Has anyone just gone “fuck it” now when it comes to the weekly food bill?

[tiredandstripey]

usual disclaimer of saying I know we are in a fortunate position to have this choice.

For so so long now I have used the weekly food shop as an exercise in budgeting. I’m very strict and never spend more than £80 a week (me, DH, two DDs age 1 and 3) including nappies etc and have been doing everything I can to try to avoid spending more each week as the prices continue to climb despite the fact that me and Dd2 have allergies (= more expensive “alternative” products) and DD1 is autistic and fairly limited in her diet (and still in nappies).

I currently shop at Asda and I have been dropping down a product level, buying a lot of their essentials range, and cutting out extras/treats or opting for cheaper alternatives. For example DH and I used to enjoy a nice pudding once a week - a roulade with cream, or a sticky toffee pudding etc - but now I just get a block of chocolate to share instead as that’s £1 instead of £4 odd.

But I’ve got to the point where I’m thoroughly fed up with it. The food is increasingly shit quality - mouldy fruit and veg, crap dates on stuff, boring cheap meals all week long. We never go out to eat in the evenings (we have no one who can have our DDs) and I’m so fed up of never having anything “nice” to eat.

if we wanted to we could afford to spend an extra £100 or so on our food shop a month. Has anyone else finally just accepted the price rises and stopped trying to budget? I mean - obviously we would still have a limit, we’re not made of money (and I’ve just dropped my hours at work so will be earning less from next month anyway). But I’d really like to just allow myself to not choose the cheapest option of almost everything for once. There’s some cheaper products that I really don’t mind but some stuff is definitely worth paying extra for (I’m looking at you, Essentials rice pudding - like eating soapy bath water). And I’d happily forego my twice a month takeaway treat in exchange.

Slightly prepared to be flamed because I know some people don’t have this choice at all. But up until now I never allowed myself to buy the “nice apples” etc and now I’m just thinking bugger it.

I still budget but have increased the budget as well as decreased takeaways. I'm pretty strongly into nutrition though - mainly because (I'll be honest here) I smoke and drink far too much so this is my ridiculous attempt to balance it out a bit.

I wouldn't be buying food that made me unhappy unless I had no choice. You could maybe eat cheaper cuts of meat, or less meat, and more seasonal fruit and veg and still have tasty and nutritious meals.

Yip yesterday I just thought fuck it in Aldi and filled the trolley (which we did use to do anyway and it was like 90 quid) and it was 153 quid. Thing is I reckon it may actually save me money during the week as the budget shop usually doesn't last and I end up in Morrisons topping up anyway and it costs a fortune in there so will see how we get on this week.

Food has been too cheap for too long. Poor bloody hens cooped up in despicable conditions, no light, no freedom...and that's just the start.

We need to pay more for better quality/conditions.

I am so with you OP. I'm another one that has accepted defeat. Prices won't go down or at least anytime soon. I'm a single mother to five children and the effort involved to budget on food, shop around for bargains, batch cook, eat cheaper substitutes etc is really time consuming and mentally draining. It's not working for my household so I'm not giving it any more headspace any longer. I'll put what I want in the trolley, have that mini heart attack at the checkout when I see the cost and be over it by the time I've left the car park. I work my ass of at work, don't have a moments peace when at home with housework and kids. Im always on the go so im not compromising on food.

Our food shopping has also remained pretty much unchanged. My DH has coeliac disease, so it’s simply not possible for him to swap to cheap bread/pasta/sausages etc.

We are lucky that DS started preschool this term and the money we are saving by no longer paying nursery fees enables us to absorb the price increases.

What will your dd eat op?

I get what you mean OP. We had a few months of crap food and realised it helped in no way for us to stay positive. So we did some switching about with how we shopped:

• cheapest brand biscuits and crisps etc
• 2 high quality meals each week- usually persian then a hefty british thing- hotpot etc that lasts at least 2 days
• egg and chips/sarnies/jacket potatoes rest of the evenings
• cheap bake your own type things so the DDs get some fun cake type desserts that feel special.
• cheapest trio of fruit- 🍎 🍌 🍊
• shop twice a week and realise we spend less and have hardly any waste now

We are lucky to have choice though I agree. But stretching our budget that bit more gives us some nicer options.

We keep a really tight lid on the shopping budget, then every now and then I pop into M&S on the way home from work to pick up a delivery or because it's easy to park there to pick up milk and have a mad sort of rush of blood to the head, spend a small fortune on lovely things and don't regret it for a moment. Like others, we can afford it now and then, no longer eat out, don't get takeaways (mostly due to living rurally, so none available), no longer even buy steak for dinner. I just get bloody sick of cooking worthy, frugal food from scratch. Plus, I'm cold. We're not using our heating, so why shouldn't we have something nice to eat sometimes? We are both in supposedly well paid, professional jobs. I am fucked off that despite this we're freezing our arses off and spending hours slow cooking what is essentially medieval pottage half the time (this may be a slight exaggeration). I want nice stuff to eat, dammit!

I can't quite bring myself to OP.
But one day soon maybe I'll do an old school (2021-style) food shop, where I throw Salmon en Croute, oven pizza, fancy olive oil, luxury coleslaw, kettle chips (the list goes on...) into the trolley with wreckless abandon 🙏

I love frozen veg to help with cooking from scratch economically. Frozen veg base mix means you can get a head start on cooking. It makes a chilli go further, or brilliant with soup mix pulses for a filling and healthy soup.

