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

@Poppyseeds79 I'm on legacy benefits on sick, got paid last Tuesday by the end of the day £1.26 left. Everything is so expensive in London.

*I cook from scratch, buy unprocessed foods and the prices seem to be holding steady.

Is it processed foods that are rising in price?*

No. It isn't.

Same. There are a few things in Aldi that are no cheaper than in Sainsbury’s.

Agree with this. We’re having a Charlie Bigham ready meal tonight, I was going to make a curry from scratch but it had a yellow sticker on and worked out more cost effective than making one from scratch. Of course it’s more processed but easier and cheaper. It’s definitely not just processed foods.

I do find doing Hello Fresh and the like cheaper at the mo if you can get a deal!

@Yummmyy I’m with you. I’ve shifted to a cheaper store, cut back on as much as I can. But, just buying a few meals for 4 and some store cupboard basics tots up to a shocking bill.

I cook from scratch, don’t eat meat, make meals with cheap lentils, fresh veg etc. Don’t buy orange juice much anymore as I don’t drink it and the kids mainly prefer water now they’re older.

But olive oil. OMG the price inflation on that!

Yes, sorry, I was agreeing with your post

It’s not the cost of living. It’s supermarket profiteering. Tesco profit for the 24/25 year is estimated at 2.9 BILLION. They are scamming their customers with ever increasing prices. More pressure needs to be put on the supermarkets and energy companies. They are the issue.

Yes, I know, that's why I'm wondering how it's even a suggestion to save money.

Who has the time to squeeze fresh oranges for two adults and two children every morning and you’d need a hell of a lot to last a week! Buying that amount of oranges is definitely not cheaper than orange juice in a carton.

We have deliveries as live rurally. I book a slot with Ocado and one with Tesco. Everyweek we have pretty much the same shop and I do it at both shops to see which is cheaper. Every week Ocado is cheaper. Except this week Tesco has a deal on chicken, which I usually get from muscle foods at 6.00 a kilo at Tesco it's 6.09 a kilo but no delivery charge. So this week I have two deliveries coming. It's worth pricing your shop up at a couple of places if you can. It's shit we have to, but it all adds up.

I've found Aldi to be more expensive than Tesco on a few items - but I think that's down to my local one not selling their cheapest version. The refrigerated orange juice costs the same in both. It's cheaper to buy the long life one - but it's not as good.

Prices are going to be rising again because the wages costs are going up - both due to NI and minimum wage rises. This will affect both the costs of buying stock, and the cost if running the business.

And while supermarkets make huge profits, especially Tesco, it's a highly competitive business and their margins are extremely low - so they can't absorb the cost increases. Their huge profits are because the business itself is massive.

The price rises are shocking. I
I normally shop in Aldi but popped ti my local Sainsbury's for custard for the fruit crumble I'd made. A small carton of birds custard. £2:40. What the actually f**l

Why are you assuming the people commenting here voted for Brexit? I certainly didn’t.

Absolutely not, you're not paying attention if you don't think the price of basic ingredients has gone up.

But top marks for the faux-naivety 'I don't buy processed food' smugness.

Well, that's what taking back control gets you. I know there are complex factors, but Brexit is a huge one. People who warned about it were called scaremongers, as I remember.

Find your nearest Asian store for peppercorns and spices. The type that supply local restaurants. Thousands of % cheaper.

@Truth25 I agree, even in the 90s we were paying a proportionately larger amount of salaries on food, I think it's quite dangerous how much we are wanting to drive down the price of food and it's pushing people to unhealthy options. BUT, I don't blame people for that (big business and shareholders I do) when housing costs have risen as much as they have here people are having to look at where they can make up the cost.

Which is totally separate to what is being discussed here, which is the price of food! There is no need to bring people on UC into this, many who are working, just like you.

It takes about 8 oranges to get enough juice for a small glass!

Where do you buy your oranges from that it would be any where near the same cost to squeeze them yourself

Since time began, prices have risen. That's why salaries (including NMW) also keep rising.
And actually, some things are cheaper - my first washing machine in 1989 cost over £400 - imagine what that would be now if white goods had kept up with inflation?!

I'm on UC and I still pay rent and council tax. The housing element of UC doesn't cover all of my rent.

If they're on UC they won't be paying rent (they'll receive HB) and council tax. I'm not bashing it at all. My point was that working full time isn't creating much of financial gap between working and not. Which wasn't previously as obviously the case.

Food is cheaper here than some other countries, yes. That doesn’t change the fact that the price of food has risen faster than wages have, meaning British people now have to make their money go further. The price of food in other countries is irrelevant, as we don’t live there.

We shop at Lidl.

My partner does the weekly shop and it's been pretty standard for the last year in terms of what we buy.

When I first started shopping at Lidl, what he bought would have cost around £35. Then for a while, it went up to around £50. Then £75.

£101 it cost last week!

Not even Aldi and Lidl are cheap options anymore.