Struggling to be able to afford to eat as healthily

[Needtodrinkmorewater]

Is anyone else now?
Used to fairly easily be able to include lots of fruit and veg in our diets. I’m not finding that I’m just making sure that it’s enough for Dd, 4, fruit at least. For example if I buy apples, berries and kiwis one week, they’re generally all eaten by her 🙈which is great but I’m getting really conscious of the fact I don’t eat well anymore, the food shop is ideally like to do, full of seeds, fruit, veg etc just isn’t affordable anymore

Aldi had some interesting frozen stuff in today

The very hot and dry conditions in mainland Europe and the UK in the summer and autumn is also having an impact on the cost and size of veg now. Veg we want to eat now would have been planted in early Autumn. Less was planted and what was struggled to thrive.

The mainland has not been impacted as much as uk. They do probably pay more to suppliers so what was left after bad weather would logically go to higher payers and easier transport

In my local supermarket 300g of blueberries is £3 but you can get a punnet of grapes, 6 apples and 7 bananas for £3.09 so I tend to buy these cheaper options for us and berries are more occasional.

Prioritise the healthy stuff
cook from scratch, food goes further
go plant based or more towards it
you can’t buy your health back

I did feel sorry for the poster yesterday with ND kids who only eat certain brands and can tell the difference. It sounded awful for her.

Download the money off vouchers too

the sacks of potatoes are good in there

the big boxes of washing powder and fabric conditioner

the tea and coffee and sugar is cheaper

proper cod fish fingers (fish finger sandwiches)

the dairy products are a good price too.

go with a friend or two and then split what you have bought and obviously the bill.

There is plenty of cheap fruIt and veg in the shops. You are simply choosing to buy the expensive ones. Most people don't buy berries every week, especially when out of season.

Anyway, lots of fruit isn't good, it's full of sugar. Veg is better and most are cheap. Ditch the berries and load up on veg.

Yes i agree re other things too. The ham is so nice and not that expensive. Cheese is good value too.

I’m extremely proud of myself today.

didn’t do any shopping Friday, we had enough for Friday night, out all day yesterday.

coming home stopped in Sainsbury’s for milk, spinach was reduced to 20p, as was the butter.

this morning (from Farm Foods) 1kg bag of chicken bits were 99p in the slow cooker until the meat fell off the bones - approximately 35minutes - gave the skin to the dog and chopped the meat up into bite size chunks add peas and sweetcorn made a creamy sauce and added that to the bowl.

pastry is easy to make, I just don’t do it often, made pastry for the ingredients to make a pie for lunch.

the trusty soup maker has come out and sorted out the mushrooms (which were past their best) in the fridge into soup,

the 20p spinach split that into two and added celery, onion and garlic, 1.6litres of chicken stock (38p stock cubes Lidl) a turn of pepper and a small teaspoon of mild curry powder, should have 16 servings for less than 80p

this week, it’s clean me cupboards out week, the water rates bill is in, so is the dreaded Council Tax. Since getting into a tight mess with it, paying £70 a letter, we pay the lot off at the beginning of April. If I use the right card, you pay it off on the 2nd June.

i understand, why people think it’s hard and expensive to eat healthy, but if you read vegetarian cookbooks, you start to understand how to get more than one thing out of a bag of carrots!

no because the supermarkets market blueberries and strawberries out of season!
at an expense
nobody needs strawberries from morocco in MArch

If you have a garden you can grow your own raspberries, strawberries, black and redcurrants. They’re very easy.

Is there anything you could cut down ? Go onto a sim only deal, cancel some subscriptions?
Unfortunately if you want to eat the expensive food you need to either cut down in other areas or earn more money?

We're buying less variety each week. Basically a couple of types of fruit and veg and eating them until they are gone rather than wasting 10-15% each week because they are going off.

Our local market is cheaper than the supermarkets and has the advantage of being able to weigh the exact amount you need.

We are using a lot of tinned sweetcorn and bags of mixed frozen veg. Agree with bags of frozen berries.

Summer isn't coming up though, is it? We're barely into spring. If you are buying berries, then firstly it's bad for the environment, and secondly, it's not the season. Summer is not here at all. There's a reason why these times are called the hungry months, it's not because there's lots of soft fruit. You need to stop with the fresh berries, there are fruit and veg out there, but you have to adjust. This is a very British thing you are doing, in French supermarkets you cannot find a single grape, there's only just starting to be the asparagus, you have to think more seasonally, and forget the idea that summer is coming up, it isn't.

I did too, it sounded desperately difficult.
Not being able to afford berries in February? Not so much.

This. I bought five raspberry canes five years ago and I have loads now. Very low maintenance and I get plenty of raspberries for free. I've put a £2.50 blackcurrant bush in which will fruit next summer. I usually put about 4kg of blackberries in the freezer from foraging.

This is us carrots, frozen peas, apples and pears, tinned sweetcorn and spring greens. I am so bored and we are all eating less fruit and veg as a result.

Well done . I bought 2 about 10 years ago. We get a full colander of raspberries every day when they’re in season. I give lots of plants away. There must be about 20 people at least now who have established raspberry plots from my original two canes. If anyone is in Co Down and wants some canes I’m happy to pass a few on. Strawberries are easy to grow too and again we get a full colander of those most days too. I usually give some away. My children get sick of the sight of them 😂

This sounds great. Am I too late to plant canes for this year I wonder 🤔

You can get varieties to bear throughout a year bar winter. I have 5 so I have raspberries from late april or so to end of November

My kids are fruit monsters and instead of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries every week as well as other fruit they get one of those plus other stuff, I buy the value range or kids range they get kiwi, apples, plums, satsumas (or the like ), pears, bananas and a pineapple every week plus tinned peaches. Grapes I now only buy if I go to Asda as 2 for £2 unless that offer has gone in last few weeks as I refuse to pay £1,49 for 1 punnet aldi value ones.

Veg wise we use 1.5kg carrots a week and lots onions and mushrooms otherwise we buy frozen veg and eat alot of veg.

But fruit is alot cheaper her than abroad still and if you choose wisely can still get reasonably priced fruit.

I only have one variety of raspberries (no clue what) but they fruit twice, on the old canes in about June, then on the new canes in autumn. Very late last year as it was after the drought, I picked the last (frozen) raspberries in December.

try frozen and canned fruit and veg. Switch to cheapest fruit and veg, like bag of carrots.

Have you tried grocers and food markets instead of supermarkets?
I am so angry they have removed all the weekend markets from our area! But we still have the grocers inside the city markets.
They tend to have big bags of fruit for £1 or £2, so you could eat too.