Just had to put a food shop on the credit card, fed up!

[whatsausername]

We don’t get paid until next Thursday. I’d ran out of essentials like coffee, hand wash, toothpaste, chips etc. Needed the usual packed lunch stuff too. £78 in Asda. I have £82 in the account until payday but need to keep it in as direct debits due day before payday.

I just feel bleugh. We both work full time and having to put a weekly food shop on a credit card is just soul destroying.

anyone else feel like this?

I haven't read the whole thread, and apologies if someone has mentioned this already but using Olio is a really good way to save some money.
It's an app where you can find people who have collected food from supermarkets which on the day are reaching their use by, or sell by, date - but they are still definitely edible.
Highly recommended for anyone who wants to save money and also prevent waste.
We regularly get free sandwiches, salad, fruit, doughnuts, pastries, bread, and other things.

And yet that's what people ate for lunch back in the days when there weren't nearly as many obese people as there are today.

Has anyone noticed anything going down? Muller Corners were £2.50 for 6 in Tesco perhaps they’ve realised this kind of treat is the first thing folks will boycott!

My weekly shop for a family of 4 is double that, easily.

I'm middle aged, worked hard for decades, use my credit card for all purchases, never had a gym membership, rarely eat out, love a good UK camping holiday.

All those things are active choices. You have just described the life I choose!

Do you mean the kids live with you? Do you get child benefit or universal credit for them? Have you looking into whether you’re eligible for pension credit?

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway your posts are quite unnecessarily aggressive. The op is clearly just having a rant about high food prices - let her be!

Some of your numbers make no sense. I’m baffled at the cost of lunches.

Also…change the direct debits so they come out after or on pay day. It’s unusual to not be able to pick the date.

@greengagesummers I was in France over the summer and thought food prices were broadly the same as the UK (except things in season like soft fruit). Prices are high across most countries so I don't think you can blame Brexit (tho it probably hasn't helped much)

Everyone l worked with in the 80’s, 90’s and noughties ate sarnies for lunch. Probably ham or cheese with lots of butter. And crisps.No one was obese.

Coffee is essential for me but handwash is detergent.

The price of a family pack of minced beef has risen twice at Lidl in a month according to my DILs. Shopping is rising again?

Those very specific croissants were in the Netherlands (DekaMarkt supermarket); as well as Albert Heijn, Lidl/Aldi, Carrefour in NL and Belgium, Monoprix and Leclerc in France and local shops / local markets — but prices overall were far cheaper than here across all three countries, with local variations between different types of produce.

We were just buying usual food we eat at home or away: pasta/bread/cheese / salads/wine/fruit and veg/juice and so on. NL was cheapest, but equally the groceries in France really just were not at all as expensive as here — mainly fresh produce like bread, fruit and veg, wine etc. Cheese and bread were far cheaper. Jam, juice, veg, fruit, wine — all much cheaper! We don’t really eat much store cupboard or processed food anyway, so we didn’t buy much of that apart from jam.

On these threads people inevitably go on about cooking fresh local produce being cheaper, and actually in the U.K. that’s not been true for decades now: it’s the processed stuff that’s the cheapest. Whereas on the continent it seems you can still eat much more fresh produce cheaply compared to here.

My weekly shop is about £80 at Aldi / Lidl for family of 3. Splurge shop at start of month can be £120 max. No idea how people can spend £300 on a weekly shop unless they're buying loads of brands/ meat etc

I get the smallest pack and bulk up with veg and lentils

Not me putting our food shop in the credit card every month 🫣 we also get cash back but we always have done it like this…

We're the same, food bill matches mortgage! Our priorities are food and socialising with food, we dont smoke or go out and have very hungry teenagers. We all appreciate really nice food so im not feeling guilty about it.

What is your problem with soap? making you "ick"??? What's that about? Have you never used soap?

Anyway, that's by the bye , what's scaring me is the need for £75 packed lunch food

I treated dh today with some lidl twix as an extra to his lunches this week as they were on special offer. Other wise his ( and mine when I was working and needing lunch ) are the night before left overs. Whatever left overs there are, packed away and frozen. We might have bolognaise left, no spaghetti, so I freeze the bolognaise in a bag, and add the pasta another time - or wedges or rice. He dont care, he wants feeding

Worse to the worse, Ill boil up some hard boiled eggs and make a mayo with chopped salad though and pack a few pittas But we dont buy " take to work lunch food "

@whatsausername , get your instant coffee from Aldi (gold blend-style jar) or Lidl (Nescafe -style jar).
The Aldi one is like a stronger version of Doeuwe Egbert.

Soap bars - get the pure soap from the own brand range, or if you must use handwash, use own brand shower gel in a washed handwash bottle.

I guess it depends what you class as essentials. Hand wash and chips would be very low down my essentials list.

But they are now :)

What do you eat in a day? And where do you shop? We’re a family of 5 and I can’t see anyway we could manage to all eat 3 x meals a day for a month for £350?

It is absolutely eye watering the amount that an average no luxuries supermarket shop costs. The only thing I can suggest is to check whether there are any deals from using a credit card, for instance, my Halifax card often has deals at Morrison's. John Lewis gives you points too (nooo, this is just a fact, not advocating shopping at Waitrose).

Coffee cultivation has been really affected by climate change so prices are not going to get any cheaper. The only thing is to take any advantage of special offers.

Good for you because, we are a family of 8 and ours is £300 a month plus top up shops so probably about £500/£600 per month. When you have kids who eat completely different fruits and veg, one who doesn’t like plain water and will only drink flavoured water. We get a mix of branded and non branded and the branded (minus a few things) are only ever bought when on offer.

No good if you're batch cooking. You need the bigger pack to make four meals for five people. That includes bulking up with vegetables.