Grocery bill increase

[MooseBreath]

Just been reviewing this month's spends and I'm gobsmacked by the price of groceries lately. If anything, we've been cooking more from scratch, so it should surely be cheaper?

I don't know if it's Brexit, Covid, or supermarkets taking the piss. Has anyone else noticed this?

Def noticed prices creeping up in Tesco. Its the extra cents on everything it adds up. Found fruit goes off fast from Aldi so my main shop is tesco.

Been rising steeply from last March lockdown, as I am ECV, we have relied on online supermarket shops, so unable to visit stores for offers etc.

I've noticed it's gone up quite considerably in the last month or two - combination of Aldi (for big shop) and Sainsburys for top ups and whilst there are 5 of us at home and we're not spending on school lunch etc, we're spending well above that we did pre-lockdown.

I could comfortably do a big shop at Aldi for less than £100 (have milk & milk delivered so only a few bits of salad / fruit as top ups). Now its £120 easily (its actually about £150 but £30 of that is wine so not really due to a price hike, just an increasing alcohol consumption !)

*milk and bread!

Yep, usually spend 120/130 suddenly its 160 and this week it was nearly 200! And only 3 days in you honestly wouldn't tell to look in the fridge.

Yes, I shop online and have very similar each week. It’s up by about £50 despite a reduction in alcohol purchases.
Joy of Brexit. We knew it would happen and it’s likely to get much worse.

Brexit is starting to bite, costs from suppliers increasing massively due to raw materials going up and tariff increases. Supermarkets cannot absorb all of these, they run on extremely low profit margins. Look at food costs as a proportion of income now compared to 30/40 years ago. We have got used to having it good. Feel for anyone on tight budgets but this is not going to go away.
Also why would supermarkets ‘take the piss’ on pricing. It is so transparent and what business would want to be accused of profiteering in a pandemic.

A friend was saying how she can shop for 40 a week 2 adults and 1 dc. They have huge appetites. When I said how she was like pizza and chips 1.day. Pasta bake. Burger chips. Kebab microwave ones.
You get the pic. Processed food.

I mainly cook from scratch. And I find it much more expensive. Her argument is.
Even if she did bangers mash and some veg.
£3 for 2 packs of 8 sausages.. Yes they eat 16 between them
£1 odd for a bag of potatoes
50p broccoli. 50pnbag carrots.
TOTAL £5

OR 2 frozen pizza. 85p, /£1 each
Bag of chips £1

Our bill has increased we buy near enough the same amount. But with maybe a few extras as dc home and snacking more I guess. But I save on other things we're not doing at the moment

YANBU - I am a careful shopper and my bill has gone up a lot.

Some of the tesco clubcard offers are good and easy to find when shopping online using the app.

Some branded cupboard items I try to bulk buy when on offer, but I have the luxury of having an income which allows me to do that.

Everything has been going up since the beginning of last year but it was only a few pence here & there.
Now food prices have really jumped even at Aldi.
In my city I'm finding Sainsbury's the cheapest out of Tesco, Waitrose & Asda. Though I do know food prices vary throughout the country.
We were also getting stuff from Aldi but I've noticed over the last few months the quality has got worse (fruit & veg going off before best before dates) & due to using cheaper ingredients the taste of some of the food is completely rank, such as their olive oil spread (they've increased the palm oil content) & the crisps have a lot of tiny hard bits in so it's like eating grit when you get half way down the packet.

Funnily enough I've been thinking ours has gone down. On average it comes in at under £70 a week. That's for 3 adults in Aldi. We don't really eat convenience food so it's mainly fresh stuff.

We've noticed an increase. We used to spend around £150 to £170 a week (4 adults) but it's crept up to over £200. No booze or cleaning items.... just food.

We use Ocado though, and I'm not digging the M & S stuff.... it's not a patch on Waitrose and it's more expensive. And less basic essential items... we don't have processed food, I cook from scratch.

@Kazzyhoward

Supermarkets have been taking the piss throughout covid. There are barely any offers anymore and lots of prices have been rounded up, and that's been the case since around last March.

They're not taking the piss, the increases reflect the increasing costs incurred due to covid and brexit. There are lots of offers still though, they cycle round regularly - so for example I only ever buy the plant milk we like when it's on offer as it's around half price and it's long-life.

Yup
I’m cooking from scratch for me/DS and supplementing with some ready meals for DH.
Budgeting but fighting a losing battle. Easily spending £100 pw

Doesn’t help trying to stick to local town Sainsbury’s.

DH eats loads and requests fancy pizzas, cured meats, smoked salmon and the like. I prefer to eat plainer and cheaper regularly joke I could feed DS and I for a month on what it costs to feed DH for a week!

Yes. Our usual Tesco shop is up by around a third.
DH (who usually does our main shop in store) thinks it’s because everything is full price, no offers. Presumably because there isn’t much on an incentive for the big chains to compete/undercut each other when people are told to stay indoors and thus are unlikely to shop around for bargains.

Yes, my grocery shops have gone up astronomically too.

Brexit sh*tshow.

Our weekly shop is pushing £250 now and we don’t buy convenience foods or much meat. That’s for 2 adults and 2 teens
However, we are probably saving £100 a week on school lunches and DH having coffees and lunch at work, plus we aren’t going out for meals either. No top up shops either
So I suppose if I worked it all out we aren’t spending any more

I think this is true re prices. But in particular I’ve noticed how much more we get through with everyone at home all of the time!

For the things I buy I haven't noticed a massive increase or none at all. If price has gone up in what I buy it was up around end of March last yr and panic buying due to covid. They haven't increased since so I can't say for what I buy its due to brexit.

I notice there are not as many offers as there used to be but hardly surprising, probably to stop people stripping shelves.

I've noticed though that most supermarkets use their points cards now to reduce prices on goods e.g. tesco price of anchor butter has gone up but quite often if your club card member you get reduced price putting it back to what I used to pay pre covid

Mine’s increased but kids aren’t having school dinners so were taking stuff to school, currently eating at home. So it’s normal amount plus £30 dinners saved so the same overall really

For 2 adults we were spending £40ish a week (with about £5 either way), now I'd say we're spending about £50ish a week (again with about £5 either way). We took lunches in to work so we're not getting any more meals for the same amount of money. Almost all of our cooking is from scratch and we don't eat meat all the time (about half of our dinners?). It took a sharp rise in march but has stayed there since.

There is no extra duty on food coming in . It is literally the extra cost of paperwork and transport . It should not make a huge difference on the large quantities that supermarkets are bringing in .

Brexit shot the £. Since then, prices are constantly rising.

I haven't noticed any price increases.
I mean, our whole bill has varied as various adult children have moved in and out, but I've not seen any increase in the price of things I buy on a regular basis.
I shop at Aldi.

Yes, hugely! Used to spend £65 a week for two adults, a three year old, a dog and a cat at tesco. Recently its been £85-£90 its so hard to cut it down.