Its definitely getting harder noticed more price rises last few weeks in all shops and availability in lilds once again has been dire.
I fear their 25p choc donuts and own brand ketchup are gone forever.
Reductions have been hard to find especially meat.
Used to have 2 sometimes 3 freezer draws with reduced meats/ other things like readymeals nearly empty as difficult to replace brought some more veggie books we are going have to eat less meat without a doubt.
Red lentils try international store or workd food ailse at tesco/ morrisions.
Aldi do cheapest aborio rissitto rice £1.89 twice the size of morrisions .
However morrisions is now cheaper on cheese and does 50p 6 small free range eggs praying they don't go up.
My advice would be decide monthly budget and if you can divide by 5 if 4 week month giving you pot of money to buy Reductions / weekly lilds offers..
In a way aldis and lilds easier because of leaflets they also available veiw online but already im looking at offers next week I need to go in and stock up on like husband loves fruit ciders and they£1.19 bottle.
See if you can use lilds/ aldis weekly fruit and veg deal into meal plan or meal side.
I constantly buy value pasta whenever I see it I'm upto 20 value spagetti and 20 value penne as often they out coffee stock and think anything with wheat in will go up as current stock is last years harvest.
With so many countries india/ Indonesia/ Egypt/ Ukraine not exporting wheat i expect prices bread/ flour/ pasta to shoot up in the autumn.
Tesco normal pasta range dried gone up 5p to 75 p q bag.
I like to buy huge variety different shapes to make pasta less boring.
Definatly build up a stock pile make some space somewhere as its been a life saver this year.
I track montly budget and spending and I have it written down how much I spent on groceries every month for over a year.
In November can't remember why probably car we were skint week before pay day.
We really did have some odd creative meals and it felt like a really tough week.
Xmas tradition is through month of December and new year last few years is we buy much less full price treats as easy go out on Xmas shop.
Instead we work hard as a couple I even shop on boxing day and do several different supermarkets Xmas eve to buy as many reduction as we possibly can to fill our freezers.
Jan and feb often low paid months and this lasts us until mid Feb..
This year was even harder as got landed with huge tax bill so feb and march were so tight I was glad we had loads and we ran down so much stuff.
April and may we spent over budget but that's because we had run down and I wanted build up supplies and stock pile certain items.
Pay day Monday thank God we skint the last week but been so much easier than November's although keep running out basics my frozen bread stash ran out , oven chips, sugar , cheese milk.
I now always keep emergency milk in freezer and long life too.
Learning for future months.
Bulk buy sugar
Grate cheese and freeze vas emergency 🧀.
Don't let bread run down like that again although always have bread flour and yeast on hand.
Bulk buy toothpaste bog roll and pet food
We collected all the loose change yesterday which managed to buy
4pints milk now £1.45 was 1.25 few months back.
£1.25 happy shopper cheese small block was £1.
Same size block used be £1 Iceland now £1.60
6free range eggs morrisions 50p
2 loaves Warburton 40p each so 80p
Sugar 70p bag.
Some reduced carrots/ baby tomatoes as healthy snack.
Got a lilds veg box last week 1.50 that was helpful.
Find too good to go hit and miss.
Will make a leek and potato soup on weekend.
Kids can always eat jam/ nuttoka on toast and going to make batch rice krispie cakes and pancakes.
Cake mixes where you add veg oil and 1 egg water can be a bargain treat for kids and activity .
Already made lists of what we need or want for june and done different list each shop with item unit price and quantity.
Just need plan fresh list around aldi and lilds specials.
Most Bulk grocery now tesco as cheapest on cakes mollys range is fab.
Squash and soft drink
Cheap biscuits
Cereal as mine dislike aldi /lids versions.
Milk is killing me £60 quid of month budget is just milk as we use 4pints per day.
6pint aldi how £1.89
I don't want have cut back as youngest 2 don't have much other dairy.
They also Cereal monstors so yes I do buy 20boxes in one go and 10bottles of Squash plus cheap biscuits for my relentless snacking kids