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!

Is the health risk from margarine really that big?

I like our fish monger and just got salmon there today. 3.50 for one fillet. In ice land I can get 4 for 6 pounds, so it's not really feasible to shop at small shops very often

Another approved food fan here, and our freezer is full of stuff with yellow stickers from co-op, and, bizarrely, m+s - they do excellent reductions anyway, and DH works there so we get a further 20% off as well. Plus the local greengrocers is right next to the bus stop, so I quite often go and fill up my little old lady shopping trolley with whatever is on offer :)

Looking forward to DD1 starting school dinners, so we have one less bit of clarting about - although DD2 will still need packed lunches for nursery. I find that we spend a disproportionate amount on the packed lunches when it is only the girls - I think it is the tiny portions that cost more. We try to freeze things in tiny portions but it doesn't always happen, so we have a big portion of frozen whatever, then it is half eight in the morning and we end up sending in those tiny tins of pasta which are meant to be the emergency backup. The old nursery was better, where they essentially did school dinners, and just mashed it up for the babies, but this one you have to send something micrwavable, which strikes me as really ineffecient tbh.

We're weirdly lucky in this one respect, in that my health means the girls have to go to nursery part time as sometimes I am too ill to look after even myself, but a lot of the time I am fine to go wandering round shops or shopping online, so I can search out bargains. We don't spend anything on holidays, cars (except I suppose DHs bus pass), clothes for the girls (due to hand me downs and the odd present from doting grandparents), house repairs (although our rent is higher than a mortgage) and so on, so we have a fairly stable amount to spend on food etc. Still, at least once a week I sit there with a calculator, calendar, online banking and the supermarket websites, trying to fit everything together. We have a complex system of different bank accounts for different things, to stop us accidently spending the rent or whatever, but I need to keep right on top of it - just the phone bill being slightly higher can mess everything up. I was in hospital recently and my ward was a half hour uphill walk from the small little used bus stop, and the weather was awful, so if DH was visiting me before work, he would have to get a taxi for that last bit, which in itself was an hour and a half from our house on the bus. That and my mobile phone bill from the hospital, as well as the bits and bobs I needed, meals in cafes if I was allowed out etc, meant that now, two months after I got out, our finances are still very near the bone, despite the kids staying at my mums all that time and DH being out of the house as well as me, so hardly any fuel etc costs. When things like that happens, and the extra costs are more than our tiny "luxuries" budget, it is food that gets squeezed, because, well, you can't just pay less rent.

I really really want to do a food co op/group buying type thing, but it's the organisation that is the issue. Actually, what I want is a big commune, but that is another story.

Shopping in small independent shops is all very well and ethical, and as much as I would love to support the local farmers and local/national food industry, it's just not financially feasible.
Don't even start me on "Farmers market" locally sourced food that cost arm and leg, surely point of a local market is to be accessible and reasonably priced for local people, well it's not and in fact first and last time I went, I was under impression that farmers were having a laugh.
Albeit left with empty bags, farmer's market is not for my pocket, it's not deep enough.
Local fishmonger charges extortion for a very little fresh fish, so does the local butcher, the only one that is reasonable to a degree is local greengrocer, who if you come to buy of him at around closing time, will give you lot's of staff much cheaper.
Trick is to buy different things from different places, constantly keeping an eye on the cost, it is possible to eat fresh food rather then processed, but it does involve fine art of smart shopping, preparing and cooking.
As for myself, in the last year or so, since we fallen on hard times I became much better cook, I experiment these days I actually like food that I prepare and most importantly rest of the family enjoy my coking, and there are no leftovers.

Archie I am pretty much aware of shopping on saturday, but after a week of working do I have to? Can't I just have fun with my children at the weekend?

The supermarkets are guilty of all the things you have said, but they also allow women to work and to have families.

Intreresting.

Choredodger, please may I have your £30 meal plan?

I feed 4 adults and 2 cats and have noticed that my food bill has gone up by about £20 per week.

