To be appalled at the cost of food?

[pinotnow]

I know this has been done to death and we are in a cost of living crisis, but listening to the news they are intimating that it is slowly levelling out and the worst is over. Yes as far as I can see it's spiralling out of control.

I did a Lidl shop this weekend and bought absolutely nothing for main meals as I have a Hello Fresh box for three days coming, boys are going to their dad's for the weekend on Thursday and I have store cupboard stuff in already.

Therefore all I bought was stuff for lunch boxes, snacks, fruit and breakfast cereal. No cleaning stuff, oil or pet food needed this week and one bottle of wine. I thought it would be a bit less than I usually pay (only the second time I've used Hello Fresh) and certainly the trolley wasn't as full.

It came to £78!! Maybe £5 or so less than I have usually paid lately. It's out of control. How on earth are people supposed to manage and when will it stop going up all the bloody time?

I've no idea. We can barely afford a full shop these days. It's bloody scary.
It's going up every month it seems when I look at my past orders .

How the hell did you spend that in Lidl on what you’ve described?
I also shop in lidl and on a week when I’m just shopping for what you’ve said you bought I don’t spend more than £45! And that me being generous.
Did you buy lots of expensive fruit and snacks? You can definitely cut down that spend I reckon.

A few weeks back I found a receipt from Aldi from August, not even a year ago. Oven chips were £2.00 and a few weeks ago they were £2.79. Today they were £2.99. We normally make our own now.

We struggle as my girls are dairy intolerant and need soya milk, and one is gluten intolerant. So and £4 a day just for their milk, then we need gf bread, df cheese, gf biscuits or cakes.
It's wiping us clean. And that's before meat, fruit, vegetables, essentials.

There is definitely some profiteering going on. It makes no sense that food inflation is still almost 20% unlike the rest of the world. The consumer is being taken for a ride.

But food is still loads cheaper than most countries.

What did you buy? I shop in Aldi and for a full weeks shop for me (all meals/snacks/cleaning etc) I allow £50-60

It's absolutely shocking. For example, I used to buy a particular cheese...it was £1.69...it's now £2.99. Nearly £5 for a tray of three chicken breasts. I spent £120 today in Aldi and Sainsbury's. I didn't get a huge amount. Definitely not enough to last a week. Aldi didn't have a single egg so I had to go to Sainsbury's. They only had posh eggs left so I spent over £5 on 12 eggs. I used to buy a pack of ten in Lidl for about £1 a few months ago.

You clearly didn't just buy snacks for lunchboxes and some fruit if you've spent £78 in Lidl

We shop at Lidl every weekend without fail and have done for a few years. We buy a lot more than what you've detailed and it doesn't come anywhere near to £78

I normally spend £120-130 per week in aldi. £80-90 pre COL crisis. My weekly shop 3 weeks ago was almost £200 for all the same stuff! I almost fainted.

Decided to try morrisons last week and this week. Treated mystery to a home delivery and for the exact same items and a few extra treats I was £97 one week and £102 the other. The low cost supermarkets are fleecing us.

I agree op. I spent £75 at Lidl on saturday and literally only had enough for the weekend meals, I have nothing left now for the week. Popped to Coop today to get a bag of frozen chips to go with a reduced price Gammon joint for tea and the cheapest bag was £3.30 which i refused to pay. Everything we get comes out of the bargain bin.

Agree with this.

In Tesco 250g block of Anchor butter creeping up in price from £2 to £2.50.

Now it’s a 200g block at still £2.50?!

What did you actually buy? I find it hard to believe you spent £78 on just snacks, fruit and cereal .

It makes me angry. I'm sure the prices don't need to be that high and that the chains are just cashing in on it all now. It's ridiculous.

