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!

Bananas £9-10 a kilo

local cafe has a sign in the window 'no cash or bananas held on premises'

fOOD PRICES ARE ABOUT BASIC LIVING. cAMERON SHOULD GET ON THE CASE

LaraKitten it was a joke FGS! I thought you were laughing at yourself and I was joining in good-naturedly. Now I wonder, perhaps the spreadsheet use was a clue after all re. a total lack of sense of humour. Quelle surprise!

We do ok here but budget quite a bit and shop mainly aldi etc basing food on what opisthotonos on special. It's how I've always been but I get a bit scared that if we have to cut more I shall be stuffed :-(

agree, i "nipped" in asda for nappies and just a few other bits and it cost £23 i sat there for 5 minutes double checking my receipt as i just couldn't believe what it came to.

have started a similar thread actually re the cost of EVERYTHING.

Good points gaagh, I meant you can buy it half price online and all your problems are solved!

Good as gold. Well it is your choice isn?t it. To shop or not on a Saturday. Just shop online. Now that is feminism in action. Freedom from bus fares and trudging with kids etc!

Yes because of course everyone who uses spreadsheets has no sense of humour.

Please do not turn a nice supportive thread into a snippy one

we would LOVE hens Mrs baggins and ducks lol. Not sure if we are allowed them and my main concern is what do we do with them when we go away (IF we go away I mean lol)

Anyway this thread has spurred me on to go on a better drive with my money and go back to having the separate purse for the shopping money as that def helped me, even if it sounds very old fashioned - i do not care!

D

oops posted too soon.

Does anyone know what veg we could plant now please?

We keep our hens down the side of our house, we have turned it into a long run which they love. We never have a problem getting people to house sit, and fresh eggs are an added bonus.

I am not sure if they are actually cheaper as you need to set them up with a home and feeders.

There are some cultural things I've picked up in Japan that are quite useful.
Fruit has always been extortionate here (you can pay 100 quid for a single mango!!Usually as a gift, but still...)
So for example, a single large apple costs 1 pound in the cheapest supermarket! What the Japanese do is buy that apple, peel it, then cut it into little 2 inch squares, place it on an attractive dish with toothpicks in it, and then the children dive for it. My kids think apples are brilliant , whereas I still think they're the most boring fruit ever.

That is, of course, if you can be arsed. They do the same for lunchboxes. A Japanese mother would never give her child a whole apple for lunch, but would do the same cutting into squares thing, then divide it among her children and pop it in a little container.

I'm sure there are loads of things like this you can do. Come to think about it, it is hard for a child to finish off a whole apple.

oh and I agree with Archie, supermarkets are so not feminist!! They're the biggest exploiters of women: from the women picking coffee or flowers in the fields of Africa and INdia for a pittance, right through to the women of the rich world who are shunted into the dead end pink ghetto of cash-registry work, the concept of supermarket is the most female unfriendly concept ever

That Approved foods site looks amazing. Thank you to whoever linked to it.

I've grown my own strawberries, tomatoes and potatoes this year and plan on growing more next year. The great thing is I bought one tomato plant for £1.50 and I've religiously taken off shoots so if I wanted to I could have another 10-15 plants at least from that one original plant. Next year I plan to do that and sell the surplus plants outside my house. Same with the strawberries. I'm cutting off most runners but keeping 5 to grow this year, for 5 free strawberry plants next year. After that I'll keep taking more runners each year and again sell them outside the house. Someone I knew was able to run a car from fruit and veggies sold outside her house.

I've also started using vinegar to clean the house with. It's wonderful stuff and SO CHEAP. £2 for 5 litres. You could save £50-100 a year on cleaning products if you switch to vinegar (and bicarb) and there's masses of advice online as to how to use it. Cleans superbly too.

I do think it's scary how expensive food is but also people have made lot of good points about expectations. To hear my parents talk about what food availability was like in the years after the war - as in what you could actually buy in the UK, it makes you realise how much we really do have. And think of people pre the potato coming to England, pasta, rice things like that. The Anglo-Saxons et al. It would have been a very different diet but they survived. It must have been very limited, I can't even imagine it!

I am not far away from 30 and have never seen anyone eat an aubergine. Also wouldnt be common for anyone I know to be buying blueberries or anything fancy like that. A lot of people dont have space to grow fruit or veg so just dont eat it much.

We eat things like pasta with cheese, pasta with sauce, pasta with slice of ham cut up on it with cheese, various types of pasta like the 3 coloured stuff or brown to make it a bit different, anything with eggs, cereal 49p from Tesco for cornflakes or toast. Its all cheap really and very filling.

jellybeans your diet may be cheap and filling but does it include 5-8 different fruit & veg a day. This shouldn't be considered a luxury and a necessity - read the cancer research site.

MrsB - yes, I tend to overdo it with the soap powder ( why I stopped buying liquid, I used to pour it in like water ) - I'll Definately sit down and re-assess my whole approach to running the home - I desparately need to save money. (starting with putting the washing machine on at night )

Does anyone eat 8 different fruit and veg every day? We eat a lot of fruit and veg and I certainly could not live on jelly's diet but 8 different fruit and veg a day?

Chestnut - I know they say that but I dont think I have ever met anyone in my life that eats 5 pieces of fruit and veg in a day its too expensive really. We do have pineapple or oranges in the tin in juice not syrup as treat puddings, also a pound bag of fruit through the week to chop in to chunks and share. Children get fruit at nursery for free so they get lots.

I agree with twinkly 8 pieces of fruit or veg per person per day. That is a ridiculous amount of cash

Has anyone tried making their own washing gel?

I have a recipe if anyone interested- it works out less than £1 for 6 litres!

yanbu, there was a programme about this on radio 4 today. I find that things like butter are ridiculous now. Anyone remember the late 90s when bread was 7p??

I don't know how students survive, that's all I can say....

I probably manage 5 a day. I also find it odd that you would never have seen someone eat an aubergine. Not doubting you, just find it a little odd. Having said that I didn't eat an aubergine until about 20.

2 blocks of butter at iceland are 1.25 that would last us a month so I suppose it depends how much you use. 47p a loaf in tescos