To think this increase in cost is going to break me?

My kids are already planning to work abroad it's sad I don't want that. But let's see what tomorrow brings

Ooo I used to love making meringue. Never taught at school though that was a home made thing. Same as sourdough starter and all that.

school for me in the early 2000’s didn’t really teach much other than cakes, spag bol, chilli and meatballs. Oh and soup starter or prawns. If they was feeling fancy we had to make lasagne or ravioli.

My friends child who’s recently finished year 11 show cases their gcse type work vs their just love for food cooking via mums page and the love for food wanting to learn was above what the school was wanting.

When I cooked at school, we cooked every second week, and it got more and more involved over the two years. The exam was to plan and cook a three course meal.

While I also cooked at home, I learned things that we would never have done at home, because it's not the kind of thing we did. Like custard and meringue from scratch, or making a velouté.

With cooking’s my ds school does a bit. They made scones, a chilli and a jam roly poly. My dd’s school does no cooking. Who knows about the third.

In today’s age though even parents not teaching isn’t too much of an excuse with YouTube and google. Alexa shows as live cook books.

Mine know the basics. Although the boy won’t crack eggs. It’s a texture thing but he knows how to use them to make things.

If you want to do cooking as a course at college I’ve seen friends children cooking much better high quality foods at home than anything they have done on food tech at school.

Most restaurants these days unless your talking Michelin types Don’t want actual chefs either just someone who can operate a microwave and a griddle.

I think cooking should absolutely be taught in schools - it's taught in colleges. How are the colleges supposed to find good candidates if they have no exam grades for related subjects to consider?

Cooking shouldn't be taught in schools - it's a parent's responsibility. Honestly you'd be surprised at the amount of 18 year olds who've never cracked an egg in their lives. University, for me, was an eye-opener.

One thing that has peed me off today was my car insurance renewal. I have been accident-free for 2 years and yet it's never climbed back down from £1000 wherever I look with the cover I need (though a strong word on the phone suddenly always gets the price down). Others here say they have covers of £200 a year. I'd love to get back to a reasonable price. But you pay the poverty tax, too. This area, highly deprived, has a lot of car theft and only on-road parking. Go figure.

Our local cash and carry has the big lurpacks for £3 but you’ve got to make a special trip and the stock changes weekly and some items daily. Though normally at least once a month the same stuff will roll though.

I agree, I’m literally seeing every single time I go in there that things have risen 5/10/20p since my last shop

I already used cheap washing up liquid and similar. I have ditched shower gel and just buy bars of soap now.

ThegoatliesdownonBroadway

🤣🤣don’t be daft. UK and Irish Cattle passports prevent horse meat getting in the food chain and tuna aren’t cannibals.
However many countries do eat horse meat and goat meat and all of a pig. Trotters are a luxury.
Id make the point that the UK used to have a history of cheap nourishing cooking.
I note many winners of cooking programmes talk of learning to cook from their mostly foreign mothers and grandmothers who grew up in poverty.
I don’t know if cooking has been reintroduced in schools but if so it’s not taught by teachers who have a cultural background in making meals from cheap ingredients.

So many people have cut back no more Fairy, liquid, Donestos. Aldi dupes all the way.

What we can do nothing about are energy costs. The highest in Europe. Our energy companies are owned by french and German companies. So there's no escape. We're a cow to be milked energy wise

I agree, I worry about my adult dd's dreadfully. And as I have rented all my life I have nothing to leave them that might help them out a little bit 🙁

It’s not going to end, and frankly I’m finding the world a very dark place at the moment. When I got married, I was so full of hope for a world where the Berlin Wall had come down, Mandela had been elected president but worked for truth & reconciliation, not revenge. New Labour had cut waiting lists, there were no longer trolleys in corridors, negative equity was receding and you could see school buildings being built.

Instead nowadays intolerance and hatred seem to be rising, made worst by COL crisis. My shopping, like yours, keeps on rising. NHS is on its knees ( but still so much preferable to US-style insurance model which over-prices everything).

It’s also worse for adult DC where jobs are being taken over by AI and rents astronomical so they have to choose between being independent but broke, or living back at home but having some cash.

And then one goes about one’s day today. The sun shines, the wars and planes falling out of the sky are elsewhere and you switch between gratitude that you can enjoy your day normally, and bewilderment that this coincides with nightmares being experienced in other countries right now.

I don’t even know rightly how to finish this response. So I’ll end here. Interested in others’ thoughts.

I work it out on my monthly visa bill, paper copy. What I pay for personal stuff, what comes out of the joint house pot. So for me it's not difficult.

