To be seriously worried that the cost of food is getting so scarily high

[thebird]

I am not extravagant I buy shop own brands where I can, I try to shop on a budget, I cook from scratch and have given up buying extras like wine (well just the odd bottle to keep me sane) but still each week the cost of my food bill goes up and up. I know inflation is running at around 4-5% but I cant understand this as many basic items have increased almost 30-50%. When the hell is it going to stop or I really will be living on beans on toast every night(and even they've gone up lots!

We started menu planning to make sure we weren't wasting food or buying unecessarily. Sticking to it rigidly, we're still spending at least £10 a week more than we were say a year ago, when we weren't menu planning. It's tough - you have to eat so you can only compromise so far. I'm pleased to see so many other posters raising the issue of rent/mortgage costs - that's what really cripples households.

Haven't had time to read the whole thread, but YANBU.

I've decided to stop growing cheap veg like potatoes or onions in my garden and to turn the beds over to fruit, which is so expensive to buy in the shops. We already have blueberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb, and I'm maybe going to add a few other things too. Fruit is surprisingly easy to grow, especially if you live in a wet place and don't have hosepipe problems (I'm in the west of Scotland, so you can probably imagine...). If you can spare just a little bit of time a week (and I honestly don't go into the garden from one end of the week to the next) for maintenance, feeding, pruning etc, you could easily grow enough for a family in a fairly small space - we have strawberries in a window box, blueberries in pots etc.

Thanks deemented and to the original author! Its always good to get new ideas.

The principles are the same as my monthly plan in that roast on sunday being stretched to several meals. I try to get the meals to follow logically from one another so if we have bacon pasta then have bacon jacket spuds the day after to save wastee. I have to plan in advance to do this effectively though!

Risottos and pilafs sre great when economising. You can get bags of frozen cocktail sausages for £1 in Asda which are ideal for that kind of thing.

Good idea about doing a pudding to provide a more filling meal. Trying to convince DP that meat free dinners will still be nice but hes not convinced but perhaps he'll be more compromising if he gets an apple crumble on those days!

TSC I didn't use the tinned potatoes either, memories of rock hard, bitter taties from my childhood put paid to that idea

Another one who's started growing your own

Have been seriously thinking of turning front garden over to veg (like on quietish sub road). Do you think people would nick it? Or it's too weird?

We have decided to only have coffee on weekends, and tea throughout the week. We spend 60$/month on coffee (12$/kg), cream, and filters. By making it weekends only, I hope to cut that cost in half.

I have my veg in the front garden, and so do my parents. It's a great way of making space of land that otherwise is wasted. We've never had anyone nick anything, but you do get lots of comments about the health of your vegetables!

In fact, I was just thinking this morning - are lawns luxuries that we can't afford any more? The amount of my garden given over to lawn could produce an awful lot more veg for us.

Which do you think are the best value veg to grow? I'm doing mini cucumbers, basil, chillis and tomatoes again next year in the greenhouse - haven't found aubergines or peppers prolific enough to be worthwhile this year.

Courgettes, lots of salad leaves, herbs (never buy any now), will try spinach again - not sure what else.

Spuds & onions take up alot of space and take a long time I don't think they are worth it.

Please could someone send me the £30 meal plan? Thanks.

This is the first year we have grown Veg but we dont have enough space to supply us with veg all year , although i picked a courgette today that was big enough to feed a small family for a week . We have had loads of courgettes and Peas did really well earlier in the summer, now waiting for carrots and beans.

GM that made me, precisely who needs a lawn, we can't eat grass.
Out neighbours have their vegetable patch in the front garden, we live right opposite of them, they are lovely elderly couple, who work tirelessly in their garden, as far as I know no one around here objects, and plus every once in while we get a bag fresh vegetable.
Runner beans, spring onion, herbs etc.

Marne, flower of a courgette it's delicious deep fried, perfectly edible and taste wonderful.

Could I have the meal plan please too. I do meal plan already but always good to have new ideas.

A tip I have picked up is to half the amount of washing powder and add some soda crystals to the wash so you still get the nice smell but the soda crystals are cheap as chips and clean well.

Please could someone pm me the £30 meal plan. TIA!

We are struggling also, can't believe how much food as gone up in the last few months.

My problem is DH is dairy intolerant and DS is dairy, wheat and gluten intolerant. Everything free from is so expensive. DS does have prescription food such as the severity of his intolerance.

Add to that a growing (eating all the time) teenager and myself it gets expensive! I find the farm shops around here are too expensive. Am considering a veg box when DD goes back to school (the veg box company deliver there).

Oh and DH is fussy as well I would live on beans on toast, egg on toast but no DH can't do that, throws a hissy fit if he has to eat beans on toast for dinner 'but I've had a hard day at work' ffs.

Rant over lol

Could someone PM me the £30 meal planner too please?

I've been reading this with interest. We're not struggling to be honest, but only because we are very frugal and have been for years. Things are tighter now than they used to be but because we were always careful it isn't too bad. DH is at risk of redundancy though so it might be getting a whole lot tougher soon...

