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?

Broccoli, carrots, cabbage,.kale frozen stuff.

I've just transferred the last of my savings into my current account, I can't afford life as it is let alone with a price hike on food. I'm shit scared about it tbh.

Not everyone has the know how, storage space or money for energy to be able to maximise the meals they get out of the food they buy. If you haven’t got a freezer, for example, a lot of money saving methods are unavailable. Buying in bulk from cheaper places or when offers are on requires both transport and storage space.
When we lived abroad my mother used to team up with other women to pool resources (tip-offs as to which shops had supplies, giving lifts, buying in bulk at wholesalers then splitting for each family etc.) and that is something that might work for some people.

After Brexit and Covid we'll see a huge gap between those that have and those that have not. Hopefully the class system will return, people will know their place and stop moaning about what they haven't got or can't have.

@20mum

Maybe do some research? There are people posting on line details of how they feed a family of four with tasty and nutritious meals for pennies. Apparently people discard half the food produced. Certainly food is historically unreasonably, unsustainably cheap. (So are clothes)

Maybe also research what people lived on during and after the war. It would be a barely recognisable diet nowadays, and yet under rationing, the standard of health increased. (The fact that even though politicians like Churchill wallowed in unlimited luxury and as much life-costing imported food and cigars and champagne and brandy as they wished, other rich people and even royalty kept to the allowance on a ration book. That wouldn't have done harm to food supplies. Of course it wasn't fool proof, but the butcher simply couldn't keep large cuts of meat for the rich, once their coupon book was empty) For decades afterwards, people would be horrified to think of food waste. (Or clothes waste. Clothes were not only dear, but rationed. Plastic tat wasn't invented.)

Food was grown in the UK then. Now far less is grown and British people seem to think it’s beneath them to harvest it. Did you not get the memo that the world’s changed in the last 75 years?

I'm not sure you'd starve to death. I could eat all year by buying all my food from the very expensive farm shop which only sells food and veg within a 100 mile radius. I couldn't afford to, but it would be possible

Except when you get there to buy whatever you imagine will be in season in January, there won't be any, because that very expensive farm shop will have sold out, after they kept enough food for themselves as well.
And then you'd starve to death.

The UK can't feed even a fraction of its population itself.

I wonder if we will see a return of people keeping veg gardens again? Currently it works out as more expensive for most things.

It takes an acre of land to feed one person. Do we have 66 million acres laying around somewhere?

Simon J - You don't have to pay £1.60 for coconut milk. Obviously prices vary between brands. Blue Dragon coconut milk is £2.00 in Tesco, but a cheaper brand 69p. In Aldi coconut milk is only 59p. As you say it's not essential so why not wait until cheaper ones are in stock.

I wonder if we will see a return of people keeping veg gardens again?
In a flat?
Or a new build house with a 7m by 7m garden ?
Or a rented house where the garden cannot be dug up?
How about student halls?

@Mamamia456

Simon J - You don't have to pay £1.60 for coconut milk. Obviously prices vary between brands. Blue Dragon coconut milk is £2.00 in Tesco, but a cheaper brand 69p. In Aldi coconut milk is only 59p. As you say it's not essential so why not wait until cheaper ones are in stock.

We don’t have an aldi/lidl, this was an own brand coconut milk, it wasn’t a branded item.

@ListeningQuietly well obviously not everyone can but my DC has successfully grown tomatoes and some salad on a window sill. I struggled to buy seeds this year as so many decided to try and grow some of their own food. I wasn't stating it was a solution.

Which supermarket, I'm intrigued.

In Aldi coconut milk is only 59p. Aldi coconut milk also has more coconut, 76%, Tesco is about 50%.

@Mamamia456

Which supermarket, I'm intrigued.

Waitrose, Sainsburys is all sold out of both coconut milk and coconut cream and has been for almost two weeks. I did google to see if there was a coconut shortage this year, but there isn’t.

The UK can't feed even a fraction of its population itself.

Apparently, it can if the fraction is one over two.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-52980630

Just googled it, lol, waitrose tinned coconut milk is £1.60, but then all waitrose food is expensive!

SimonJT - Cross Post! Yes I have had the same trouble with tinned sweetcorn.

We’d be okay, thank goodness, but I know lots would really struggle.

@Mamamia456

SimonJT - Cross Post! Yes I have had the same trouble with tinned sweetcorn.

I use ocado, but their 65p coconut milk is no longer stocked and the next cheapest one was about £1.25, I didn’t think I would have a problem getting it cheaply in the shops.

I could absorb it as its just me. I would say a decent amount of what I buy is not strictly necessary (olives, artichokes etc) so thats where economies could be made. I already eat very little meat, very few processed items and no dairy. I tend to bulk out my meals generally with veg so often they will stretch further. I don't eat out of season, really.

Agree @20mum and similar posters (maybe YOU should do some research - or even just read threads/posts on here by users and workers in food banks) seem oblivious to the realities for many now with regard to food (and general) poverty.

And as I said upthread wwii WASN'T the idyll people think, unfortunately those who lived through it are passing away and we're losing that knowledge.

I know from having spoken to my grandparents when they were alive that it was really tough for some families. As always the wealthy were somewhat insulated as they could afford to buy on the black market.

@Janevaljane even if you don't know anyone personally (really? Aren't you lucky then) surely it's not asking too much to ask posters to acknowledge this is the case for many in the uk?

People always trot this one out. You understand that it only increased because it was so bad before, right? Really fucking terrible, upgraded to just fucking terrible?

Yep!

And still not for everyone

plus I found in lockdown that cheaper brands and own brands were hard to come by

Yes! Also STILL hard to get small (and therefore cheaper) sizes of certain things

However as life is generally a bit more crap with Covid, we have saved money on holidays, eating out, day trips, extra curricular activities and so on, so I feel like 2020 has been a good value year.

For your family perhaps, for the poorest families they weren't spending on those things anyway

@Devlesko I'm hoping your post at 1650 was sarcasm?!

Did you not get the memo that the world’s changed in the last 75 years?

I think that fact has escaped a LOT of leave voters.

Not just lack of space for growing but also lack of skills/knowledge (I can barely keep a cactus alive! Despite following mums green fingered expert advice to the letter!), plus it COSTS to get the initial supplies to grow your own and it takes time, plus we don't have the right climate for many things, the soil in peoples gardens varies and that affects what they can and cannot grow, not to mention the likelihood of a family putting money, time and effort into growing things and some numpty just steals it! Allotment thefts are a major issue where I am (deprived, high unemployment high crime area - cos those things tend to go together!)

If people are desperate enough...

No, not really. I’m the only one earning in my family now and I’m down to one meal a day as it is. I’m already borderline underweight.

@StopMakingATitOfUrselfNPissOff

We already have tbh. Since lockdown in March ours has increased that much

Omg so glad it’s not just me thinking this! It’s definitely gone up, we used to average £50 per week (2 person household) and now it’s more like £65!

Our weekly shop is already more than it was before lockdown. Everything is a few pence+ more expensive. We could afford 20% rise but we may well need to support family members who aren't going to be able to, and if that's the case money will be tight.
We were very tight for cash when our kids were small and we know most of the tips and wrinkles for saving money.
It just seems odd that some posters on here seem to be revelling in how lovely it'll be to live on turnips.