I’m the same. In Aldi I bought fruit, snacks, cereal, yoghurt, veg, milk, bread and kitchen roll. I did get some coffee capsules but no wine. £68 quid. I’m pretty sure I could get a weeks shop on that 2 years ago.

its insane. Slightly different(and I know we’re lucky to afford this) but we got a kfc tonight. 2 box meals £21 I nearly died. A fish supper in our local is now £10.50. It’s not even that nice. We normally do takeaway once a week but that’ll be cutting back now. I can’t justify the costs now

Food in U.K. supermarkets had become ridiculously cheap, eg £2.49 for a whole chicken, so an adjustment to more realistic pricing was long overdue. Much of this was driven by poverty wages for workers in food supply chains which was itself driven by a limitless supply of cheap migrant labour while we were in the EU.
Supermarkets & their suppliers now have to compete for workers, so wages have risen sharply across the sector which is inevitably reflected in prices. Is that really such a bad thing?
The era of cheap food also allowed questionable spending priorities to become normalised in the U.K. People are happy to spend hundreds of pounds a month on the latest mobile phones, beauty treatments, cups of coffee, nights out, deliveroo, Sky, Netflix etc etc but they resent spending a fiver on a chicken. 🤷🏻‍♀️

“Therefore all I bought was stuff for lunch boxes, snacks, fruit and breakfast cereal”

That sounds like you mostly bought processed stuff though? Which is often a high price.

It sounds like having spent a lot on Hello Fresh, you had it in your head that you were just buying a few extras - but those extras weren’t budgeted precisely.

I'm afraid it's the same here, and though we're living in the EU (so no Brexit to blame here!) we're also living in a country with average salaries significantly lower than in the UK.

My last bill (also in Lidl) for similar types of food came to 70 EUR, and we hadn't bought any meat or fish and only half the veg we needed for the week

It's awful. We can afford it (albeit at the cost of cutting back on treats and being less ambitious with what I cook), but pensioners and people on lower incomes must be struggling horribly - and they did before, anyhow, as supermarket food etc has always been comparatively expensive.

I bought quite basic fruit - apples, bananas, small punnet of blackberries, melons, tomatoes, oranges, 1 tinned fruit cocktail (kids first had these in lockdown and now have 1 per week as lazy pudding!)
Snacks - chicken frankfurters, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, rich teas, fake penguins, rice cakes, chocolate crepes, bagels, hot cross buns, gouda biscuits, one fake pot noodle, yoghurts - did buy split ones this week as a treat as thought it would be a cheapish shop....
Lunches: couple of tins of soup, pasta salad, salami, brie, fake wotsits, bread, babybels, fake pepperami, fridge raiders, cereal bars.
Drinks - large milk, cheapest concentrated oj, wine (£6 bottle).
Fake weetabix, fake shreddies.

I mean it looks like nothing written down, but I really can't think what else - no eggs/butter/cooking oil/condiments/middle aisle stuff....

I keep thinking if it stays like this it'll be ok but it just continues to rise and rise.

Totally with @Rummikub here.

It's the shrinkflation that's really doing my head in.

I buy a pack/tub of something and expect it to last for xx days but it doesn't.

It's so frustrating and it's a sneaky way of costing us more.

YANBU. I did a topup shop at Tesco one night last week which was fresh food (fruit and vegetables plus some cooked chicken, prawns and salad stuff for lunches), and coffee which was five quid, then odds and ends like cereal and peanut butter - I had a single basket to make sure I could carry it back OK.

No alcohol, cleaning or laundry stuff or expensive meat/fish/cheese and it came to £58. I carried it out in my rucksack and one shopping bag; I'd taken two but didn't need the second.

Shrinkflation I always thought Pringles came in 200g tubes but now they are 160g but no cheaper wtf.

We have all got to use to food being unsustainably cheap. Now it’s gone in the complete opposite direction.

i am lucky that financially I can just about take that hit but I increasingly find I am spending more and getting less. There is no room for treats or any waste anymore

Supermarkets have literally doubled the price of some things in a matter of weeks. Every time I go it adds another tenner on, one day my card will be declined!

And they’ve recorded record profits too so clearly some profiteering rather than reflecting actual costs.