How do you cope with supermarket prices going up and up and up?

[WildEnergySupplier]

Just back from my big supermarket shop and I’m genuinely shocked at how much prices have gone up AGAIN.

It feels like every week there’s another increase - milk, bread, meat, vegetables, even the own-brand basics that used to be affordable. Things that were £2 to £2.50 about 4-5 years ago are now all about £4 to £4.50. It feels like since last summer, the prices have exploded.

I’m really struggling to keep the weekly food bill under control while everything else (energy, petrol, council tax etc etc) is still sky high.

This is despite the government telling us last week how brilliantly the economy is doing!! It certainly doesn’t feel like it to me. And I just heard on the radio that this navel gazing by-election is apparently costing us £5 million, as it will lead to another mayor election.

So many families are worrying about feeding their kids properly and keeping the heating on. How are the rest of you managing? Any clever tips for cutting costs without it feeling miserable? Are your shops coming in much more expensive too? I’d really appreciate hearing how others are coping because I’m starting to feel a bit despairing about it all. Thanks in advance.

I've switched from tesco, which is nearest me, to Lidl and have also switched to own brands for lots of stuff - coffee, mayo, sauces etc are so expensive if you buy branded stuff. I buy chicken legs, pork & salmon most weeks and fruit & veg, big bags of rice and pasta and plan meals around that, with a few veggie meals like bean chilli, daal, veggie & bean soup etc. I'm buying the cheapest loo roll and toiletries too - DH likes Head & Shoulders but I've bought the Lidl dupe and it's just as good. I find if I do a bit of meal planning, we have very little waste and I use up what we've got left in the fridge towards the end of the week in soups or pasta bakes.

It's so depressing working more, paying out the arse for childcare, taxed to the heavens and having to scrimp back on my fucking LIDL shop
How much more could I go!

I already do pasta meals, jacket spud meals and a meal of something on toast
I make my own bread and dough etc in breadmaker
Try and make my own cakes, samosas, flapjack, cheese biscuits where I have the time
Try to not buy UPFs
Make own yogurt in instant pot
I'm a decent cook otherwise

And what else is annoying is buying vegetables that go off within 5 minutes from lidl and aldi. Ive tried going to the market or buy from Asian shops or high St greengrocer but they're more expensive and don't think they're even local so what's the point lol

We eat veggie/vegan under £1 for a can of lentils, butter beans, black beans, kidney beans etc. so I think that helps I budget £500 a month for food.

Also meal planning helps a lot! It’s amazing how much that saves. And as others have said only buy ingredients not pre made food.

I went to the butcher on the weekend and bought enough beef chuck for a stew for 8 of us. Was £50. Madness,

Absolutely sure. I actually bought the Sainsbury's chicken earlier this week but couldn't justify the Waitrose one.

The ones I'm talking about are Free Range not organic.

I make savings elsewhere, where I can. No one in my house has paid for haircuts in the past 18 months, for example!

My employer has a pay freeze but they found some budget to give the employees a supermarket gift voucher of their choice for the next four months (company pays the tax on it). It’s not loads but it’s a nice gesture.

Sainsbury online shop minimum amount is now £50 from £40 in line with Tesco

Jesus

I'm also sick of veggies that don't last. Even from Sainsburys, which is our closest shop, carrots in particular last no time. Any tips for storage please?

Cutting out meat saves a fortune. We eat mostly rice, veg, beans, lentils, nuts, eggs and yogurt. That’s about it! Can’t afford anything else as hideous university costs to pay for 2 DDs.

Maybe don't shop in Waitrose and Sainburys then?

TBH I'm not sure that a whole animal should be less than £10/£12.

One of the problems is that we are used to very cheap food here. We spend a tiny proportion of income on food compared to either previous generations or other countries.

Vegan is the new vegetarian! And it’s not all quorn and felafels.

We’ve been vegetarian for years, but are now cutting right back on dairy. Saving a fair few quid. So many brilliant vegan cooks around its very easy to get good at a few recipes we have on repeat.

Sainsbury’s online is showing a free range 1.2kg chicken online for £8/kg = total price £9.60. Waitrose standard price is £8.76/kg. I don’t know what is going on in your local Waitrose/Sainsbury but online the most expensive chicken Waitrose have is a Duchy Organic, 1.2kg chicken for £16.76, and Sainsbury’s is £13.12. Even allowing for local variations, it’s surprising there would be a 28% difference.

Harris Markets (the Australian equivalent) is showing the same online for a special offer of £6 per kg, but the standard price is £7.20.

A standard whole chicken in Tesco is £2.71/kg, and in Coles is £2.14.

Not a massive difference there, and all other chicken prices appear to be higher over there.

This book —-> from BBC food has helped me: “101 cheap eats”.

Part of my issues with saving money is avoiding spontaneous purchases as i can no longer afford them. This book has helped me.

It has helped me plan better and once i know what we are having that week i don't buy a single thing outside those meal ingredients.

I am sure many people do this already.

I am perhaps a slow learner so I need a proper structure or I will go off piste very easily.

I am also very easily distracted by yellow stickers and “deals”.

Also, agree @WildEnergySupplier - food prices are ridiculous.

Frozen fruit and veg are so much cheaper.

