To wonder how people can afford to live

[Member869894]

I've just been to lidl and am amazed at how expensive food has become. How do people on low incomes with children manage? When I was a single mum 15 years ago with little money i could still buy salmon and treats for my DCs. I'd not be able to buy thise now and I earn more

Eat more veggie food, and ration portion sizes, I guess

Eat cheaper foods. I don't think the majority of people need to ration food, but making cheaper swaps is probably more likely for most, including us.

How are you finding it?

Everything is getting so expensive.

Our family affords it because our housing costs are pretty low and we don't have car finance/loans to pay. If we had to pay market rent in our area it would be 3-4x our mortgage and it would cripple us. I have no idea how some families are managing.

Housing and childcare are the big costs IMO. If you don't have large outgoings on those you're fine. I paid off my mortgage last year, but before that, it was only 500 a months because we bought in a cheap area. No childcare costs as kids are teens. No car costs as no car, I wfh and he walks to work. So with me on 2k a month and DP on 1.5k a month, 3500 a month, it was roughly:

Mortgage 500
Gas and electric 150
Council tax 180
Water 60
Sky TV and broadband 80
TV license 13
Phone contracts 50

So around 1000pcm for essential bills, leaves plenty for food and incidentals.
It's a small house, weird layout, no-one would consider it particularly desirable, and it wont make us much if anything if we sell it, but we don't care.

Less meat. Fewer meals a day and not always hot meals. At least that's what I do.

Healthy food is cheaper than convenience food and snacks now. Lots of veg instead of meats. Gone are the days of salmon in my house (though we do eat a lot of tinned mackerel!). tbh, i find it easy to cut down on food shop initially but difficult to maintain it over a long period. It's all the other stuff that so much more expensive...I can't believe the price of instant coffee!

There will likely be a shift to older style eating patterns. I didn't grow up poor, but we had much smaller portion sizes and no takeaways or snacks and drinks bought while out and about. If we were hungry after meals you’d fill up on bread , a bowl of cereal or an apple/orange/banana. So possibly a return to more basic offerings, with less meat and more of the 2 veg.

That's true with us. Snacks are toast and butter, fruit, carrot sticks. Etc. All the packet snacks, crisps etc are so expensive now (and unnecessary).

I think people who were used to having some spare money, will be ditching 'luxuries' that have become normal things to pay for, like tv subscriptions and getting a new phone every year or two.
With shopping, some prices are totally ridiculous and people will just stop buying those things.
I still get my coffee pods but I've pretty much stopped buying instant coffee unless its own brand Aldi (which I like, thankfully).

It used to cost 50% of household incomes to buy food. Obviously much has changed and housing and childcare costs are now much higher. We have got used to having food available cheaply and this is no longer the case. Like people have said it’s about making choices of how to lower costs, it isn’t always easy but it can be done. I agree that the cost of some things are very high so I just don’t buy them.

fish is expensive particularly salmon
there are different fish,
it is probably better not to eat fish anyway, or meat.

Housing is the problem. Food if anything is underpriced and only going to go up given climate change. But if people had rents reasonable to their wages a lot of poverty inequality would vanish.

how apparently mackerel stocks are low so prices will go up and we need to swap to a different fish.

Less meat. Even chicken is expensive, so i generally do vegetarian based meals as its half the price for a meal. Chicken alone in Tesco is near on £5 whereas i can do a vegetarian meal £4 all in. I use a lot of rice and potatoes with chickpeas or types of beans to bulk out.
Meal planning so everything bought is accounted for.
Even treat snacks I make myself now. (Flapjack, oat bars)

If we have a treat takeaway it's generally fish and chips and all sharing. So much cheaper than other options.

Yes I noticed several price increases this week in Asda.

A friend buys from the reduced section and freezes them but even in the reduced of Asda the prices are still exorbitant!

It's only cheaper if you have the means to cook and store it. Many people living in poverty don't have access to things like a chest freezer or even an oven.

I’ve never been well off at all but I’ve never thought twice about trying to reduce a food bill. I think it’s because I don’t eat a lot of processed food

Blame housing costs - they eat up money before you start ( they also cause high childcare costs as the biggest cost for most nureries isn’t staff but rent / mortgage

I used to be able to get a weeks worth of food for 80 quid, which is roughly my carers allowance these days, now it just gets top ups

As with all of these questions. Because they either have more money coming in than you, or choose to spend the same money on different things.

That's fab for those of us who can buy, but I volunteer for a charity and a lot of the people we support have to rent and even for a cheap grotty house their housing benefit doesnt cover it as landlords have put their rents up so much

Agreed, the rental prices near us our mind-blowingly high. I can't even imagine having to pay them.

I find council tax expensive. I goes up 5 percent every year. Then there is the green bin to pay on top. I know some places put council tax up higher. In bankrupt Birmingham it was 7.5 percent and they have had a bin strike for months so no bins getting emptied and rubbish piling up. Some people have taken their own rubbish to the tip each week. I grow a lot of my own fruit and vegetables in my garden, then freeze them and consume through the year. I know many people don't have gardens so can't do that but it helps keep the cost down.

My council tax is £365 per month AND now you have to pay extra for the garden bin!

@Member869894 i remember when my mum used to say that the shopping usually ended up averaging £1 per item ( ie 100 items for £100 , the last shop I got 64 items for £124. It’s wildly expensive