I notice how all the unhealthy stuff is on offer but the basics are rising in price. Not far from where I live there is a high street that is full of takeaways, chip shops etc. With all the competition it can be cheaper to feed 4 adults from one of their specials than to cook a cheap meal from scratch e.g large chips, rice and curry sauce 99p. 2 portions feeds 4. Although my family doesnt do it, we see a lot that do.

I used to buy fruit & veg from street markets -I went along late on a Sat afternoon & they'd be selling bags for ridiculous amounts, like a pound for 6 punnets of strawberries just to get rid of it, & the stallholders were great entertainment. I used to feel pathetically flattered getting called "love" & "darlin" when getting an extra grapefruit chucked in!

Also I loved pick your own places for getting masses of fruit & a nice relaxing time out in the fresh air. Theoretically I'd prefer to buy organic, locally produced fruit & veg but it's not a practical option. I no longer have access to markets or pick your own & have not eaten certain fruits for years cos I can't afford them where I live now: Australia - ridiculous grocery prices here as has been mentioned & one of the worst places for pesticide levels fruit & veg.

I think being able to cook helps to keep the costs down. I cook everything from scratch, and although I go to the supermarket 2-3 times a week, I tend to look in the "bargain" bit and tailor our dinners round that.
But it is still costing us a fortune to shop and eat.

I'm going to read this thread in full over the weekend, when I'm less tired and more sober. The topic scares me, as I've already done a vertiginous transition from rich to poor. If I have to make an equivalent transition again, I will need survival advice, never mind budgeting. And I think it is heading that way.

I lived for two years in a country where inflation was 30% a month. You had to spend your wages as soon as you got them - and wisely because, if you hadn't bought everything you needed (and in a form that would last the month), stuff would be 30% more expensive by the last week. It was ridiculous. All anybody ever talked about was prices and bargains.

So: since this is mumsnet, and we're all middle-classy , here are the differences between Rich Me (past) and Poor Me (present).

Bugger healthy provenance. I am an omnivore, with carnivorous leanings. I used to buy only eggs where I knew exactly how happy a life the hens led; shopped at a free-range butcher; drank only organic milk; used mostly organic veg.
All that's gone by the board: my diet's more important than happy meat & veg. I am distressed about the amount of added chemicals in my 'poor' diet, but can't afford to worry about that now.
However, if I were feeding young childre, I would give them organic dairy produce.

I use Quorn as a meat padder, and soya mince as a general padder. Rich Me wouldn't use soya products, due to various concerns about farming and worker ethics, but Poor Me says sod all that, I need cheap food! I gave up growing veg, as it's just not ergonomic; either I had to spend a fortune on chemicals to keep 'em happy and the bugs at bay, or I raised a crop of stuff that the wildlife ate before I even saw the final version. So I buy frozen, dried and budget. Frozen fruit, veg and herbs are healthier than the other options (including 'fresh' from supermarket) but I buy what works out cheapest.

There's an Aldi where I live. I buy whatever they've got in. I buy NOTHING any more from Waitrose, M&S or Morrison's, though I would if I could get to Morrison's at 5.30pm when they sticker the reductions. If you haven't got an Aldi or Lidl, you should shop (online if not local) at Asda. Your weekly shop can be halved, honestly!

Forget about brands. For things that matter, read review sites -Aldi and Asda often come up tops for things like skincare and babycare. They know what pulls in their core markets, and they spend money on getting the right products. Same, actually, with wine and other treats like chocolate. Once you stop being obsessed by known brands, you soon learn who does it best and for the best price (answer: Aldi, Asda, Tesco, Lidl)!

I've learnt to wear fluffy slippers in the house, have a supply of comfy cardigans - am wearing one now, and it's only August! - and to use hot water bottles. In winter, it is cheaper to keep your heating on full-time (I checked this with some heating engineers.) The optimum temperature is 16dec.C. I tested this last winer (I'm on a pay meter, so can see what I'm using although it's more expensive.) The advice was correct - it reduced my bills and, even better, kept the house tolerably warm except during sever cold snaps.

Nobody drives any more anyway, do they? Petrol's absurdly expensive, and diesel's not that much better. Thank god for the internet and Skype, otherwise I'd never 'see' anyone! That is going to get worse: a lot worse. In reality, there's tons of oil left (I mean a very lot, not literally 'tons'!) but the power game over supplies has almost reached crisis point. We will have to suffer unimaginably before this game plays out. Prepare to wear many socks.

