Cost of food shopping during lockdown?

[BeansOnToast4T]

Has your shopping bill gone up? I've seen a lot of posters mention spending a lot more. I've just been going through my monthly spending and there isn't any difference for us, (2 adults, ds 14, dd 12). I'm still shopping mostly in Lidl and have been able to get most things.I'm more organised as I've got more time to cook and instead of making packed lunches for everyone we are using up leftovers or having homemade soup instead. We are not big meat eaters and I can get a few meals out a Mumsnet chicken! Average spend is £80 a week and includes toiletries and cleaning stuff.

I think it depends where you shop. Major supermarkets are no longer doing the '4 for £1' tins and special offers for example. Our local grocer have doubled the price of apples: now 3 apples for £1, so yes, prices have gone up! We were told that much of the fruit/veg comes from Spain and Europe, and a lot is rotting in the field as no one to pick it!

We've spent more than usual at the supermarkets, but that's because usually we often go out to restaurants or buy lunch at Pret etc which is such a waste of money. So 95% of our food is now bought at supermarkets and home cooked (with a takeaway delivered once a week), so more money spent at our food shop, but less overall due to not going out. I've also lost several pounds of weight as home cooking is so much healthier. If I ever get back to work I'm going to make far more of an effort to bring a packed lunch with me.

We couldn't get food for almost a week so had 5 takeaways. When I did get food there were no multi buy offers so I think it cost 30-40% more than I would usually pay.

I usually spend £100-ish for the 2 of us a week (London) and it was £310 for 2 weeks. It's a bit more for the extra lunches and snacking but I think it's about £30 quid a week more

Mine (family of four, two adults, two teens, two cats) has increased significantly.

I was a careful shopper. I used Tesco online (made most of offers) and B&M/Lidl.

Now the deals are off or we had to buy locally.
We're using milkman and butter is £2.50 (previously £1.50 in supermarket) and a loaf £1.50.

If you add up paying say £1 extra for many items then I'd say it's costing us around £100-£150 more per month.

Yes our food shopping is definitely more expensive. Kids are not having school meals and dh is at home every day. Normally he is away 3 days a week minimum. In addition we ate out every weekend multiple times whereas now obviously all our meals are at home. However we are probably saving 4-500 on eating out and dh buying food out of the house and the food bill definitely hasn’t gone up by that much!!
I am however finding it really hard to have think about what to cook every single day!

Yes, but we are buying a lot more from local suppliers and farm shops etc. I'd say we are probably spending an extra £100-125 a month at the moment, but if we were solely supermarket shopping then perhaps £40 a month to cover all DH's lunches and the times we eat out (so probably saving money there anyway).

Oh and I shop at Tesco and they hardly have any offers on now as they’re not doing multi buys etc so that’s another reason the food bill has gone up.

Wow - some people are paying £££ more. It must vary a lot depending on where you are. I feel really lucky!

Much less, we haven't been able to get to the shops so we've been eating bare basics and we just don't have all the snacks/crisps/biscuits we used to have. It's main meals only, healthy and hearty but cheap too. And using up things in the cupboard and freezer. My teens used to just pop to the shops for snacks all the time, now they can't leave the house they are not spending the money (and getting slimmer too, a nice side effect!)

What this has done is made me realise how much nicer some of the local stuff is, and as we can afford it I think we will stick to it when this is over and just use supermarket for cupboard and household stuff mainly, not fresh stuff. The local meat, fruit, veg etc is great and worth paying a bit more for.

Yes, ours has gone up as there are no offers on anymore. Plus, we're home all day so eating more.

My weekly shop was £95 and usually only £60 so definitely yes.

However we don't usually eat so much - constantly eating it seems since being at home!!

The thing is, if you are spending more money on supermarket food it doesn't equate to spending more money than before on food in general. Despite the extra spending for our 'home' food, we are still saving because we aren't having meals out every week!

I got bought veg from morrisons, so a little more expensive than aldi, but the dry goods came from those bought for last October, so saving there.

I am ecstatic having fresh veg,lucky to get it at a supermarket and blessed to have someone bring it for me.

I am concenrned about price rises when we get out again. but i will be so thrilled to go shopping again... maybe i won't care.

Wow - some people are paying £££ more. It must vary a lot depending on where you are. I feel really lucky!

This is a good point. I live in Birmingham and the shops by me were stripped of basic goods for weeks. I'd call my family in Bristol and they had eggs, flour and milk on the shelves, no massive queues.

Supplies still aren't back to normal, so to get eggs we are using a milkman and paying more.

Birmingham is the 2nd highest area for infections and Bristol was the lowest, so whether that made a difference in terms of panic buying I don't know.

Ours seems to have gone up, but we are at home/taking food to work, whereas previously the kids were fed in childcare and we would receive food at work.
Also, we are having to use more expensive supermarkets as we are unable to get everything we need at aldi/lidl, and if we are currently able to use just one place I guess that is better than travelling around.
On the flip side we aren't paying childcare atm and using very little fuel so for us it is evening up at the moment.

We spent more on shopping last week, £95 compared to about £60 but less overall as no restaurants take always or shop lunch at work.

Ours has gone up but we're saving on things like school dinners (£3 each day for two DC) and eating out with work and friends (usually around £100 a week).

DS1 is 14 and 6'4" and has hit that 'unfillable' stage so eats every hour on the hour. He's a good eater and chooses healthy snacks and gets involved in cooking but he can eat his way through 6 Granny Smiths in a day if he's left so I'm having to bake stuff like flapjack and granola to fill him for longer.

Closest shops are local versions of chains and they're expensive at the best of times. Staff there are awesome though and am hugely appreciative of everything they're doing to keep things running.

I agree that people need to look at the total cost of food, rather than just their weekly shop.

We didn't eat many meals out of the house previously, and still don't so that hasn't changed for us. I've noticed food prices going up, but the recent food shortages have made us more careful about what we eat - so whereas previously we might have had a main meal and some leftovers for one person to have for lunch the next day, we're now bulking out the meal ingredients so it stretches to 2 main meals so the cost per meals is much less.
We are also all more conscious that food might be limited, so a lot of the mindless snacking has gone.

Yes definitely spending more, I usually do an online ASDA shop once a week and spend about £80 then we would eat out twice a week and have a takeaway once or twice. This week I spent £120 on the shop, that’s for two adults and a baby. I think prices have gone up too tho!

I am on a tight budget and really am noticing the prices! One of the porters tells me somewhere was charging £4.50 for a pack of eggs!

Just up slightly because I want to make sure we have enough snacks but dcs are not big eaters so not an increase for meals

Yes, definitely spending more. Lunches for everyone plus snacks are adding up. But I’ve also being buying a bit more to make sure that we definitely won’t need to go shopping more than once a week. Over the last few months (not stock pilling) I’ve been buying a bit extra every week to make sure we’ve got enough essentials in to last 2 weeks should we all come down with the virus.

Yes. Partly because I'm buying more as we are both at home all day, but more so because there are no offers. Tesco is our closest shop by about 3 miles so I can't really justify going anywhere else as "essential", and whereas normally I would choose different things based on what was offer / not get it and get it somewhere else a few days later I'm basically a captive audience and barely looking at the prices, if I need it it's going in the trolley as I won't be getting it cheaper there or anywhere else any time soon! I paid nearly £6 for Azera coffee yesterday when it's almost always on offer somewhere for between £2.75 - £3 so I never pay more than that usually.