Frozen mushrooms are great too, as they'll not go off and you can use exactly the amount you want.

I make the chilli taste richer and more intense with an inch of chorizo or a few slices of Smokey bacon.

Beans and cheese on toast, or egg on toast are cheaper and quick meals mid week

Right...

But we're not paying more for better conditions. We're paying more and the animals are treated the same. So...

One of my first priorities is food. I'll eat the cheap stuff if it tastes nice but if not I'll have the more expensive stuff. I'd forgo anything that could be termed a treat in favour of good food, always. I'm not so bothered about the types of treats you look forward to. I'm more concerned with my everyday life not being completely shit. I don't waste food though, everything gets eaten.

If you can afford it, I have always thought that quality food is worth buying. You are what you eat, and food has a massive influence on health. Quality over quantity, always.

I'm not necessarily talking about getting everything from the 'taste the difference' range, but decent fruit and veg, proper ingredients, butter not marge, foods that aren't full of cheap filler and sugar, bread and cheese that aren't plastic shite. There are many things that I will scrimp on, but never food if I can afford not to.

Ive decided i bloody hate aldi. I feel poor enough without eating cheap tasteless shite. We dont drink smoke or eat out so fuck it.

Particularly with treats, given the choice between e.g. cheap biscuits every week, or decent biscuits every 2 or 3 weeks - I'd take the latter.

If I look at the ingredients and a lot of whats listed isn't something I'd have in my cupboard at home, I don't buy it. I'd rather have fewer biscuits than eat rubbish.

yanbu.

but like others I’m of the stuff on toast some days to make sure we can have a bit more on the other days. Cooking from scratch with young fussy children whilst full time is so so hard.

also I like decent bread for my toast, and that’s gone up too.

But yabu to buy rice pudding..Rice pudding in a slow cooker… cheap, make extra and you can heat it up another day. I think something like 800ml milk/100g rice/75g sugar/vanilla.

This. Hate the place.

OP food is fuel. It's intrinsically linked to our health & wellbeing. If you can afford it, don't suck the joy from your life by unnecessarily punishing yourself and your family.

(Although I'm veggie, so don't have to include meat in my budget. Veggie meals tend to be cheaper, as I use lentils etc.)

Yea, we are doing this now - we live abroad and takeaways here aren't really the same and it's extortionate to eat out so we tend to just go for it with the food shop and eat nice food at home. It doesn't help that the only half decent bread and milk like we used to get in the UK is quite expensive compared to the cheaper stuff that is eaten here - the bread is generally too sugary and the milk is mostly long life UHT, which we all hate. So it's more expensive anyway to do a regular shop. We now always get some really nice fresh bread and pastries for the weekend, have a couple of fancier dinners like steak or something with prawns over the weekend, and try to find decent cheddar, which isn't cheap either, for nice sandwiches. I happily buy a lot of the local produce and cook local dishes, but we still all want those home comforts like a cheese and pickle sandwich sometimes, so we have to shell out for such luxuries! Doing this though is much cheaper than getting a curry here, which can cost £50 or so just for a couple of curries, rice and bread for two adults. Same for Chinese takeaway, costs a fortune, so we don't really tend to bother.

If the flex in your budget is there, then there comes a point where trying to make cuts to an already minimised grocery budget is very low return for the amount of effort and scrimping involved. Cutting out one takeaway a week, or not habitually going to the coffee shop after specific activities, or getting rid of a couple of barely-used subscription services, or all kinds of other things that reasonably well-off people in this country might have, can mean not really having to worry about whether you can stretch to the nice apples or the premade pudding, and with less impact on your lifestyle and less of a sense of having to restrict yourself all the time.

Completely agree with this. I would give up takeaways, meals out, entertainment like cinema etc. , alcohol etc rather than eat cheap tastless food that isn't nutritious.

It just takes some extra effort to come up with cheap but healthy meal ideas. Lots of veg-based meals are really cheap, like dhal, and then you can take in leftovers for lunch as well.

You might find a slow cooker useful as well as you can use cheaper cuts of meat like chicken thighs or pork shoulder and lots of tasty and healthy options than require minimal prep time.

I'm originally from the southern hemisphere and groceries are on average about 400 per cent more expensive. So I have spent the last 20 years marvelling at how cheap it is in the UK so a price rise of c.15% still means cheap groceries to me.

We spend around £120 a week but don’t have take aways. Healthier, I’m a better cook and daily pleasures are better than two meals a month.

We have thrown the takeaway and eating out budget into the main shopping budget. We meal plan and have a balance of different priced meals just because we like them such as baked potatoes, soup or egg and chips!

Other days will be cooked form scratch meals like roasts, steak, homemade pizza or gnocchi or curries.

DH has fancy Bol dishes for lunch but that stops him spending money on snacks.

We live a five minute walk from a chicken factory which sells Ocado/ Morrisons/ Iceland chicken for 50p most days so the freezer is always full of chicken. And yes it obviously is all the same and comes from the same place.

we know eating out was a major expense because during lockdown this saved us a fortune!

Could you batch cook your dd's meals and freeze them so you could just cook for you and dh?