To think food prices are still soaring?

[Sooooup]

Two of us and a baby on the way. Even if we budget we can’t shop for under £100 a week
(including toiletries, laundry, cleaning stuff, toilet roll etc). This is wherever I shop and I shop around.

Any fresh veg I buy lasts for such a short amount of time. 2-4 days max. So can’t shop for the week, have to go a few times. I buy frozen where I can.

I am sure I could do it for about £60/70 a week only six months ago. How are people managing? We aren’t on bad incomes but it’s very much average I would say.

I changed from Asda to Ocado in January because I had a £25 voucher and free delivery coupon. I’ve stayed with Ocado because it’s proving cheaper. I had got to the point I was struggling to stay under £250 with Asda but now it’s £230 ish each week (family of 5 with 3 teenagers). It wasn’t that long ago when £200 was a massive shop and £150 was normal. I don’t know how people are surviving if they didn’t have any flex in their budget.

I fucking hate supermarkets. They profiteered thru the pandemic, then closed most of their checkouts. They killed all the local shops and now we are their slaves.
i have started going to the market in town on my lunch break (I work in town 3 days a weeks). I get meat, fish, fruit and veg and stick it in one of the fridges at my work(lucky to be able to). Often buy bread and cakes too. It’s cheaper but it also brings me joy to give Tesco the finger.

£125 a week for 2 adults and 2 children 4 and 2 who eat a lot and have allergies as well as toiletries nappies wipes cleaning stuff etc. Main shop Aldi and then stuff I can't get from there I get from tesco. Myself and my husband have cut back quite a bit and skip lunches sometimes or eat the kids leftovers.

brexit
climate change
war in major food growing region
major shipping route impassable due to warmongers
bird flu

food is not going to get cheaper anytime soon

And anything that’s processed has had the recipe changed with cheaper ingredients. I think Tesco swapped some mince out of a ready made bolognese and replaced it with mushroom. And they definitely messed around with Greek Style Yogurt. They took some milk out and replaced it with starch!

YANBU.

Our Aldi weekly shop has gone up by £30 a week in the last 3 months. There’s 3 of us, spending about £130, used to be able to do it for £100. We only eat meat twice a week now, fish once a week, the rest of the nights are veggie. I use lots of pulses in my cooking to bulk meals out.

I wouldn’t dream of shopping in Asda, they are more expensive than M&S and Waitrose!

Just me at home as DD at uni.

Mortgage goes up beginning of next month - I’ve just reassessed my budget and managed to work out a monthly food and household shop for £100 (based on DD not being at home), which is pretty much all I can afford.

Working one f/t term time only job and an extra evening and weekend gig totally 45 hours a week…hoping to pick up some extra shifts after Easter.

Have you seen the rent/ mortgage comparison though? Shocking.

We pay our cleaner monthly. Works better for us and she's happy to do it that way.
Might be worth thinking about.
Work out how many hours she's done and ping it over x

Oddly enough those bags of buttons are my price comparison guide too! The jump from £1.35 to £1.65 everywhere proves its profiteering by the big supermarkets.
I have to buy them as sometimes it's the only thing my ND disabled daughter will eat to get enough calories down her! Last time the slightly smaller bad was still £1.19 from Poundland, but that was a few weeks ago.

Fresh veg should last longer than 2-4 days. Where are you buying it from? M&S veg is good quality and lasts and is often the same price or cheaper than other supermarkets. I find Lidl and Aldi to be the worst for veg.

How often are you buying toiletries, cleaning items etc? I buy toilet rolls from Who Gives a Crap and they last 8 months. Nicky loo roll from Farm Foods, Home Bargains etc are pretty cheap and good quality.

I buy shower gel, handwash, shampoo etc in Home Bargains but supermarket own brand are cheap and I don't really find much difference between cheap brands and expensive ones except maybe the more expensive smell slightly nicer sometimes.

If there are only 2 of you toiletries should be lasting a good while. Shampoo lasts me a good couple of months and I wash my hair every day. DH washes his every 3 days and his shampoo lasts even longer.

