To think food prices are just soaring on a daily basis?

[Haleso]

Every single item, no matter how much you shop around…

How are people coping?

Did a monthly shop, 2 weeks ago, £95, top up fruit/ veg/ meat weekly max £25, being quite strict , big fruit eater.
Only cat and I, I think a lot of stuff settling now.
I bulk buy my eco clean stuffs, I have 5 litres of laundry liquid, hand wash, conditioner and washing liquid, stocked up on dishwasher tablets too.
Also using soapnuts a lot with powdered laundry bleach and stain remover very cheap

Yeah I thought that this weekend when it was £1.65 for a can of Diet Coke in an off licence. £2.75 for small bottles, £1.35 for small packets of crisps. I know supermarkets are cheaper but there is noticeably extemely. I went into an identical type of shop in Spain last week and noticed that their prices are what ours were like pre-Covid/Brexit etc. I could get bottles of water for 1 euro and even in some places 50 cents. Unheard of here.

We were lucky enough to be able to buy some items in bulk just as the Ukraine/Russia war started (coffee and sunflower oil) but we're coming to the end of those stocks now and the price difference is horrendous. We batch cook, slow cook, air fry, freeze, use every special offer and points card we possibly can, price check pretty much every shop in at least 3 supermarkets, look to see if there is anything we can get at Home Bargains or B and M or the market - every week we remove yet another small treat (just as well chocolate tastes so crap these days really). I grew up like this, I am absolutely furious we're going through it again.

We're anticipating eating a lot of plain pasta, rice, and home made soup over the next few months and the occasional takeaway (by which I mean fish and chips maybe once a month) has had to go for now. I don't know how people on lower incomes than us are managing to be honest, it's heartbreaking and infuriating.

In case you are wondering why this is happening. This country is borrowing £25bn a month to pay for welfare and other spending. That’s right. After printing half a trillion £ to pay for Covid, we are now borrowing insane amounts, injecting money into the economy, in exchange for which nothing has been produced.

Productivity keeps dropping, free money keeps being injected into the system and prices keep going up.

You have to shop around - sign up to the loyalty cards like nectar prices and even sparks - their 3 for range went from £10 to £12 but its back at £10 if you have a sparks. Be prepared to change brands. Milk went up in price significantly but is falling now

Exactly, it’s not the farmers making money here. Prices have gone up massively for farmers but they don’t get the same rise from supermarkets/dairies. Most the farmers I know have had to find different routes to market to afford to keep running.

Things are tight for my family at the moment, what with one thing and another, and we've made the swap from Tesco to Lidl. If you're sensible, it is still quite a bit cheaper.

Someone else mentioned coffee... The instant brand we like best has been consistently £5+ for months, so we've just had to buy the next brand down. The taste isn't really much different, but it just feels like one more little treat we used to take for granted is now unavailable to us.

We're certainly not on the bones of our arses - and the money situation should pick up again come August/September - but it is a worry.

I had my supermarket delivery this morning and quickly emptied it onto the kitchen table and thought "how on earth is that 90 quids worth of food?"

Yes I would definitely do this, I don’t know what you farm but the farm next to us sells us 10kg beef boxes (mixed cuts) for around £100ish and 5kg lamb box for £70ish and the best part about it is I can see the cows and sheep as they graze in the field next to my field so there’s no food miles either.

I have no idea if what I pay for the above sizes is cheap/expensive (or how many 5kg or 10kg boxes you would get from a lamb or cow) but I’m sure if would work out better than what a supermarket gives you

stick with one supermarket and buy a delivery bundle, the tesco one is something like £3-4 for the whole month, works out great if you order every week. I think things have been low key going up for years, tesco used to do delivery for £1.5, and waitrose used to deliver for free.

Sorry just re-read. Excuse that last one.

Oddly no, the price of our bread has just come down.

UK salad and veg prices have fallen, and petrol is down as well.

Not where we are, petrol and diesel have crept up by a few pence per litre in the last couple of weeks.

Not in my part of the country sadly….

We eat less meat.

I am a confident cook so when I shop I look for offers, never meal plan. we don’t snack and never have. Also buy stuff in season. Not huge fruit eaters either, just one piece a day. Stuff like Greek yogurt was reduced so I bought loads and made flatbreads which I then froze. Eat a lot of veg.

That’s a great idea! Think a lot of people would choose to buy direct from farmers as you can see shops ripping off consumers too, plenty of things have gone up in price that have no reason to keep rising.

Prices have gone up. But in some ways it's made me more conscious of food waste, now nothing gets wasted. Everything gets used up before I shop again. Portions are taken out for lunch the next day rather than eating seconds just for the sake of it.

Soups, curries, chilli, bolognase all bulked out with lentils and any veg lurking in the bottom of the fridge.

For 1 adult, 2 teenage girls and 2 cats our monthly food/toiletries/cleaning shop normally comes in at around £250. I use a community kitchen once a week, try and look for yellow labels, try and collect olio bits, we eat vegetarian mostly. (I am also wheat and dairy intolerant which means we mostly eat potato or rice based dishes) we buy less treats which is better for us health wise.

Apparently we can expect more food-price increases at the beginning of next year when new border checks and charges are due to come in, which will make it more expensive to import food.

https://www.talkingretail.com/news/industry-news/upcoming-post-brexit-border-charges-could-lead-to-further-food-price-rises-14-06-2023/

@Anotherfarmerswife 'We're looking into selling direct'

Do it. I already buy frozen lamb and duck, and a lot of our veg from the local farm.

Other meat from the local butcher, it's infinitely better quality & value than supermarket meat, and doesn't shrink because it's not full of water.

My supermarket shop is bread, dairy, tins, dried goods, a few fruit & veg, and cleaning products.

We have gone from £110 per week to £250 for a large family 😫 DH is pre-diabetic so now needs a special diet. It’s killing us. Half my wage is going on food, the other half on rent.