The two single things that have made a massive difference to us are a breadmaker (donkeys years old but still going strong) and a slow cooker (£12 from Asda). When I buy a loaf of bread in the shops I am amazed at the price. Something decent, but just a wholemeal sliced, nothing fancy is £1+. With our breadmaker its about 30p I think, especially if on the rapid setting so it doesn't take as long in terms of the electricity.

I get almost everything at Aldi, its really worth a trip if you've never tried it. About 5 years ago if I confessed to friends that I bought my groceries from Aldi they looked a bit embarrassed and assumed we must be dirt poor, now the same friends are shopping there and they love it!
Things I really rate in Aldi:

Nappies (size 3 and up) - Really excellent, about 45 nappies for £4.99, no leaks
Blueberries - When they are in the super 6 they are 69p for 125g, usually 99p I think
Grapes - can't remember the price but a lot cheaper than Asda
Fresh British chicken drumsticks - 750g, usually 6-8 drumsticks for £1.69
Fresh British chicken thighs - 750g, usually 6 for £1.99
Tinned chunky chopped tomatoes - 33p, nice and not as acidic as Asda own brand
Red kidney beans - 16p/tin
Belmont choc chip cookies - just like the Maryland branded ones, 40p/pack
Fish fingers - £1.49 for 15 (pollock not cod)
Almat Bio Washing Powder - £3.29 per 2.4kg (they say its 30 washes at 10.9p per wash but I use half that amount which makes it just over 5p per wash)
Magnum All In One Dishwasher Tablets - £3.99 per 40 pack, refuse to buy anywhere else now

Sadly they have just stopped doing Jive biscuit bars, basically fake twix's, they were SO good.

My top cleaning tips are:
A spray bottle filled with water and about 3 capfuls of white vinegar will clean almost anything (except chrome plated taps)
NEVER buy washing powder tablets, its always cheaper to buy the loose powder. Then you can put in as much or as little as you want and its cheaper to buy to start with.

Bob Flowerdew (from Gardeners' Question Time) says that the biggest problem with growing your own is that people don't grow what they like to eat. He suggests starting off by writing down all the vegetables you buy and how much they cost, and then working out from that what you need to grow. He says if you've got a small plot, don't do potatoes or onions, do grow fruit, especially soft fruit, and then grow the rest that you like. You also need to work out what takes up a lot of space for a long time, and think about not growing those (e.g. I reckon I could get two quick crops of lettuce in the time that leeks take to sit in the ground).

We find that because the weather's so variable, you can't tell from one year to another what'll do well, so you need to plant a variety and accept you'll have a glut of one and very few of another.

We currently have courgettes, beans, a few tomatoes, spinach and lettuce. For winter I've got in pak choi and celeriac, plus am freezing the beans that we have spare.

Right. Dammit. I'm Going to Do it. Next weekend I'm digging up the front lawn.

Feels naughty.

Breadmaker? That's interesting. We have one, and I use it a lot for things like pizza dough, but when I make a loaf, although it's way cheaper to make the bread, I only seem to get about 7 slices out of it, so I'm not convinced I'm actually saving any money. Though obviously it's much lovelier to eat than white sliced .

Would love if someone could PM me the mealnplan please!

Also: how does everyone deal with meat? It's expensive, I could cook for a third less at least if I went mainly vegetarian. The thing is that my DH is one of these people who think it's not really a meal unless there is meat in it. So we're currently having chicken pretty much every day because it's cheap. I'm starting to hate chicken! And the fact that I can't afford a haircut other than a DIY job because of it.

We're currently having to save like crazy so that we can emigrate next year. Which we're only actually doing because we'd each like a PhD and tuition fees in Switzerland are roughly £800 / year as opposed to £9000. Crazy world where people go to Switzerland because it's cheaper!

Midnight Have you got a decent bread knife? I 'upgraded' my basic one to a better quality one and now I can manage thinner slices and I get more out of every loaf. Some breadmakers do make very small loaves though, mine makes a decent size but I still do a loaf every second day.
Can't imagine how much I'd spend on bread otherwise though. DH takes sandwiches to work and when the DDs are taking them to school when they are older I'll be haemorrhaging money on bread buying shop bread!

Go for it pickgo!

Soft fruit definitely. We got heaps of blackcurrants from our single bush this year and I've just bought another one. My cousin has 7 and could hardly keep up with them this year! I'm also thinking about doing gooseberries (yuk, but the others like them).

Strawberries send out so many suckers that once you've bought your first few plants, if you pot up suckers each year and then build up a rotation (ie replace plants after 2-3 years), you'd never need to buy another plant.

Rhubarb's great for winter fruit.

I'm thinking of growing step-over apples

Make sure you net fruit as it ripens to avoid the birds swiping the lot.

There's also all the lovely FREE fruit from hedgerows etc. We got enough wild blueberries for a crumble last week, and also obviously there are tons of blackberries almost everywhere at this time of year. Recommend the River Cottage 'hedgerow' book for foraging. It's a great thing to do with the DC at weekends too!

maybe I need to invest in a new knife then. I have wondered whether I should appeal to Lakeland to produce one of those breadcutting machines that you see in French boulangeries! I bet there would be a market for them.