To ask for your rising cost of living examples

[CervixSampler]

Inspired by another thread but mainly by my own experiences today.
In February it was 20p to use the public loos at our favourite seaside town. Today it has doubled to 40p! There are now contactless points incase you don't have any cash. 40p to pee!
Mr Kipling cherry Bakewells have jumped to £1.90 in Asda and I'm sure they used to be £1.40 or sometimes even £1 and that was only a few weeks back. Cake isn't essential I know, but peeing is. Things have gone up generally but the odd pence here and there isn't always noticed but these are huge jumps.

And it’s the 5/10/15p that soon start adding up.

I am thankful that we have a Lidl and b and m opening up in my town next month which I am hoping will allow me to offset some of the increases.

I am also lucky that at the moment I can bulk buy some things to get the best deals.

Heating oil. Last year was around 40ppl, this year it has been up to 130ppl, currently about 88ppl.

I used to eat steak most days, aldi rump steak was about £2.09 for each one, its over £3 for the same package and the meat is lower quality.
When I first got my car, it cost £78ish the first few times I filled it. Now we're looking at closer to £100...tbf I'm probably comparing the cheapest places to the most expensive as its a fight to get fuel here right now, but still it's more expensive by quite a lot.

Clothes have gone up in price. I'm sure my first pair of AF1s a few years ago were about £90, the pair I bought at the weekend were £110.

Mcdonalds, the cheap menu items were £0.99 they're now £1.29 or so aren't they? Mcflurries are about £1.50 now.

Things are v expensive I'm finding

If you happen to have Tesco Clubcard points there is a special offer on Disney+ until 29th April of £8 in points for 6 months, usually it's 3 months.

Thanks for the tip off, I get Disney plus with my clubcard points so this is great.

DS needed his playstation plus renewing yesterday, thankfully I'd got it a while ago when Smyth's had 33% off.

@SafelySoftly

Amazing how many people who say they are struggling have pets. I see them as a luxury that I’d only have if I wasn’t struggling with money. I couldn’t imagine my kids missing out because of animal costs.

Have to say I agree. A 7% inflation rise and household bills annual rise of £2000 is a lot but I would only get a pet if I was in a very secure and very comfortable financial situation where I'd be unaffected by rises like this. Inflation has been set to rise for years and years and dogs especially are notoriously expensive.

I bought a small kitchen gadget from argos 18 months ago. It cost £11.99 and it was £1.79 for the 3 yrs extended cover. Yesterday bought the same thing again, its now £18.99 and extended cover is £4.99

Amazing how many people who say they are struggling have pets. I see them as a luxury that I’d only have if I wasn’t struggling with money. I couldn’t imagine my kids missing out because of animal costs
Amazing how many people have children they can't afford. Children are a luxury, nobody HAS to have them.

Oh and don't worry, there'll be plenty of pets starved and/or dumped because of this.

Maybe I'm oldschool, but I believe having a pet is a responsibility, and I'll take care of them for their entire life. If I have to cut down to make that happen, that's what I'll do.

@AprilAlready are you with SsE/ now ovo?
If so, they really seem to be trying their luck and plucking these figures out of nowhere. They are robbers pure and simple, a criminal company.

The local Dominos has introduced a £1.99 delivery charge. Always used to be free delivery. Guilty pleasure to order from them obviously and not essential.

The daily price cap for Oyster/TfL went up by 30p. A £20 top up won't even cover two return journeys from my zone 4 home to anywhere in Central London zone 1 anymore.

Petrol. Paid 156ppl yesterday. Used to cost £35 to fill up my small car a year ago, now £45.

Dd's student bus pass has gone up from £154 to £180 this term.

If I was trying to do a 'necessary only' weekly shop for the two of us and two indoor cats a few months ago, I could get it down to under £50 a week...I'm now struggling to keep it under £70 and that's not including any household stuff like loo roll and laundry liquid, and definitely no wine !

Just got my first taxi in a while and local drop off has gone up 25 per cent!

Our water bill has gone up by £18 a month, which is up by nearly a third.

