Price increases: What food that you bought every week have you now completely stopped buying?

[sunnydaytoday0]

I just noticed today that the 250g block of own-brand butter in Tesco has gone up again to £1.99, and this is price matched to Aldi who I assume have also put it up. Think I'll now unfortunately not be buying it at all and switching to cheap spread!

Egg on toast. Probably better for me!

Farmfoods is really good for random things that have increased elsewhere!

As much as it makes me question my life choices when I find myself in Farmfoods, you could feed a family a healthy diet from their range for an extremely low price. They also stock Coppenrath & Wiese cakes.

We don't buy any branded cereals but find the own brand ones are still good value and often fortified with iron etc. We've also almost stopped buying salmon except for a rare treat. I only buy dd's brand of smoothies if they are on offer now and alternate between whichever of the child yoghurts are on the best offer. We haven't bought butter for ages as the price just seems crazy, we use baking spread for cakes etc but it isn't the same. We haven't stopped buying milk as dd loves it but it has risen a lot and so I am trying to use a bit less.

Yep, Aldi butter was £1.99 yesterday, I was shocked. I’m sure it was £1.75 a couple of weeks ago and it’s only a couple of months since it was £1.45. Meat has definitely gone up a lot and cartons of fruit juice have gone up at least 20p each. And crisps too.

Own brand everything. There were some brands I was loyal to (Yorkshire tea, Pepsi Max, Ariel washing powder) but no more. The swaps to own brand are fine. Admittedly Aldi own brand tea bags are not as nice as Yorkshire tea but they're about a quarter of the cost and are ok. They'll do.

Hardly any meat, mostly vegetarian meals or things like chilli/bolognese/curries made with half the amount of meat and bulked out with lentils/veg/oats. To be fair this is healthier too so it's a habit I'll keep up.

I've started making my own multi purpose cleaning spray using lemon juice (the cheap squeezy bottles), water and a squirt of washing up liquid. It works absolutely fine in an old spray bottle, smells nice and there's no rubbish in it so I'm not as worried about the DDs getting their hands on the bottle (although still keep it out of their way.) This is something I'll probably keep up too.

Having two ultra cheap dinners a week. Beans on toast, jacket potato with cheese, soup and some bread, pasta tossed through a bit of garlic oil, egg fried rice with frozen veg etc. All are absolutely fine for dinner for us and the DDs.

Basic fruit. Apples, pears and bananas usually. Buying fresh berries is out. I have bought some frozen berries though and use them with some porridge oats and milk to make overnight oats which is a nutritious and filling breakfast.

Whole chickens have become ridiculoualy expensive, I've tried finding more recipes using mince because it's relatively cheap, I've stopped buying store-bought rotis and now make my own very basic flatbread which aren't as nice but are filling, I make a lot of tomato based dishes now. I buy bigger bags of rice and for some reason I found that bigger bags of spices from the world food aisle are often cheaper than the little jars with the supermarket brand on. I use a lot of rice, pasta and potatoes to bulk out food, probably not the healthiest diet but it fills us up. I'm using a lot of the basics range rather than the big brands, or even the supermarket branding now. I also try and buy the 'wonky' fruit and veg when it's available rather than the pretty looking fruit and veg.

Same here I stopped buying them

I am in another country and it is similar here too.

I know everything has gone up, but what is the reasoning for the big increases in loo roll and kitchen roll there? I think this is one of the things that we have been able to get good offers on lately, every shop seems to be undercutting their competitions special. I have enough loo roll to last me the rest of the year now.

Washing powder has gone up a lot, cooking oil (like everywhere else, but it is coming down in price again now) and flour has gone up a ridiculous amount.

I am lucky enough to be in a country where fresh fruit and veg can always be picked up cheap enough, but you have to know where to shop. I also think the larger stores are profiteering on these price hikes as I cannot see how one shop can sell blueberries for around 25p a tub and the exact same size tube 1.50 pounds in a more upmarket shop.

Things like proper butter, Scottish/Norwegian Salmon and some things mentioned upthread have always been luxuries here anyway so I will look next time I am out at the shops as I have no idea how those prices will have inflated.

