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 swear, bitch, grizzle and moan about it.

@WildEnergySupplier Have you forgotten the public sector two year pay freeze which George Osborne announced in 2010 - which was actually a 3 pay freeze for local government employees - followed by a 1% cap on annual pay rises thereafter?

LOL at growing tomatoes and planting an apple tree. Not everyone has a garden or an outdoor space

Anyway, back to more sensible suggestions

We tend to bulk buy. Eg offer from B and Q where dishwasher tablets (huge ones like 150 in each) they were 3 for 2 and discounted so we got 15 bags.

We have a huge chest freezer and we only buy meat and chickens etc from Aldi when on special offer. Same for veg eg frozen peas. We cook from scratch a lot and have own bread maker and soup maker and use them. We freeze left overs and use them for another meal. Bulk buy pasta, tea bags and rice etc

we have moved pretty much to Aldi now as well

I always check the price per litre/kilo etc on the shelf ticket, and make use of clubcard/nectar prices. I've currently quite a few brand names in the cupboards, but only because they were on offer and worked out cheaper than the store's own brand at that time.
I have really good local markets nearby but tbh don't find produce there is much cheaper than in the supermarkets, but i check them out regularly and do shop around.

I've hollow legged teens and dogs to feed but we're a meat-free household which definitely helps keep costs down. Thank fuck for lentils 🤣 Rarely buy alcohol, and treats if funds allow. We cut our cloth, basically, which people have done for millenia, but i really feel sorry for people who have young dcs/large rent or mortgage payments too - life overall is incredibly costly now.

Think I’d be really hungry if I had to only eat one meal a day.. but I envisage this being my future. 😥

I don’t do any of that stuff as I don’t have the time. I wish I could cook using pulses and meal plan and bulk buy but I don’t have the space to store anything and also have teenagers that decide they hate something, after previously saying it was lovely.

I also couldn’t eat just one meal a day either.

we both work hard and on paper earn enough money but I do not know how my neighbours are surviving as only one of them work. I don’t know how she is feeding them all every day. She does spend a lot of time shopping around. Everything is so so expensive.

I'm vegetarian and don't eat very much but my daughter has a physical job and hobbies so she naturally eats quite a lot more including meat and chicken. My concerns at the moment are around chicken as many supermarkets are moving away from high welfare chicken back to ones stuffed with growth hormones for a faster turnover. Chicken is so often a staple in people's diets and this change can hardly be beneficial.

I no longer buy loads of brands. Hardly eat myself, and feed the kids the protein.

We have cut out most junk food, no more alcohol, which we don't miss actually.
Only buy the more expensive stuff when it's on offer and switch to a cheaper version when it's not.

A friend of mine who has come from an Eastern Bloc country has always served soup everyday. Great idea for cutting down on costs and filling everyone up. I often have homemade soup as a main meal.
incidentally soda bread is quick and easy to make.

And yet… loads of people in the nhs are still struggling with col the same as you. Tells you all you need to know about their pay pre the increases you say shouldn’t have happened.

Your body adapts to it after a while. The hunger signals coincide with the times you eat, I can go the whole day without eating and I’ll only start to get hunger pangs around 5pm.

Save even more if you bought dried lentils, beans etc and soaked them overnight.

Write down for a full month every penny you spend. Look at how many extra treats /snacks you buy. Coffee outside etc. You will be amazed how it all adds up

A typical 400g tin contains about 100g of dried chickpeas, currently about £3/kg. Not massively cheaper, but they are very easy to prepare and cook quickly. As usual people are being very selective about what products they are comparing. The price of poultry and eggs has been affected by bird flu restrictions, which are still in force in some areas.

Only commenting as I haven't seen this suggested. We meal plan but eat the same thing two days in a row, so we only cook 3 times a week. E.g:

Sunday & Monday: shepherd's pie, Ragu, roast, sausages or chicken traybake, etc
Tuesday & Wednesday: Tarka dal, chickpea curry, lentils salads with nice cheese, frittata, shakshuka
Thursday & Friday: Tuna pasta/couscous/salad, or Lidl sell half sides of cooked salmon frozen so that with pasta, veg, traybake or rice & cucumber salad
Saturday: leftovers (often frittata with leftover veg, or cheap cheesy pasta, toasties)

So we cook double the amount on a Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday & eat it the next day too. We just reheat it in the microwave or oven and augment with steamed veg if necessary. We have 2 meat meals, 2 veg meals, and 2 fish meals plus a leftovers night per week. Some wouldn't like the repetitiveness but it means going longer between repeating meals in our rotation and I'm a good cook so it's all tasty. Means calorie counting is easier & less prep/meal planning time.

Our butchers is excellent & very inexpensive. Its not a posh butchers at all & looks dodgy from the outside but it's all outdoor bred pork, antibiotic free & free range chicken, no halal/kosher slaughter, not bulked out with water, all from the UK.

We also buy absolutely nothing out. No snacks before train journeys or coffees or meal deals or cream teas or anything. Takeaways are for birthdays if at all. We are more inclined to go all out cooking something really special with a £60-70 budget than spend £100+ on takeaway for the same number of people.

Prices will only go up when Reform get in and deport everyone doing the shit jobs for shit wages that British people don't want to do. We''ll either have to pay British people a lot more with the knock on rise in costs, or have food rotting in fields.
Or maybe those chlorine washed chickens from the USA will be cheaper

And you certainly cannot them only eat one meal a day.

The best way the government could step in is to reduce NI and various other taxes that have been raised/introduced in retail. Food retail makes very low single digit % profit margin.
The inflation in food has risen due to brexit etc and will only get worse when impacts of Iran war come through the supply chain.

Yes, exactly, and it's predicted to get much, much worse.

I'm fortunate I only have myself to feed and now only eat one meal a day. On the plus side I've lost weight!

Eat less. I survive on one nutritious meal a day
For a lot of people, that simply isn't healthy or sustainable. I eat nutritious meals but need three a day, and I have a sedentary job and am only moderately active in terms of exercise etc.

I noticed how much the tesco own brand toilet paper had gone up in the last few months. Honestly, it’s so hard out there. I am a single salary, only one child left at home but buying a house and even though I earn a good salary, I am far from well off. I’ll be well off when I retire, if I make it that far (DB pension)

Go buy a few more, it was reported last week coffee is increasing by 50 % by November

I was listening to an economist on LBC last week who predicted most items will be increasing by as much as 50% by the end of the year. It's really scary 😨...everything us increasing but wages stay the same.

I dont feel the pinch like others, do but i do feel sorry for them that do.
I live in a tiny flat i love it cheap rent and bills, no car no debt no Ccards no pets or kids.
But i have seen the price rise going up.
I do bulk buy once a month coffee long life milk,water and yazoos etc.