Thinking about fuel economy (as you do when you're poor and on a meter), it's a hell of a lot cheaper to use your slow cooker, microwave and electric grill thing to preapre food. Plus, those methods preserve more of the nutrients. Win-win. Cooker almost redundant, except for roasts and fry-ups :)

Blimey, I've written an economy essay!
Sorry, everybody. I must have needed to get it all out! (And still could add more ... extra )

When I go to the supermarket, I go with a list AND I add the price of everything up on my list as I put it into the basket. Sometimes I have to put things back before going to checkout.

I tend to buy my fruit veg and my meat in independant shops and it does work out cheaper. I can buy exactly what I need each day and not what the supermarket has pre-packed for me.

Dinner, I've got those sachet things that absorb the ethylene (??) given off by fruit & veg as thy ripen. Keeps your stuff in a state of suspended freshness for weeks

Dinner???! Dione! I've got dinner on the brain

For a long time, DH and I got by on a meager budget. A job change meant we could afford nicer food. Now I feel like I have raised my standards but can't afford to keep them.
We got in the habit of buying blueberries, blackberries, and such. This would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Instead I would have got off my duff, and picked them wild myself.
I got in the habit of buying them, because so often they were on special.
When we could start to afford things like nice cheeses, wines and stuff, we bought them.
After so long of struggling, it is nice to have the nicer things.
As the prices go up, the more careful I have to be. I know I am going to have to cut out a lot of stuff I am used to now, and part of me is sad about having to go back, but I know it will be better for the budget, and better for my figure
.

Mirage, where I live, on the west coast of Scotland, we just don't have the climate or a long enough season for things like peppers or aubergines, mostly we don't even have the climate to grow outdoor tomatoes or cucumbers. There just isn't enough hear or even enough dry days . I have tried to grow aubergines every year for the last 8 years with no success at all, what happens is that they just come into flower (not every year, even) right at the end of the season and have no time to set any fruit, the peppers don't even get that far. This year, I didn't even bother to try pumpkins or squash because they have never worked either. The only people that I know who have had any success at all with things like that are people with heated and lit greenhouses.

This year, my entire cucumber crop has failed and my tomatoes have set a ton of flowers but haven't developed any fruit, yet, and it's now too cold and the days getting too short for them to do so. I'm gutted, actually, because I love homemade tomatoes and pickled cucumbers and now I won't have any .

I think someone made a good point ages ago, in that that they had already been scrimping with food before the large price hikes.

I have never ever in my life been to a supermarket and just chucked in what I fancied. I was always in awe of those who did

DH does not like mince or tomato dishes but push comes to shove he would eat anything but never enjoy those dishes we could spread out which is a shitter when he works hard to earn the money he does.

I actually have margeruite pattens book from the war so think I will have a go at making things from that next week when we get paid.

Fruit is interesting. One it's pretty tasteless these days (we do grow things in our garde by the way!) but also I think you get 6 apples in one of those pound bags - there are only 3 of us so for us all to have one apple a day would cost £4 a week to buy enough to cover that. (have I worked that out right? )

We don't buy cakes/biscuits as none of us are interested in those anyway. We don't buy any alcohol etc either.

I know one thing that has been worse has been using the bank card instead of cash so from MOnday i am going to go back to taking the cash out. But we basically have the same amount to spend on food/all household things as we did 5 years ago except now there is an extra mouth.

BUT, 1n 1996 I moved down south with my then boyfriend who was a useless lazy layabout and we had no money for ages. We used to spend £10 a week on shopping then for the two of us. It was the year of the great baked bean war and Tesco value beans were 3p a tin. We used to go through seperate check outs so we could buy the maximum and I remember at one point we had 18 tins of beans in our cupboards - but nothing else lol. We bought value bread which was 9p, value toilet roll and value tinned corned beef and a massive sack of potatoes. We would make a huge corned beef hash that would last us at least half of the week - I still can't eat corned beef hash to this day but we would chuck all sorts in it that we got reduced.

