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!

Fresh pesto (I make my own with leftover salad leaves now that would otherwise be destined for the bin and really I should always have done this)
One pint of milk for work, I now decant from a large bottle into a smaller one.
Steak, lamb and chicken breast. All cheaper cuts of meat now.
Salmon fillets. I buy a whole one from Morrisons and fillet it myself and use the head/tail for stock, but is no longer a once per week menu item.
Crisps for packed lunches have been branded downwards, no more Walkers as the default.
Fresh pasta is no longer a regular feature, much to my dismay but it's just had to be cut.
I've stopped buying prepared veg. It was a convenience thing of course, now I just have to find more time to prep it myself.
Quite a lot of products have been branded down.

I don't know what I can cut down on. Once I retired I had to cut down/back on all sorts and now I am sourcing food etc from different shops to get the cheapest. Its all a bit time consuming and wearing.

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.

This is my preferred method of shopping so the main thing I notice is that you just don’t get the offers that you used to. Like for example the big jars of Hellmann’s would be on offer at £2.50 or even occasionally £2 - now they cost £3.29, with the occasional offer of £3 as though they are doing you some sort of favour.

If it is really true that the supermarkets are making vastly increased profits then that should be looked into as much as the profits on gas and electricity - a bit of a short sighted strategy anyway if it just forces people to stop buying things. I’m personally very lucky because as I’m single I don’t need to buy huge amounts of food, but I won’t be taken for a fool.

Heinz beans! Pack of 4 was always £2 it's now £3.50. I am lucky that right now it's not that I can't afford them, however I really begrudge paying almost double for something as simple as beans! I also used to add a pack to my weekly shop for when ever we wanted them during the week. I now only buy them if we meal plan them into the week for jacket potatoes or whatever.

Toilet/pipe unblocker - Hated paying £3+ for this but our pipes are constantly clogging. Picked up some soda crystals for under a quid and they've worked a treat and will last a lot longer than a single use bottle.

@MattDamon

Can you tell me more about this please, I regularly need to use Mr Muscle Unblocker and would love a cheaper alternative!

My biggest gripe is share bags of crisps. All the supermarkets used to do a couple of options on offer at £1 but now the “offer” price is £1.50
Thats a huge increase!

Im determined to be an even better meal planner than I was before and to stop wasting food. We had a pizza party at the weekend and have loads of leftover dough, sauce and toppings so that’s DPs lunches for the week. Luckily he’s trying to put on some weight!

Soda crystals were one of the few things cheaper from Ocado - about 80p a bag. I put a scoop in every wash because we have very hard water.

There was something upthread about expensive loo roll and blocked pipes. In our old house, we could only use cheap toilet rolls - pipes couldn't swallow anything quilted or similar.

I've just done an online Tesco shop - thought I'd better get a slot for Friday with a bank holiday looming. To be honest, I didn't notice a lot of difference, but there was nothing branded - I think that's where people seem to be seeing biggest jumps.

@isthismylifenow I live in a tropical climate and also need to store our groceries very carefully. over the years I noticed that storing rice, pasta etc in Mason jars helps the best, while flour keeps best in the freezer.

One thing I'm actually surprised has NOT gone up in price in the last few years (at least the one I buy) is the cheapest supermarket tinned tuna in brine.

Saying that I've probably now jinxed it..

I've stopped buying Branston beans £3 and bought Lidl Newgate beans for £1.09. We thought they were fine.

Also, Danpak butter from Lidl instead of Lurpak.

Soup from M & S - chicken, tomato and mushroom at 55p a tin.

Fresh chicken
Instant coffee

I know the thread is about what people have stopped buying but interestingly we have now started buying frozen pizza.

Due to shrinkflation we can finally fit them in our American style fridge freezer which has quite narrow shelves. They were always too wide before.

Every cloud!

The Coop is expensive (probably something to do with all the dividend points they give out) but they do have some good offers on which change every week.
Last week a tin of Millicano Intense Americano was £3 instead of the usual £5.50 so I bought 2.
A tub of Dairylea was £1 instead of the usual £1.80 so bought 2.
My favourite fab softener Lenor Outdoorable was £3 for a big bottle when it's usually £5.50 so bought 2.
Every few weeks a Walkers 6 pack of crisps are £1.25 compared to £1.75.

If you have the fridge/freezer/storage space it's a case of just buying your favourites when on offer but like everyone says even the offers have gone up too.

@TracyBeakerSoYeah Walkers used to be £1.25 on offer at Tescos, now the best you can get is £1.50 so that's pretty good. I never use Co-op anymore as I've written them off as too dear but perhaps not.

One thing I'm actually surprised has NOT gone up in price in the last few years (at least the one I buy) is the cheapest supermarket tinned tuna in brine.

I was thinking this yesterday - not even the cheapest but the three tiny tins with ring pulls. Even the John West were still £2.

Cheese and onion rolls they were less than a pound and slowly slowly have gone up to around 1.50

Crisps I thought instead of getting a couple of different packets from Aldi I'd get the Doritos for 1.25 and the walkers cheese and onion but might go back to the cheapest Aldi ones. However even the cheapest are now over 1.20. So maybe it time for less crisps.

Toilet rolls are tiny now!
No longer buy catmilk for our v fussy cat! It's more expensive per ml than wine! But there'll be ructions! 🐾

Alpro Almond milk- now its £2.05! The unsweetened ones only ever seem to be on offer Very occasionally…

Sainsburys own is £1

We still have salmon because it's one of the only proteins my kids will actually eat but by god the price is painful now

Isn't cat milk just milk with the lactose reduced*? So perhaps lactose free "people" milk might be more affordable?

*flashback to when I thought cat milk was milk from cats...

Yes, I was exactly the same! Felt so annoyed paying £3+ for a single use item that didn't even work that well.

You boil a kettle of water, pour it down the drain, then put a cup of soda crystals down (it's fine if some sits on top of the drain), leave for an hour or even overnight (I left for an hour), and then pour a second kettle of boiled water over it. I did it two days in a row for the kitchen and it's cleared better than Mr. Muscle every did. I'll try and do it once a month now to stay on top of it.

I've stopped buying kitchen rolls. They are ridiculously expensive. Now I use napkins at the table, and rags for cleaning glass.

@MattDamon Thank you, will get some soda crystals when I next go shopping and give this a try.

I’ve been monitoring prices of chicken Lidl and Sainsbo.

Lidl was about 3.78,. Now it’s crept up to £4.06. I think Sains is the same.