This is shit!

[Rayn22]

Tend to do my shopping between Asda and Aldi.
Was going to do an online shop at Asda and priced it up to £101.
Decided to go to Aldi and bought the same and it was £93 so wasn't much difference. I also had to factor in petrol to get there.

Made me realise that there aren't really any 'cheap' supermarkets anymore. Looks like we are all eating less.

Was hoping to have a holiday this year but no chance. We have good money coming in and still can't afford luxuries.
We used to eat out, holidays and buy clothes.
It has gone crazy and just can't see an end to it!
By the time we have paid bills and food hardly anything left. Trying to be positive and look at what I have- not what we haven't but think tough times are going to be here for a while.

On paper our combined household income sits comfortably above average wage (I earn less than due to part time working and DH earns more than so it evens out).

Once you then add mortgage, childcare costs, petrol to commute to work (not accessible by public transport) and all the other increasing costs and we are working to live each month with virtually no additional luxuries. (Ie definitely no holidays and we are reining in other costs such as food and heating because if anything was to go wrong with the house or car we have no buffer). We both trained for 10 years plus and worked our way up within our profession, under the impression that through doing so we wouldn't have to worry about day-to-day living costs. It scares me to think that we're struggling at this level.

Agree with Aldi and Asda prices rises, I've seen this with Iceland too when I've price checked online. Ocado has been cheaper!!!

I've always gone to Aldi to pick up some cheap bits, then Sainsburys for the rest. The price increases in Aldi don't really make it cheaper/worth the extra trip now.

I've cut out buying food for breakfast and lunch altogether during the week. I have a Pret subscription so my lunch is a mocha, then I have a decaf latte after work which just about gets me through until dinner, which I now eat an hour or so earlier.

Yes I know I could cancel the Pret subscription and buy cheap lunch stuff for less than £25 a month but my coffee is one of the few luxury joys left in my life!

Kids are eating worse now too, we have Iceland £1 pizzas (with a bit of salad or something) at least twice a week now. The grocery budget just runs out way before the month is over ☹️

This half term we haven't been able to do any days out as just can't afford it. We used to go away every February half term (only UK, Travelodge or Premier Inn type mini break, but still!) and now we can't even afford the train to get anywhere let alone a hotel or activities once there.

I'm working more hours than I used to and life is worse! Ah well, another walk in the woods today it is 😂

Inflation is real, what used to be "good money" isn't so good anymore. We locked down the entire country for months on end and splashed it with funny money, essentially robbing people of their purchasing power at a rate of around 10% average in real terms for the last 3 years. So basically our income has more often than not been reduced drastically in real terms (unless your income has risen over 1/3 or so in the last few years).

How many people were so well off to not really be impacted by a 1/3 loss of real purchasing power? not so many.

@NCTDN - I got all excited at that and signed up - now realised it doesn't apply to online shopping - gutted!

It's only 17th of February and we already spent 300 quid on 2 people. We weren't too frugal, I need to add this, but we don't eat out anymore and sometimes just would like to eat some supermarket sushi. Barely a luxury. Not necessity either, but you know what I mean. No booze, as I'm pregnant so my husband doesn't buy anything for himself too. We eat meat once a week, it's hardly excessive. Recent shopping should last us another week, so it's not too bad, but still, I need to think about stretching meals.

How many people is this for?

Readycamp is good fun with kids. Lots of nice locations.

I've cut red meat out of our diets. We eat veggie at least two nights a week. I also bulk buy bone-in chicken thighs, de-bone them and portion for 3ish meals.

Still can't get our family of four shop below £100 these days. DC has ARFID so I have to buy a lot of certain brands of snacks or he doesn't eat. And we get through twelve pints of milk a week as that's the only protein/calcium I can get into him. Youngest eats mostly what we eat luckily.

We shop at Tesco as we often find they have club card reductions on lots of things we normally buy anyway. I buy all the wonky veg and value 'Hearty Food Co' staples and basics. No idea how we will cope if it gets much worse. I can pinch food for DH and I but the kids are a different matter.

