Can you easily absorb a 20% rise in your grocery bill?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

I am worried about this, predicted to come early next year. I moved abroad last year but have people I love in the UK, some are budgeting very tightly already, and there's nothing I can suggest when they are worried.

I find it really troubling. Surely this is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for quite a few people who are coping with limited money? It could mean the difference between being able to get by and being stuck?

Would a 20% increase in food prices be difficult for you, or just a pain in the arse?

Is there any way a price hike can be avoided?

@Xenia

Yes, it's fine. In fact most people in the UK need to eat a lot less, do intermittent fasting, only eat lunch and dinner and no snacks, only drink tap water. the biggest challenge for the NHS is people eating loads of junk foods and loads of healthy foods but to such an extent they are very over weight.

Save the NHS and eat a lot less.

What do you suggest us type one diabetics do?

Hesitant to tread on eggshells, but it is often hard to understand other people's assumptions. e.g. genuinely believing they are quite poor, and yet taking it for granted that one of the essentials is the unfailing £60 on the lottery, with logic that is faulty, yet, sort of, understandable, since they truly think it essential to have a possible way to leap out of poverty into a life of luxury. Or, believing it essential to have a car, even two cars, despite being healthy and living almost next to good transport connections. Or, believing everything must be brand new top of the range to prove you care for your child. Or, the first item on shopping list is snacks and prepacked and sweets.

Or, it is essential to maintain life by doing what advertisers instruct, buy chemical smelly things, buy plastic things, buy tat for halloween, buy tat for valentine, buy tat for christmas, buy tat for easter, etc. buy new, buy fashion, buy designer, go into debt because this is essential spending, even before you have the foreign holiday your children deserve and need.

Hastily, I add that I wouldn't be in the least critical, and would manage to smother my surprise. Presumably, most of us have some ideas which would benefit from a bit more thought, and that includes on spending. I do know that our grandparents often had a horror of debt, and even the poorest of the poor had some little fall back, often a rigid habit of saving even a few pennies for this, another jar for that, maybe an item which could be pawned in emergency .

Hurling the citizens overboard by encouraging debt, in order to worship The Economy,( as measured by G.D.P,) has meant that for perhaps half a century, thrift has been punished while unaffordable consumerism has been promoted. This has ruined lives, created disastrous habits and expectations, and worst of all, has probably already wrecked the planet. All so that various national leaders in various countries can say "nah nah na na nah, my g.d.p is bigger than yours is, so there"

Are those real people that you are talking about, 20mum? People you actually know in real life, whose budget and expenditure you know? Or just lazy stereotypes? Because I'm seriously doubting that real people who are having trouble finding enough money each week to feed themselves and their children are going to be swanning around spending money on the things you describe.

Yes there are plenty of people who are not in poverty who spend money on all those luxuries you mention and could easily cut down, even if they don't want to. They are not poor, and I doubt they would claim to be. But saying 'People think they are poor but they're not.' is as thick-witted a generalisation as saying 'People need to eat less anyway because everyone is fat'.

Hesitant to tread on eggshells

Also I'm not sure you know what treading on eggshells means. Because what you were doing was the opposite.

It is well documented that the poor spend less effectively than those with higher incomes.
In part that reflects the fact that many were never given good guidance and support about budgeting and money management as children
and the fact that those with disorganised lives find it much harder to plan.

When the narrative became undeserving poor in the early 90's it became even harder to set aside funds to help people make better life choices
and so no wonder they buy lottery tickets in the hopes of a win
despite not understanding the low odds

and those in insecure housing CANNOT buy bulk packs of food as they have no safe storage
and they do not have the cash in the bank on the right day to make best use of offers.

Creating that trap has been a deliberate policy of the current government since 2010

• defunding sure start
• defunding schools
• defunding youth services all of the money was handed to NCS
• defunding health visitors
• defunding prison / probation education

all to cut higher rate taxes for the rich.

But with the Brexit vote outcomes
the cosmopolitans are about to reap what they sowed.

That's a huge generalisation there.
I'm poor and not one of your points includes me or any other poor person I know, thanks.
I choose to be poor too, no disorganised life, what a cf.
I spend less money as obviously don't have much spare, but I don't want to be a consumer.
Rich people are usually rich because they don't spend their money, too.
HTH.

Devlesko
My generalisations are based on the findings of the NAO and the LGA and SOLACE and NALC
they are not personal, they are statistical.
You may feel that they do not apply to you
but they do reflect the reality - hence why they are included in peer reviewed research.

Do you dispute the impact of defunding ?

God xenia, you have no shame.

Xenia is a real Tory cheerleader. I bet she would have voted down the extra food for poor children as well, just like the Tory party did.

