to think the price of shopping is getting rediculous?

[Ilovesunflowers]

Especially tuna. Noticed a pack of 4 was nearly £9 in my local supermarket. I use a lot of tuna and it used to be a cheap meal (pasta, tuna and veg).
Bread is crazily expensive. It's hard to keep costs down for shopping now.

Yes, food prices are ridiculous. Apparently it's due to fuel prices as well as everything else. There are five of us, and it can be damn hard to budget. I've just spent £157.00 in one of the major supermarkets. Ouch!

Yes food is expensive. Some days the adults tell the kids we aren't hungry, feed them and have plain pasta when they are in bed. There isn't much more we can cut back on

That sounds really hard noisy. Could you use a food bank?

Very my bills are £100+ when they used to be £70-80

Food is big business. The profits supermarkets make are obscene.

Have you tried all the usual advice about dropping down a brand, changing supermarkets, shopping in markets etc etc?
If you have time to do your shopping in a variety of places, you can save loads.

The price of food has gone up a lot. I really do feel sorry for people who have difficult decisions to make, like noisytoys though.

The price of fuel is one factor (as is fertiliser,) but the other factors include the weather in recent years. For the last few years wet summers have meant it has been really difficult to get the harvest in, meaning that sometimes the grain rots on the stalk in the field. Lots of root crops - potatoes, sugar beet, etc also rotted in the ground because the farmers couldn't get their equipment on the fields to harvest them. There have also been a few dry springs - remember the threats of hosepipe bans last year? This means the plants are late to get growing, too. I buy hay in for my horses, and the cost of hay has gone from about £2.50 a bale to £6 a bale in just 3 years - it is all to do with the poor growing conditions, and it is reflected in human food prices too, though not is such a stark way. Obviously the price of animal forage going up impacts on the cost of meat too. As a result of our poor harvests Britain has been trying to buy food in from abroad, but a drought in America has affected the main grain-growing region of the world in a different way.

I don't have any suggestions, but can't see the price of food going down any time soon. Such basics are being badly affected. (Obviously Tesco keeps making a profit though!)

Yeah I probably do need to start shopping around Chippy. Have dropped to basic brands for a lot of stuff but refuse to do this for tuna and bread!

Shopping around is the answer, unfortunately you do need the luxury of time to be able to do it though. Despite planning and shopping around our budget has had to go up too.

We make our own bread, it does work out cheaper, and own brand tuna is fine, we use it loads. In fact I won't buy John West on principal.

The problem with tuna specifically is that its becoming increasingly rare due to overfishing, with some tuna species now endangered. So its probably not surprising thing that its no longer a cheap eat in the way it used to be.

BUT there are cheap tinned fish you can find to replace it. We've swapped from cooking tuna bake to Sicilian-style spaghetti with sardines, which is cheaper and tastier. And have you taken a look at frozen fish? Also potentially very good value.

I agree that the prices are just going to keep rising. I was reading an interesting blog the other day about stockpiling foods that are on offer to keep costs down for longer. Will try to find it and link. The woman doing it basically never bought anything full price which was extreme but I can certainly see the sense in bulk buying the things you use frequently when they are on offer.

I know this wont help anyone immediately, but its really easy to grow your own fruit and veg.

I grow potatoes, tomatoes, salad leaves, spring onions. The pound shops are starting to get their supplies in now

I grow in pots on the patio. I'll never be self sufficient, but every little helps.

Pack of 4 John West or Princes £3.00 in the Co-op this weekend only!

We're trying hard to cut back because we simply can't afford to keep spending what we were. Meal planning helps but whats really made a difference is getting fruit and veg from the greengrocers, co-op and actually reducing portion size.

The real pisser is that farmers aren't getting anymore, supermarkets are simply profiting.

Oh and we bake our own bread and as of this year growing our own veg again

Aldi tinned tuna in brine is around 50-60p and I found that really nice - all their fish is (inc frozen)

I remember when naice tuna was 30p a tin. Am I that old

I went to Sainsburys earlier for a piece of beef for tomorrow... £20-23 for a joint.

I didn't buy it, lamb was on special offer so I bought that instead.

The prices are going up, my bill is generally £150 a week and I fear it'll get worse.

all these comments are entirely valid, but....

£9 for four tins of tuna? Quick check - Tesco 75p a tin, same at Sainsburys.

where on earth are you shopping?

I've just got back from asda. It wasn't that much - what I do is go for mostly things on offer, so, walk down the middle aisle and get what's in the end bits iyswim...marga, £1, rice sachets, £1, 12 actimel, £2...etc. There are ALLWAYS things on offer...you just have to get what is! Makes it a bit of an adventure.

£20 for a joint of beef? How many are you feeding and what cut were you looking at?

I bought a joint of silverside this morning in asda. Enough for roast tomorrow for 4 for Just over £7.

allways? sorry. Baby on lap...

roast for 5 not 4

I keep saying it and maybe in the end someone will notice -
we cannot keep building on fields and expect the price of food to do anything other than go up.