It's not that mystifying @ssd I don't buy exactly the same tings each week but I know that each week I spend approx £140 on grocery shopping. 3 years ago it was £110 and that was with 1 more teenager to feed. Prices are going up

What i never understand about these threads us when someone says 'my food bill was £80 last year now its '£100 this year'...and i wonder, do they buy the same stuff week in week out? And how do they know they didn't buy washing powder or bleach or whatever last year?

Kind if baffles me

We are unusual in that we live off grid and our joint household bills, including groceries but not car costs, are about £1500 a month. But it’s getting harder and harder to meet that. We have always had a comfortable standard of living but I am having to make cuts now.

Sorry but this really feels like a humble brag. And an untruthful one at that.
I cook mostly from scratch and EVERRTHING has gone up. Muller yogurts used to be £2.50 at full price for 6. There are now £4.50. 2xsalmon fillets used to be £4ish now they are £6/£7 for two where I live.

fresh produce has seriously increased in price and what I would have got a couple of years ago for £90 is now nearing £140

@Ryeman that's interesting. Does it have that nice darkish colour? I'll check it out thanks!

True…

Thing is, what even is a "good wage" these days.

5 years ago I dreamt of earning what I do now. Thought I would be more than comfortable. I'm not. I'm not destitute by any standard, but I'm also not flush.

So is (for example) £60k a "good wage"?

And that's the point of lidl - their own brands

When I first started shopping in lidl, barely anything was even printed in English, you had to go by the pictures unless you could read German/Spanish or Polish. Brands are a new addition to their range - to attract customers , and they are never cheaper in there then elsewhere

Ive been on a low income since 1999 when ill health stopped me working full time. Since then I have had huge periods of not being fit to work and when I have been well enough, have had to take PT zero hour contracts . No I don't claim any UC or disability benefits

Pre 99, it was take out/eat out central if not loading up on Waitrose or Marks ready meals , since then Ive downgraded - Sainsburys - Tesco and now lidl

So Im lucky in that Im time rich, if cash poor, older, no kids at home ( grandkids come and go )

Prices have gone up, of course they have and it is harder to stretch a pound but I still manage to feed 3 of us for around £60 a week - some weeks its as low as £20, other weeks I might blow £100, but the average over the year is £60, and living in NI we don't have the range of supermarkets you have in GB

I have downgraded on absolutely everything I possibly can. I still have to buy Head and Shoulders - only shampoo I don't react too - but that's 3 for £10 and that does the two of us a year or more, and I still buy fairy washing up liquid - nothing better imo. I now use Lidls formil washing liquid - £3 of 40 washes, only it lasts around 60 washes, Lidl dish washing tablet - as good as any. I don't buy toiletries in supermarkets - can be half the price going to savers or Homebargains. I don't need 20 different types of cleaner for my house, I have a spray for the kitchen, one for the bathroom, a bottle of zeflora concentrate, one tin of polish, and the occasional bottle of bleach - all bought in home bargains or similar. Bars of soap are used to wash with

Food wise, I meal plan - around what's either exceptional value for money or what I can find in the yellow sticker section ( and local spars give the biggest reductions, I just lifted 10 packs of butter for 10p each last week - freezes well ) Fresh veg is the super 5/6 or whatever or frozen. Whilst most hit the sales over Christmas /New year for clothes/electricals - I hit them for the yellow stickered meat - this year I nabbed 4 legs of lamb for £6 each and probably 5 joints of beef for as little as £3 each - which is why some weeks my food bill is high and others its so low - I have full freezers, if I see a yellow sticker meat/fish bargain , Ill lift it - today I nabbed 10 Tesco finest sausages for £2.30 and a pack of two hot smoked salmon filets for £1.80

We don't live on lentils and porridge, bread and potatoes, we eat pretty well. Last night chicken dhansak and rice ( hm using chicken tikka fillets I had found reduced Christmas time ) , tonight it was honey roast gammon, braised red cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli and roasties - ( gammon reduced buy ) with over half left so I will put that through the slicer, ham egg and chips tomorrow and the last bits - quiche , be it eaten this week or frozen for another - the meat won't be wasted

I also save money where I can when making any other purchases - anything major like the car insurance - Quidco or any other cash back site. I "earned" nearly £200 quid last year by using Quidco, plus I also got a £100 M+S voucher haggling with my BB provider

Saving every penny where I can allows us ( he's on pension ) to still lead a pretty good life without feeling we are struggling, Ok I admit we don't have housing costs - just rates, but our fuel bills are exorbitant - oil heating and no public transport

Interesting how everyone jumps on the last part of that post and totally ignores the bit about how cheap your food is.

Why are you allowing children to decide what you buy?

I think some of the super markets are greedy buggers tbh- cut loads out of my shopping