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?

YANBU, but that’s very high. You could easily cut back though, all those snacks are unnecessary and so unhealthy.

Yes food prices have gone way way up, but that is a LOT of processed food.

Whilst Rishi is selling the halving of inflation this year as his win, and it should happen anyway, with or without him - this doesn’t actually mean things stop rising, just they won’t rise as fast, as quickly. But still more quickly than we were used to pre 2022 for a long time. Inflation hasn’t yet come down anyway and, of course, whilst inflation is overall 10% or 5% or whatever, this doesn’t mean everything increases at that amount, some will be more, and some less, and food, particularly cheap food is quite high I think.
Actually part of the apparent drop in inflation will be due to this year’s utility bills rising less sharply from one year ago prices, than they did last year from the one year before. It’s all maths and maybe sounds good but when you think about it you see how it doesn’t end up being as good as we thought in reality.

Sympathy, I've 2 teenage boys myself. They like all that processed stuff cause it's easy but, if there is none, they will make and eat sandwiches for lunch because advantages of that sort of appetite is they're not fussy.

I'm still always shocked at our grocery bill! We shop mainly in Lidl and our last shop there included 1 free item, several reduced items and we bought less than our usual amount of food (no meat or allergy specific items) and it was still £42!
I try not to think about it as there's nothing we can do except hope it improves ☹️

complete madness! and a good time to go on an intermittent fasting diet if you need to lose weight and save a bit of cash (double benefits!!). I am semi serious here.

Here’s a cost of living index by country.

Uk number 44 in 2023, down from 34 in 2020.

Again, I know it doesn’t help when thinks are getting more expensive, but does help to put things in perspective

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2023&displayColumn=3

Sainsburys has 2kg of Laila for £5.50

I’ve discovered Iceland where I can buy three bags of fish, mince,

etc for £10 per three bags. All good quality too. Given up sainsbury fish as too expensive.

I am buying less and less and eating more veggie stuff. Sainsbury et al are digging their own graves.

I saw a jar of honey for £10 the other day! That’s another case where shopping diligently matters! Muesli has the same price issues due to cereal content. Ukraine is a big cereal grower. We love these foods but we might need to change brands - goodbye Dorset. I loved their cereals!

Fridge raiders aren't cheap either.

Before when doing an online shop it used to come over 100, now because I am so careful and only buy the basics and only items we need it came to about 70 yesterday from Waitrose. I used to get carried away before and added so many items not really needed and inevitably wasted.

There are bargains to be had if you look around. I was surprised to find a pack of custard creams for 30p in M&S of all places.

The supermarkets have all got reduced profits by trying to keep prices low. Don’t forget the British owned ones are in peoples pension pots. We need flourishing companies. Aldi and LIDL are German but we love a bargain!

YANBU. We could absorb it if the cost of everything else hadn't sky rocketed too e.g. energy, rent.

Biggest shockers for me - £6.25 for 2 litres Crisp n'dry - could have got it on offer for a couple of quid. It's on offer for £4 in Asda but do they have any, do they fuck! Tropicana, large size - proudly displayed on Tesco's shelves for £4.95!!! And butter - £4.95 for the branded stuff! I've gone supermarket own, it's just butter.

I end up doing several shops choosing the cheapest in each supermarket, but this means I often spend £300/400 on shops as soon as I get paid, stocking up on offers.

Food in the UK is so much cheaper than in other cities like New York. We are just used to paying nothing for food.

It’s long been acknowledged that the French spend a bigger percentage of their incomes on food. Always have.

But other things are cheaper in France - housing, utilities, public transport. Here in the UK food is getting more expensive but so is everything else.

£2.50 for a chicken? Expensive? That’s what I read upthread. Vegan so I don’t eat it, but seriously?

We need a massive wake up call, we’re an obese nation. Consuming, it’s pretty much a pastime. Whether it’s buying plastic tatt or just piling plates high. It’s sickening.

I agree. I walk around supermarkets saying how much.
Once 16 yr old has done exams they can work pt in McDonalds. They get a free meal on shift and an employee app think a meal is £2 ish. The teen boys by dd works with make full use of this. I imagine most fast food is similar.

It's disgusting that you were ever able to buy 10 eggs for a pound or any of those examples. The welfare standards to produce that kind of "food" are appalling.

@Emotionalstorm NYC is just insane though, honestly. Recently went and a loaf of bread without sugar in is 7 dollars. Bear in mind that USA equivalent jobs also pay about four times the salary of the UK for most professions. I was hearing that a bartender can make 130,000 dollars (including tips - basic wage is low but tips are HIGH!) and professional salaries are really wild.

So NYC is mad for food prices, but their income is wildly different. I'm not saying everyone there is rich but also their food is insanely priced and on the whole they get a lot higher wages than we do (even if they have high outgoings too!).

Poor OP's point has been thoroughly lost, which is that the price of food is still rising at a scary rate.

She wasn't asking how to cut her budget, complaining that she couldn't afford it , or claiming that she had purchased the cheapest things.

Anyway, my top find has been those big packets of ham, chicken or turkey offcuts that you can buy in iceland, and either Aldi or Lidl, I can't remember which. £2.99 and many times more meat in them than a packet of fake fridge raiders 😉 - knowing teenage boys, it would be wise to pre-portion it up though.

Why do people keep saying food is more expensive in some other countries? I don't give a shit, I'll worry about it next time I'm in New York or New Zealand. It doesn't help us in the UK!

That's just for Groceries. The COL table I looked at puts the UK at 15:

https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php