Milk/cream/ cheese! Here is is cheaper for me to buy rump steak per kg than basic cheddar cheese......

We are going into hot weather now and yesterday I had to have a sort out of my pantry as those fkn Indian meal moths got in. I had to throw out a huge black bag full of dried food that had been infested by this f**ckers! Cereal, flour, dried veg, cereal bars etc. I am still not over it so have decided it is not worth my while to stock up on offers anymore... Which is how I like to shop as I think it does save money in the long run, but not when my stash has been wiped out by fkn insects. It just seems like I can't win right now.

We used to get ocado eco recycled toilet roll it was always on offer for 2x9pack so 18 rolls for £6. We never paid full price. Now it's £4.40 for 9 and never on offer. We use Lidl now I think it's 24 rolls for around £6 and it's fine (I used to get it with the £10 voucher but they've stopped that now.)

We used to have a weekly Saturday night takeaway around £25-30 but now it's once every 6-8 weeks and we actually enjoy it alot more as it's a real treat!

I went to buy a whole chicken in M&S on sat and it was £11.45 😳😳😳 like it wasn't even cooked.

So many things have gone through the roof and without sounding like a complete knob, I didn't ever really need to watch prices but definitely I'm becoming a lot more frugal and buying own brands now, esp biscuits

We've substituted Heinz baked beans for Tesco's own. Just can't justify paying more than double.

@Ladybyrd

I did that. Didn’t like them though so tried the cheap, cheap Stockwell Tesco beans and they were nicer. How the mighty fall 😂

@Dalaidramailama I was a total baked beans snob, but there wasn't anything in it for me. I'll try the Stockwells ones now - I've only tried Tesco's own brand. The beans are smaller and firmer, but the sauce tasted exactly the same.

what is the reasoning for the big increases in loo roll and kitchen roll

Shipping costs, the UK imports most of it's wood pulp for toilet/kitchen paper.

I've not stopped buying it but we get the big boxes of who gives a crap. Just realised it's gone up from £40 to £43 then £48 in a year.

Meat and poultry.

I remember how my mum and gran shopped in the 70s - if you saw a decent bargain, you bought as much as you could carry, stashed it and rationed it out. You shopped around. Stuff was often 'treats' and stashed for birthdays and Christmas. You planned ahead.

A lot of the bargains are fake now - smaller sizes or just the old price with 'sale' written next to it. I'm thinking of starting a price book so that I know when it's a bargain and when it isn't.

I've stopped buying in season strawberries a few weeks earlier than usual because the quality for the price is so absolutely shite. Just not worth it.

To answer the question - branded crisps. I can see me going without soon as well.

The men in my life love Pringles. I only used to buy them when they were £1 on offer. Now they're £2 or so, and smaller packets. I've been stocking up at Aldi, but I'm watching the price.

I've stopped buying magnums, pop, branded detergent/cereals/fish and a variety of crisps. I think mcains oven chips are the next to go, they're now £4.50 for the largest bag!

Now buy less:
Butter
Wine
Nice cheese
Fish (even fish fingers)

Treats that are now even more of a treat:
Smoked salmon
Hollandaise sauce
Steak
Bacon
Sausages
Avocado

Costed up baking with the kids at the weekend and was horrified at how much it costs. Used to be a cheap rainy day thing to do but now sooooo expensive.

Magnums are shocking!

As are Heinz beans!

The Aldi mini ones are a decent cheaper alternative, if you're in the market for a substitute.

I suspect dairy products like butter are going up due to labour shortages (brexit and covid related), increased fuel costs, increased costs of production (very dry summer I know farmers that have been supplementing grass for their cows with hay because the grass wasn't growing. That hay should be stored until winter, what are the cows going to eat this winter? There'll be a shortage of hay and milk/ meat and related products are going to be even more expensive). But if no one eats meat the farmers go out of business and all related businesses (butchers, drivers, vets etc) and frankly we'll then have a food shortage as most of the land cattle etc are on can't be used to go arable products. There's no answer.