NOw though our local supermarket tends to reduce things by 20p and it is all grey and death looking so hardly worthwhile anyway

oh and value corned beef in a tin was about 39p - how much is it now?

Has anyone said freezing extra portions? We try to make extra of everything and freeze it, especially if on offer. I have a huge pan of mashed potato with leek to make today, due to a greengrocer bargain.

I miss Preston market. Even the Grainger market is nothing in comparison. I used to have four fruit and veg stalls to choose from, and one even delivered. Plus there was a stall dedicated to bananas where you could get a carrier bag of bruised ones for 50p. Loads of butchers stalls too, where you could ask advice on cheap cuts, and proper fish stalls. There was a stall dedicated to cheese, and even a posh deli, and of course gary the sikh (that is just his name in Preston, he knows it too) with his stall where he had most spices and could get you anything else. Ooh, and the health food shop with a million types of flour. Then obviously the usual bargain shops and a freezer shop round the edges, and that was just the bottom floor - top floor was non food, then the two outdoir markets too. Then on top of that the usual shops in the town too.

Sigh. Chorley had a good market too. Have never seen a decent market in the North East. Any recommendations would be great.

Has just occured to me that I've not really given the Grainger market a chance. It is a bus and metro away, but I have nothing better to do with my time and an insulated bag on wheels.

I remember our Christmas treat when I was little was a full shopping trolley at ASDA.

But then somehow my family seemed to still think there was a war on in 1990. We used to have a bath once a week in a plastic box in front of the gas fire. We had a bath and running water, so no idea why that happened :-)

Now my mum refuses to freeze extra portions because she doesn't want people to think she is poor. I don't know who she thinks will be going through her freezer.

Things are tight here too. We used to shop monthly - £100 for two of us for the month, plus £10-£15 top ups for fresh fruit and alcohol. Always had a freezer full of food and the cupboards were literally groaning.

Not now. There's still the two of us, but we've added two more . A couple of years ago I started looking at what we were buying and started to move to own brand and value products. Over the past couple of years I have managed to persuade DH that we really can manage on non-branded goods and that we won't die from eating them.

Even now, my weekly shop costs over £100. That does include meat, nappies and some cleaning products, but I haven't bought fresh or frozen fish for a long time. I've started going to poundland for things like loo rolls, bin bags, etc. Eggs come from the farm just up the road - they are cheaper than tesco and free range. I do my own baking and I don't buy bread - that's something I make. The cost of bread flour has doubled in the last six months.

The only other supermarket we have in town is Waitrose and I simply cannot afford to shop there. Shopping at independent shops is a fantastic idea, but not something that I could do. I have a two-year old in tow and the complexity of shopping in town with him wanting to be carried, along with x bags of shopping (that will have cost me twice as much as the supermarket), and the logistics of transporting all back the the carpark - one that I have had to pay for - makes the task impossible.

Aldi made a planning application to open a supermarket here, which was vetoed by the council following huge protest from members of the public. My nearest Lidl is 13 miles away, and Aldi 7 miles away. Tesco is literally around the corner - 2 minutes drive if the traffic lights are with me. I can walk there in 10 minutes....this is probably why we don't have a corner shop any more.

One point - buying bags of fruit usually means that you get smaller fruit, which lasts longer. Buying, say, four apples loose will get you 4 thundering great big ones, costing almost as much as the bagged fruit, and which the children won't eat - they take a bite or two, but are a bit overfaced by it.

Prices have risen a lot over the past 3 years or so. In addition to that 3 of my kids have grown and require 'adult sized' meals so essentially we have to shop for 5 adults and 1 kid.

I have a slow cooker, which is great for cheaper cuts of meat eg beef brisket, cheaper cuts of pork, stewing beef and of course stews and that can be bulked out with lentils/pulses.

If we have a chicken on a sunday we make a stock afterwards and use that for soup and I will do that with some home made bread.

Minced beef is a lifesaver, we can do 1001 interesting things with beef

Regarding baking, with the cost of eggs at the moment I don't really see a cost saving there TBH and in the supermarkets it's cheaper (for us) to use value/basics ranges.

