In thinking I’m going to need to make food quality sacrifices due to cost of living

[PinkyU]

My shopping bill has increased by around £24-30/week (family of 5, 3 adults 2 dc, 1 cat), for the same items as we rotate meal plans 3/4 weeks.

we have dietary restrictions and already use at least 2 supermarkets to make the most of bargains, our local cheap supermarket has run out of our usual (85p) oat milk the next one is 30p more expensive and not the right kind.

I can’t buy less, we don’t have much food waste, and now I’m back to school packed lunches for the dc which will increase things again, it feels inevitable I’m going to have to buy lower quality foods. We’ve just had to increase our gas&electric by another £150/month.

How are others coping?

Wow. This is an awful comment. Overweight people need to eat too. Jesus Christ you should be ashamed of yourself posting this. Absolutely disgusting. (And no I'm not overweight)

Well the complete lack of action while the Tories elect a new leader isny helpful, is it?

Q What do you think the government has done to make you worse off?
A Brexshit + Austerity.

If you are obese though then you are not struggling to feed yourself. You are eating more than you should.

@shrodingersvaccine yes to you first post and also to your second.. I realise it might be fascinating for some people to treat others like white rats in their personal laboratory but frankly they can fuck off.

Another Asda just essentials covert over here. Many of the products have simple ingredients with less unnecessary and dubious "stuff" added in, so are actually healthier than comparable top brand products.

@TinySophie that is not strictly true. My friend has PCOS. She is insulin resistant and has suffered for years, weight gain she can't control despite eating a healthy diet and exercising, among many other distressing symptoms. Not everyone who is overweight eats too much.

All of this. Also, the price of processed food has increased less than the prices of fresh foods. Processed foods (which takes less time, kitchen resources, Human Resources and bought in energy to get into your mouth at home) make people fat when compared with nutritionally identical minimally processed diets and cost less. It ALSO creates more profit for people who are already wealthy.

Poverty is already a risk factor for obesity. Increasing poverty is going to increase obesity, not decrease it, even if it were ok to justify inflicting further hardship on people for their own good. Which it isn’t.

Maybe it's the fact that universal credit, minimum wage and public sector wages (and most private sector, but can't blame them for that) haven't increased at the same rate as inflation for years? Or that the energy price cap is a joke which they're doing nothing about? Or the fact that corporations have been able to do what they like, rasing prices and lowering wages, without any management or restriction at all? I'm with @shrodingersvaccine on this one. It's disgusting.

Tax cuts for the rich? Which were those then?Top earners are paying higher income tax and NI than under Labour, have lost their tax-free allowance and child benefit, and are no longer able to fund their pensions.

There are some unhelpful comments here, especially about obesity and telling people they're OK thank you.

My friend and I started sharing groceries during lockdown. She's in a couple and I'm on my own. It's useful for making the most of what we have, splitting bulk items and reducing food waste so we've carried on doing it. She brought round half of a pack of potatoes and some carrots yesterday as well as some spring rolls and I gave her some blueberries and a sachet of cat treats.

Wow. This is an awful comment. Overweight people need to eat too. Jesus Christ you should be ashamed of yourself posting this. Absolutely disgusting. (And no I'm not overweight)
No it isn't. It is a fact that we are overweight and that is the main cost, through diabetes, to the NHS. It's nothing to do about shaming anyone. It's a fact that we, as a society, need to eat better and most importantly, less.

It's almost being in denial that alcohol is not a need. By cutting on food and alcohol, many families can adjust their food budget, which means that the government can then concentrate on those who will have nothing to trade quality food with because they already eat little and never drink alcohol (or fizzy drinks etc...).

World's smallest violin here.

What point did you think you were making there? No-one was asking for sympathy.

I do hope though that you aren’t hypocritical about this and expect others to sympathise with you.

Op, sorry if someone mentioned this already but if you can’t buy fresh fruit have a look at the bags of frozen berries in the freezer section, often a 1kg bag is only a few quid and if you cook them up into compote you can put it on top of your child’s weetabix/porridge/yoghurt. That’s what we do anyway.

NI increases - less money for the lower earners

Low earners aren't paying the increase, just fyi.

Have you heard of Oddbox? They deliver boxes of wonkey veg / fruit and it’s reasonably priced. I like them. Some of the veg is massive eg huge aubergines (as supermarkets won’t sell them), or one week I might get a big pile of apples as farms in the area have a surplus they can’t sell.

Wow. This is an awful comment. Overweight people need to eat too
And of course, I never said overweight people should just stop eating 😕what a ridiculous extrapolation.

What I'm saying is that an even 10% reduction, change of habit, reduction in alcohol could be enough for a number of family to balance out the increase.

It certainly easier to consider a small reduction in food and alcohol uptake when you are overweight or obese than it is to have to reduce heating.

Yes. I shop at Lidl too. I find the prices are increasing quite quickly. Some things e.g. Greek yoghurt is now out of my reach completely. I am priced out. Looking for alternatives is impossible too.
I'm eating more eggs because they are cheap versatile and nutritious. More beans.lentil etc. I make a soup on a regular basis from the salad /veg drawer leftovers and have this for lunch each day .It hasn't been ideal when the weather has been so hot but beggars can't be choosers

Maybe it's the fact that universal credit, minimum wage and public sector wages (and most private sector, but can't blame them for that) haven't increased at the same rate as inflation for years?

Minimum wage has risen above inflation for the last 20 years. Just being a pain in the arse here, but I don't like misinformation.

It’s a terrible cliche, but I used to live on a well below-average income and be really happy. I didn’t have much spare money. I couldn’t afford fancy days out, expensive holidays, spa days or concerts. We rarely ate out or got haircuts etc, But I did have a warm house, with no anxiety over bills. I ran a car, I could have a steak, a hot bath and bottle of a wine and I was content. I ate really well (through making everything from scratch) and we had loads of practically free days out with picnics, dirt cheap camping holidays and cheap craft fun and games at home.

Now, it feels like the increased energy prices have wiped out all my spare money and more. I used to use my creativity, time and energy to give us extras for fun. Now I need all my ingenuity just to keep us fed, clothed and cold-but-not-freezing. Not even warm. It feels like we’ve dropped two socioeconomic levels from just-enough-but-happy to below the poverty line. I’m no longer happy.

I don’t eat meat or fish unless it’s via the freezer from the ‘before’ times. Breakfast is porridge or eggs (from a friend in return for looking after them when she’s away) lunch is homemade bread and vegetable soup with veg from my allotment. Dinner is mostly pasta or rice with bean based sauces. My £20 a week shopping budget mostly goes on snack and lunch foods for DD to try and maintain her normal. I’d bake them myself for much less ingredient cost, but the energy used means it’s cheaper to buy things like biscuits now (although they are pretty crappy in comparison). I only put the oven on twice a week for bread and pizza on Fridays, and a meatless roast, baked spuds and a batch cook on Sundays. We each get one hot bath and one food luxury a week, plus one shower. Mine is coffee. DDs is branded crisps and custard, usually. She practically lives on beans on toast and macaroni cheese!

It’s just about bearable in the summer, with the allotment and not needing heating. Once it gets cold, I’m utterly dreading it. I hate being cold. Everything else I can cope with, just.