Perhaps I could get them cheaper elsewhere. I live in a small town and my shopping in person opportunities are limited.

I've happily been paying £12 for a chicken until recently on the basis that you get what you pay for/I want the farmer to be paid the going rate.

My point really is about the recent jump in price from £12 to £18.

What was a fortnightly treat will now become a rare one.

A few ideas to cut costs.

Make your own bread. I make two large wholemeal loaves on a Sunday morning. Set the yeast to fizz when I make my first coffee at 7am, then mix the dough before I have a shower. By the time I've showered and dressed, it's ready to knead and put in tins. I leave it to rise while I do the weekly shop & put it in the oven when I get back. So actual effort is about 20 mins. I freeze one for later in the week. DS17 eats it as snacks. £1 a loaf.

Make soup to take to work for lunch. Leek & potato with a dash of Tabasco, celery & stilton. Basic vegetable soup. A good way to use up older veg. 60p rather than £5 buying a sandwich. Or home make Tsatsiki - really easy, 5 mins max, Eat with warm pittas.

Eat veggie once a week. I make mushroom risotto or veggie chilli with kidney beans.

Switch to wholemeal bread/pasta/brown rice. It's more filling.

DS is endlessly hungry so I make a cake most weeks - lemon drizzle or apple & cinnamon or a Victoria sponge. It cuts the number of biscuits he eats.

I have tomato & chilli plants in pots. Tomatoes will be ready by mid-June and I won't need to buy tomatoes from then until November, which will save me about £3 a week. I can grow enough chillies to last us the year.

We have an apple tree and I slice and freeze apples every autumn that I use in cakes and pies, usually enough to last the year. I make blackberry & apple jam to last the year as well. Works out 5p per jar.

Thanks @BoredZelda that is odd. I've just looked online too and see you're spot on.

Something's clearly not right in my local shop. I'll look again and ask when I'm next in.

Another great book is this. My copy is more than 15 years old, but it’s still relevant.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-feed-your-whole-family/dp/1905862156

2nd hand copies are from £2.70 on Amazon. Well worth a read.

I am trying not to overthink prices in the shops because it was just feeling like an unending wave after wave of bad news. It is what it is, and I can’t do anything about it, so I try to put my focus on what I can actually do iyswim.

I’ve become hugely conscious of waste. Not just food waste (especially when I have to pay for it again in bin charges) but also energy costs too. I try and do one big oven cooking session at the weekend. This weekend I roasted three chickens, stuffing, veg, potatoes and root veg (dinner, and lunch meat) I’ll do extra baked potatoes, a few loaves of bread (freeze some ) or rolls, a couple of tray bakes (freeze one and cut up the other for snacks and lunches). Half the veg got blitzed with chicken stock, lentils and cashew nuts as soup. It won’t all fit in the oven at once, but I’m only heating up and cooling down once. Cookies will cook on the cool down so I have the dough pre made and frozen to throw a few in at the end (I do this with the air fryer too)

I got a slicer in the middle aisle of Lidl or Aldi a while back so I slice up my own lunch meats which saves a lot compared to the deli meats. It’s a bit of a faff, so I only do it every six weeks or so. I’d be lost without my freezer. I used to just slice up meat with a sharp knife but it would be hot and miss whether it would pass muster with the dc. I can get it much thinner and uniform now and no one has objected.

I stock up bargains but only what we actually do use and eat. I keep a list of price per kg on my phone so I can quickly check if something is a real bargain or not. I built up a 12 week stockpile since lockdown, so I can ride out the artificial price hikes that come before the fake bargains (I see you Tesco).

Those cheap tins of chickpeas tend to be processed and have additives in them for firmness. I sometimes wonder how good for you they really are

You don't have to rock up with a lorry 😁

Order from Wessex mills https://wessexmill.co.uk/ You can get it on mail order. A 16kg sack makes 24 large loaves, which lasts us 12 weeks. After adding the cost of yeast and running the oven, works out as £1 a loaf.

Had a few withering comments from the DPD driver though

Climate change is also a forgotten part of food inflation - that is certainly why things like olive oil, coffee and chocolate have shot up in price.

I swear by using cooking bacon that I get from B and M or Lidl. £1.30-1.70 for a kilo. Half for pea and ham soup packed with peas, lentils and veg and half for carbonara. Farmfoods do Grahams butter 10x250g packs for £10 so I stock up on that. I get big box of eggs of eggs every week from my local food waste place (between£2-4 for 24). and mix equal cottage cheese and eggs with fridge stuff like ham/chicken/cooked veg/cheese and bake a large frittata type thing for one meal and packed lunches. Boiled eggs for packed lunches. B and M often have massively reduced blocks of cheese and I have 4-5 in the freezer that were 20p. But again Farmfoods does cheese very reasonably priced, same with bulk pasta and rice. Grow my own cut and cut again salad leaves in the green house .

the pets have all been reduced down to own brand food and cheapest litter. I only use vosene shampoo and a certain toothpaste so I stock up in bulk when I find it.

Supermarkets are also profiteering - I've seen things on shelves go up by at least 50p overnight, the same items that were on the shelf the day before so haven't cost more to produce, transport or be placed on shelves!

Plus we are all paying for the shoplifters, with no deterrents the supermarkets just add the losses into price increases.