And I do try and get down to home bargains for cleaning stuff and toiletries.

This year we have gone into vegetable production (potatoes, carrots and beans) and that has made quite a difference to our food bill. Our first potato crop wasn't huge but we got a months worth of potatoes out of it - our second 'mega' crop will be ready in a couple of weeks.

We've also got 2 chicks and in a few weeks they should start laying, so having 'free' eggs will be quite a boon.

bitterandtwistedchoredodger - Thank you for the £30 a week menu, we are given it a go starting today. Im quite impressed that breakfast and lunch are included in the budget, as well as a pudding.

Anyone have any good cheap ideas of packed lunches? between DH for work, and 2 DCs going back to school my shopping bill is going to rise massively in September.
Anyone think its cheaper to buy school meals?
DCs have had lunch box for so long, I do not even know how much the school meals are?

Put an extra £10 in the gas meter yesterday - we are going to put extra in each week now, to prepare for the winter, which has been predicted as the coldest yet

Looking for fluffy bootie slippers for me and the DCs at the moment, my mother thinks Im nuts We shelled out at least £35 a week gas in the bad weather last year, with an 18% increase on that.
Will nearer the time made a massive pan [its nearer the size of a bucket than a pan] of Cawl and freeze loads of it

Being born in the early 70's we had little budget, foodwise we had basic homemade foods which included liver, lambs hearts etc, chicken was a absolute luxury (not value cheap like today), small portions and NO SNACKING!

Yet trawl around the vast supermarkets there are thousands of rubbish products and you can see people pouring non foods into their trolleys - coke, biscuits, sweets etc. So IMO people still cant buy what is necessary and must take up a big portion of their budget on complete crap.

The quality of lots of stuff is rubbish its sub standard and contains terrible ingredients which are no good for us. The supermarkets are making out that Value prodcts are the same but in many categaries its rubbish you cant get the same for half the price.

To keep low prices you have to instill factory farming and mass production. I for one is sick of poor basic food stuffs like tasteless carrots, spuds and some non ripe fruit. But then farmers have grow fast growing quick production stuff.

Think its nieve to say it should be capped, its all economies of scale. Demand and costs have risen. The supermarkets are the only ones making a fortune as believe me the man producing the food isnt any better, he is still living on a tight budget, many farmers are living just above provety, their fuel, manpower, overheads have also increased.

Still there is food waste in this country because the supermarkets want standard sizes (class A) so many veg & fruit is thrown as it doesnt fit the packet. Read about it! As for meat, the supermarkets want animals to strictly conform with class and conformity. Otherwise they pay less for a bigger healthy animal as the potions wont fit their standard pack sizes.

Food is available 24 hours and at every corner of the street. Shopping for better quality at farmers markets is more cost effective and because its cheaper somewhere, its cheaper for a reason....give it some thought.

School meals here are just short of 2pounds a day, so 10pounds a week per child.

What I used to do when the kids were in school was put soup, stew or similar in the slow cooker overnight. In the morning, it went into food flasks for the kids to take to school, along with some hm bread/savoury flapjack, a bit of fruit or a yoghurt and a biscuit/muffin/traybake . Always baked enough of those to last a few days at a time. Sometimes, I got up a bit earlier and cooked pasta and sauce for the flasks, sometimes beans and hotdogs.

In the summer, the kids took things like slices of quiche, cold frittata, pancake pizza, pasta salad and the like.

It was definitely cheaper than paying 10quid a day for 5 school dinners.

Nobody drives any more anyway, do they? Petrol's absurdly expensive, and diesel's not that much better. Thank god for the internet and Skype, otherwise I'd never 'see' anyone! That is going to get worse: a lot worse. In reality, there's tons of oil left (I mean a very lot, not literally 'tons'!) but the power game over supplies has almost reached crisis point. We will have to suffer unimaginably before this game plays out. Prepare to wear many socks.

Sadly not always a option though we already do the socks and blanket thing and hold off putting the heatiung on ,I need oil not only or heating but for my hot water

And yes thats my problem I now have 2 dc eating adult size portion

School dinners are £2 here and portion size is daft as in way to small