I also buy cleaning products from Home Bargains or supermarket own brand but you really don't need many products for cleaning and they should last quite a long time. You only need a small amount of shower gel and it should last a couple of months easily.

I buy Lidl washing liquid. It's under £3 and lasts about 2 months.

You are spending a lot compared to me.

Since January my spending for a family of 4 - me, dh, ds 16, dd 18 has averaged £95 per week. Me and dh wfh and eat leftovers or something light for lunch, both kids take a packed lunch.
I buy seasonal fruit and veg, cook from scratch and nothing gets wasted.

£57 for what I once would have called a small Lidl shop.

Don't tell me it's getting better. It's not.

I can only be grateful I no longer have a whole family to feed. I can't imagine how tough that must feel right now.

This is the data for inflation (on the left) and then food inflation (year on year) since 2021

Sep 2021 2.9 0.8
Oct 2021 3.8 1.3
Nov 2021 4.6 2.5
Dec 2021 4.8 4.2
Jan 2022 4.9 4.4
Feb 2022 5.5 5.1
Mar 2022 6.2 5.9
Apr 2022 7.8 6.7
May 2022 7.9 8.7
Jun 2022 8.2 9.8
Jul 2022 8.8 12.7
Aug 2022 8.6 13.1
Sep 2022 8.8 14.6
Oct 2022 9.6 16.4
Nov 2022 9.3 16.5
Dec 2022 9.2 16.9
Jan 2023 8.8 16.8
Feb 2023 9.2 18.2
Mar 2023 8.9 19.2
Apr 2023 7.8 19.1
May 2023 7.9 18.4
Jun 2023 7.3 17.4
Jul 2023 6.4 14.9
Aug 2023 6.3 13.6
Sep 2023 6.3 12.2
Oct 2023 4.7 10.1
Nov 2023 4.2 9.2
Dec 2023 4.2 8.0
Jan 2024 4.2 7.0

You can see the massive year on year increases - food at the end of 2022 was about 17% higher than at the end of 2021 and food at the end of 2023 was about 8% higher than at the end of 2022

So for every £100 you spent on food at the end of 2022, you would need £100 1.17 1.08 = £126 now to buy the same amount

Where did you shop? I spent £100 for 5 people in aldi. Its for a week already including everything. We dont drink, so no wine.

Before Covid our weekly shop for two adults was £40 and around £60 if we included dishwasher tablets etc. Now, it’s easily £100 and that’s us consciously looking for deals and offers. It’s impossible to get it under that too unless we eat daal for every meal, which I refuse to do as life is glum enough. We have an 19 month old now and he only has dinner at home, so it’s not him increasing the food shop!

We're trialling out Hello Fresh atm as it’s £50 a week for 4 meals for 4 people (we take the 2 additional portions for lunch the next day). That way things are slightly cheaper, especially as they always have some kind of offer on!

It’s getting a few bits, 10 in Waitrose yesterday was £24

Squash own brand
Bread
Milk
Sausages 12
potatoes
Crisps
kitkats
Honey

These, were all Waitrose own brand.

I am lucky that the COL has not really effected us, but this was the first time I was shocked at prices.

Any fresh veg I buy lasts for such a short amount of time. 2-4 days max

How are you storing the veg? I bought carrots, tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, cucumber, sweet potatoes, mushrooms and cauliflower over a week ago in Aldi and they are still absolutely fine in the fridge.

I paid nearly £5 for mayonnaise, I was almost buying eggs and oil instead. If I had time I might have just done. Too bloody reluctant to use it too.

Everything went up loads, but now the shelves all have labels on saying the price has been reduced by 10p or so. Prices have been backed off a bit lately - maybe because people are buying less. I read something about there being a massive glut of wine. I was in Ikea and they were making announcements about having cut prices.

I know we aren't going back to 2019 prices, but I think businesses are cutting costs a bit as demand falls.

Gosh where did you buy that? We buy EV olive oil from Lidl and it's practically half the price for a big bottle 😳. It's nice too.

Although I do agree that lots of everyday things have shot up in price

It’s insane, what can everyone do about it?

I can do it for half that?