AIBU TO BE SHOCKED BY THIS INCREASE?!

[Kate0902900908]

So I’ve just gotten over the fuel increase, made some changes and become more aware of the energy I’m using both at home and car.

Went to Lidl today. I buy 2 tubs of cream cheese a week, Lidl Goldessa Classic Cream Cheese 200g. It’s been 65p for as long as I can remember. Today shop assistant was sorting shelves and organising labels ect. New label £1.19. I asked if that was the price of the 65p cream cheese to which she said Yh, it’s not changed yet it’s 75p now but will be £1.19.
HOW? How? Can something almost double in price? Also when I was it 75p 😵‍💫

I noticed the other cheeses all being marked up too some by 80p-£1. Add this increase to even 1/3 of a shop and it’s going to be unmanageable!
Has anyone else noticed prices on things they buy almost doubling?
What is the plan to keep costs down?
Where do we go from Lidl’s own soft cheese 😭

Kefir is also extremely easy to make, and is very healthy.

I can believe multiple generations living together, what I can't believe Is who ever is "around" doing the childcare. Nobody will be around, because everyone will need to work.

@ShadowsShadowsShadows

Poundland sells shoe polish. I would think it's much more expensive in a supermarket.

Catfordthefifth - there must be some savings in terms of council tax, heating and lighting and sharing the oven. possibly housing costs overall. Depends on how much bigger it needed to be.

Even childcare, there is more chance of someone being able to start later or earlier.
I dont want to live with my mother or in laws but there would be economies.

We and most of the world chose to take on passive debts to pay people to stay at home during covid which was against at the time and obviously am seeing what I expected now happening. We have saddled young people with debt for a generation - internationally it was the wrong decision in my view and with interest rates going up just servicing the debt is going to cost many countries huge amounts of money.

My petrol yesterday for half a tank was about £60. (I have filled it up when half full ever since the petrol queues issue a few months ago).

I live with 2 vegan student age sons so things like butter etc do not feature in the house or cheese but I am sure even their vegetables have gone up in price.

Those if us brought up by parents who suffered world war 2 and rationing in the 1950s in a sense have a good start because we were brought up with that make do and mend mentality, although it will certainly is going to be hard for people.

Also if you save up clubcard points you can use them for daytrips. There are usually lots of days out available where they triple the value of your voucher, so if you have £20 in clubcard points you get £60 towards what you choose from the list.

Frozen breaded fish and frozen chips used to be our cheap option when the kids wanted fish and chips. Now it costs the same to cook that at home (£6.50 for 4 small fillets, £2 bag of chips, 35p mushy peas plus electricity to run the oven/gas for cleaning up) as it does to go to the chippy and get 2 large fish and chips, with sauce between the 4 of us (and there's always leftovers). I used to be able to get decent fish portions and decent chips, plus mushy peas, for under a fiver to feed 4.

It's not just prices going up either, packed weights are going down.

Yep I'm sure it does. We are rural. Very very rural. This is because it's cheaper to rent out here than in towns and our DD has complex SEND and has a much better schooling experience at our local village school. This does mean however that I can't get to a Poundland or similar to buy cheaper shoe polish, without spending an additional £10 on fuel to get there. Most things can be delivered or sourced fairly cheaply at our local shops, so day to day our expenses aren't much higher for being rural (and we save on heating by using logs from our own trees for example) but in this particular instance I had to put the shoe polish back as just didn't have the additional £3 plus £3 for tights on top of the extra £20 that my food bill had risen by.

Nobody is arguing this is desirable. But in the early 1970s, you still had families living in slums in one room or two rooms. By the late 1970s, this had virtually disappeared.
Paraffin heaters were common as lots of people could not afford to use central heating. Garages sold paraffin.
I knew loads of women in low paid jobs in the seventies who worked unsocial hours so someone could look after their kids. Cleaning, working in pubs, etc.
None of this is desirable. But families can live in one or two rooms so they have enough food to eat.
I hope things do not get that bad. But 10-11% inflation is forecast.
And this is why lots of older people talk about especially the early seventies and inflation as being a terrible time. It does not matter if house prices are low if you have not enough money to feed and heat your family - buying a house is simply not in the mix then.

fish and chips is about £8 (maybe more) where I live.

@Xenia from everything you have ever said you have lots of money. Making do and mend really will not be something you need to worry about.
I do not mean to be harsh, but your comment just reads like poverty tourism.

Thing is with "make do and mend", you need to be buying quality worth mending in the first place. Not easy for a lot of families before, let alone now.

It is not just about cost. Things are not made as well as they used to be. My first fridge freezer was the cheapest in the shop, bought 30 years ago. It is still in our garage and used for Christmas, etc. It is fine, just one of the freezer drawers is broken. It is way better built than our current much more expensive fridge freezer. Things have built-in obsolensce.

Tesco have one for 49p (Aldi price match) but not often they have it in stock.

Oil and gas prices are set by trading, most selling contracts by oil companies set a price by using Brent average less a discount to the refinery.
When oil was $18 a barrel in 2020, fuel prices didn’t fall very low because the fuel duty and VAT that the government takes from a litre of fuel and the petrol stations increased their margins.

The last time oil was this high was 2015 and it has been incredibly volatile since.

They're bandwagon jumping, taking advantage of some situation nobody seems to be able to clarify.

Just doing online asda shop and searched for honey. Scrolling through to find my usual one (which is own brand at £1.60, cheaper than Rowse but not as awful as the smart price one which is under £1 but is basically sugar water and a total waste of money IMO). Manuka honey is £20!!! Nearly fell off my chair. I know it’s wanky and overpriced but I couldn’t believe it. Are people actually buying this?!

When visiting the UK, I’ve always been amazed at how low food is compared to other EU countries.

Surrly people have to realise that when you’re buying a chicken for £4, something is wrong?

In terms of rising costs, I’m not an economist but I’d imagine the following have an impact:

• Massive increase in cost of fertilizer (over 120% annual increase) impacting cost of grass-fed animals.
• Huge increase in cost of grains- knock-on impact on cost of feeding livestock and creating grain-based products.
• Rising cost of aluminum increasing the price of tinned items.
• Removal of access to €3.5bn of EU funding for farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy: production no longer subsidised by grants.
• Higher fuel costs meaning the cost of transporting goods is an awful lot higher.
• Impact of Covid and Brexit on ability to attract staff- both in agriculture and logistics.
• Inflation.
• Higher costs of importing food due to Brexit.

I can’t see how it’s not going to keep increasing, unfortunately.

Me and DH are veggies and most of our meals consist of lentils and beans as protein, which are very cheap.
If you are veggie/vegan without the meat substitutes it is a very cheap way to eat, and healthy.

Yes, there would be some economies. I didn't say there wouldn't, just that on top free childcare is unlikely ime.

I think there will be a sharp rise in depression and suicide as well tbh. I moved back in with my parents when our sale completed and our purchase didn't, it was hard. I love my parents and I see them a lot but it's a whole different ball game moving "home" when you've kids of your own. Its awful.

Percentage wise we spend less on food now than people did in the 1950s and 60s. We have got used to eating cheap, poor quality processed food, not even bothering to check the ingredients, the cheaper the better.

You can get frozen tuna steak in lidl for £3.29.

We sent a whole tub to nursery with my then 8 month old and she went on milk strike while there so ended up having about 10 ounces in total. That was 2 months ago. It's w good job I like her!

I've never tried making kefir, must look that one up. Thank you.

Shocking isn't it. I find the portions too big anyway so DH will share the chips and sometimes we have a large cod and split it. I feel a bit embarrassed as it seems such a pensioner thing to do but I don't want the waste.