Wouldn't bother me if I have to pay it so be it.

@Xenia

Yes, it's fine. In fact most people in the UK need to eat a lot less, do intermittent fasting, only eat lunch and dinner and no snacks, only drink tap water. the biggest challenge for the NHS is people eating loads of junk foods and loads of healthy foods but to such an extent they are very over weight.

Save the NHS and eat a lot less.

Crikey, yiu turn into more of a parody of yourself with every post I read.

Thank goodness not everyone thinks like you

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-east-cafes-pubs-restaurants-19154351#ICID=Android_ChronicleNewsApp_AppShare

For someone so bright Xenia, you do say some heroically dim shit.

@lazylinguist

Hesitant to tread on eggshells

Also I'm not sure you know what treading on eggshells means. Because what you were doing was the opposite.

Looked like stamping in hobnail boots to me.

Xenia. I'm with you. We are the most obese nation in Europe. A little less food can only do good.

Which isn't to say there aren't a lot of things/ill/poor people that this doesn't apply to, but they are in the minority.

Which isn't to say there aren't a lot of things/ill/poor people that this doesn't apply to, but they are in the minority.

Well, that's OK then, if only a minority of people can't afford to eat well. I mean, that will only be poor people with things like coeliac disease, so they already have high food costs. Doesn't matter if they suffer a bit, as long as the rest of us get svelte and beautiful again.

FFS CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF????

But the majority CAN afford to eat a lot less.

@JaJaDingDong

But the majority CAN afford to eat a lot less.

I know for sure that I could afford to eat less (and I'm making an effort to do just that) but my recent decision to overhaul my diet and eat less has seen my food bill go up, not down. Because healthy nutritious food is more expensive.

So I'm very cynical about patronisingly saying that it will do poor people good to eat less. Many people in the UK (myself included) could do with losing weight. But starving yourself all day and then eating half a packet of custard creams (because a packet of those is a lot cheaper than a cauliflower) when you can't hold out any longer might make you thinner but it won't make you healthier. It's not genuine concern for people's health, it's a belief that they deserve to be miserable and hungry.

Are there really people who think spending less money on food automatically means imbibing fewer calories? Cringing for you if so.

If things get bad enough then yes, people are forced to cut their calories because the money they have available for food will simply only buy a certain amount, even of the cheapest stuff. Like in Venezuela. But that's a long way down the road. What happens before that is that people aren't forced into calorie reduction. They choose to fill their bellies first, with less nutritious food if necessity dictates. And the most efficient way to fill several people up on the cheap is with stodgy starchy stuff. It's a very realistic possibility that spending less money on food will make people fatter not thinner. Consider the obesity rates amongst the poorest.

@JaJaDingDong

But the majority CAN afford to eat a lot less.

And you seem to be perfectly OK with a substantial minority, consisting of the poorest, illest and most vulnerable people who can not afford to eat a lot less to suffer. What is it with some of the privileged wealthier people on this thread - have you all had an empathy bypass?

I'm currently supporting someone with severe mental health issues. That person is already underweight. Financially this person is on the absolute brink. This is a real person, in the 6th richest country in the world, who will be tipped over the edge. And you lot think that's OK. You ought to be deeply, deeply ashamed.

That's not what I said.

I said eating less food would be good for a lot of people, including me.

I acknowledged that this doesn't apply to everyone, for a number of reasons.

That's not what I said.

I said eating less food would be good for a lot of people, including me.

I acknowledged that this doesn't apply to everyone, for a number of reasons.

You're still missing the point. This increase would apply to everyone. And it would hit the most vulnerable hardest. And that is why it is not in any way, shape or form a good thing. The price is too high. We need to not celebrate this, we need to hold our shitshow of a government to account for allowing it - even encouraging it - to happen.

There also needs to be more engagement with the fact that for a lot of people this wouldn't necessarily mean eating less food, but worse.

@CrappleUmble

There also needs to be more engagement with the fact that for a lot of people this wouldn't necessarily mean eating less food, but worse.

Agree 100%.

We can absorb it, but most can't. I think food shortages, if they happen, won't last long, but prices going up will be a long-term disaster.

@JaJaDingDong

But the majority CAN afford to eat a lot less.

64% of people being overweight or obese (in England anyway) is a majority yes, but not a massive one. Still a lot of people who aren't. And that's just adults; most children aren't overweight.

And what happens once these horrible fatties lost a bunch of weight because they can't afford as much food (which is perfectly healthy I'm sure) but the food bills haven't gone down?

Look there's a solution! All of you who spout people should eat less just give your food to those that are starving. Problem solved! And u will be doing yr bit without having to wear a hair sweater! Lol!