Also our holiday is a caravan 45 mins down the road in July, which we are taking during term time as it was only £150.

That's rubbish! I didn't realise that either.

It applies to online orders of home delivery of supermarkets.

We no longer buy meat or fresh fruit. We buy a lot more frozen stuff from a cheaper shop.

It's awful OP - were really struggling too. The food/ grocery shop (family of 5) is just over £480 a month we used to spend £300ish. I've started eating cereal for lunch alongside breakfast & serving smaller portions up for hubby and I for our evening meal..I'm trying to get the food bill down but the prices are hiking up every week!

There are some hacks which can help bring down some food shops but does involve more effort.

Typically a food market (not talking Borough Market or a posh farmers one) is one of the cheapest ways to shop for fruit and veg and if you go shortly before they pack up generally you can pick things up quite cheap.

Indian supermarkets are great for large bags of lentils and rice lentils great for bulking meals. Along with spices.

Chinese supermarkets are cheapest for noodles, dried mushrooms, soy sauce etc

Going to the fishmongers or butchers towards the end of the day on a Saturday also same bargains to be found (assuming they are shut on Sun)

If you live in city then going to some of the other cultural hubs wholesalers and butchers tend to be cheaper then supermarkets.

It does take time though!

Sadly I think it’s going to only get more expensive.
This week cat litter wend from £7 to £9 a bag in every shop we could look in and online.
I remember at the start of Covid we had to start buying our shopping online, and Tesco’s had a limit of 93 items or something silly. We used to be limited by the amount of items we could buy and plan our meals accordingly. So we’d spend about £100.
Now we spend about £150 and we can’t even afford 93 items.
We won’t be going on holiday either.
I’d rather try to save the pennies, because I think next year we’ll be saying, ‘ Last years I was only spending this much on food and now it’s #@£?!’
I just can’t how they can slow the rise in food prices when inflation is running at 10%. They can only keep going up until inflation is under control.

I’ve stopped buying all my shopping in a supermarket and now I buy a butchers pack for £23, spend £20 in the fruit and veg shop next door and spend about another £20 in aldis to get things like bread, cleaning products, cheese etc

It’s awful - going to be storing up so many health problems in the future. Iron deficiency for one!! If no one can afford red meat anymore.

Everything is expensive and I feel buried in debt and stress due to raising costs.

Went into Lidl today as they have the little trolleys to keep DC busy. I was shocked at how expensive it is in there. It's far more expensive than Asda when you usually buy the yellow essentials range or lowest priced unbranded stuff because they have barely any products in their equivalent budget range. I was only picking up a few bits. One bag of shopping (not full) and some bog roll cost me nearly £30!

I'm finding my Waitrose delivery oddly cheaper, maybe they are trying to compete with the other shops?

They have recently reduced their (good) essentials range and I often get around £20 off the weekly shop with online vouchers.

Delivery is £3 and they bring it up the stairs to our flat.

Also a nice thing with Waitrose is if they substitute something they often give you the next size up. Last 2 weeks it has been the Azera coffee so I got the larger one for the offer price of the small one.

I share delivery with an elderly neighbour so we pay £1.50 each.

I've noticed that Lidl was almost as much as Sainsburys last week :(

I did my week shop in Sainsburys yesterday and prices are coming down a little (obviously depending on what you buy!)

In fact my shop was cheaper than budgeted so I managed to buy extra treats for the cupboard and freezer! It hasn't been this low for months (£67 for the full week including packed lunches. Family of 4)

I made DH double check I hadn't forgotten anything as it was so cheap 🤣

I went to Boots to get a prescription and thought I'd pick up some toothpaste...the cheapest option was a Colgate pump...£6.00!!

Oh my god thats awful! We bought Colgate pump for £1.75 yesterday in our Sainsburys shop!

I remember as I commented on its size.

I know the Sainsburys thing is likely just temporary but the relief felt so nice. I cried last week over the food shop.