There was a really good article in the grocer about fish and chip shops, fish has increased by 40% and sunflower oil is in short supply and has also rocketed in price. Potatoes will be more expensive due to fertiliser costs. It basically said many fish and chip shops will close this year. I had chips and gravy this week, it was £4.20 (up north) If I buy for the children and include fish it's over £25.

Uk greenhouses haven't planted the first wave of plants this year due to gas prices, a cucumber grower said it would cost 75p to produce each cucumber! I think it's going to get a lot worse.

I'm veggie but my children aren't, they get much less meat now as it's become very expensive.

Cooking from scratch is the best way to balance out the costs, I'm back to making bread etc, I've also planted a lot of veg.

@SafelySoftly

Amazing how many people who say they are struggling have pets. I see them as a luxury that I’d only have if I wasn’t struggling with money. I couldn’t imagine my kids missing out because of animal costs.

But peoples situations change. I wouldn’t say we are struggling by a long shot but our energy bills are now £150 a month higher, plus all the other increases and I’m more mindful of our spending. We have a now old cat, when he moved in 10 years ago we were childfree and working full time now we have two children and I’m a sahp. The children were planned but not being a sahp. Now my 17 year old cat’s insurance is eye watering my high.

@CuddlyCactus Exactly!! That's precisely what we've all been saying!

I always buy cotton wool pads for removing makeup from Wilko, used to be 50p, now 70p. Thinking I'd be clever, I went round to the baby items aisle where a double size pack used to be £1, it's now £1.70!! So mums, if you need cotton wool pads for your little ones buy them from the make-up aisle where the same amount will be £1.40.

I went to get diesel the other day and put £35 of diesel in, it was only 1/4 of a tank of fuel. (I drive a medium size hatchback which I would normally expect to fill up for around £80.)

2 litre bottle of milk is now £1.20 in our Sainsbury's Local 🤨

My weekly shop has been £70-£80 for years, depending on whether I was buying a Sunday joint or not. Now it’s £100. We used to alternate between the 4 meats, understanding that Lamb and Beef would be a more expensive, but still be able to buy. Not any more. I cannot remember the last time I bought either.

My gas and electric DD has gone up from £190 a month to £300.

It cost me £70 to fill my Fiesta from empty.

DD (eating disorder) will only eat one type of bread. That’s gone up to £1.50 a loaf and it is much smaller. I now buy a second cheap loaf for DH and I so I can guarantee she’ll eat it. Same with milk, from £1.80 to £2.10. I can’t go for the cheaper/Aldi/Lidl option because then she won’t eat

Random, but dental floss.
I put a pack back in Boots yesterday.
Ordinary (I think) branded floss.
£5.80
WTF?

Parking at a nearby park used to be free until 9.30am. Now the charges start at 7.30am and are 20p more expensive per session or 40p more if you pay via the phone or app

Single parent here, my shop used to be £40-50 per week depending on what I got and where I shopped, not I'm spending £70-80 and reaching my budget so not getting everything I need.

My electric and gas used to be £600 a quarter between them, now it's over £1k.

My bus fare used to be £5 return now £5 one way.

Not sure how much longer I can carry on. Our foodbank locally has said no more referrals unless an emergency as they're short on food so not even got that to fall back on.

I logged on to zooplus last night to buy dog food. The canned specialist food I get my old boy has gone up from £8.99 for 6 cans to £10.99. My food shop is hitting £200. During lockdown it was around £135. ( it's high, I know. Special diet for very sick DD and we buy everything from tesco eg all household stuff, stamps, toiletries . We don't buy from elsewhere . I don't buy beauty products except for shampoo from AVeda for post chemo hair.

We will have to economise. Trying to work out of food recipe boxes eg hello fresh plus a veg box would be cheaper. We live in a pricey seaside town ( dumb error). Luckily we rarely use petrol as DH works exclusively from home now.
I am very very lucky as I have an index linked pension which I drew early due to cancer and that is our buffer. When DH retires in 3 years I don't know how we will manage

Robinson double strength orange squash from Sainsburys - was £2.50 last year now £3.75.