How much?!

[Theonewhogotthecake]

i was looking to make a Cherry Bakewell pudding but I’ve seen that 250g of ground almonds is £4.20, £6.50 for 500g! So that’s a no!

Anyone else had to change their meal plans recently?

There is SO much I simply don't buy anymore. We don't eat out. Ever. Take away (chippy) on birthdays only. I can not afford or justify the cost otherwise. We used to eat out all the time, at least once a week for no particular reason. Take away at least once a week. Would think nothing of buying lunch when out, or a drink.
Food shopping, branded stuff is generally a no. Unless theres no alternative option. Everything is planned carefully. Even down to lunches. Kids have packed lunches, as do me and DH. My son loves prawns. Big fat nope! Can't afford them! I love Mr Kipling country slices. Asdas own don't quite cut it. So we just don't get them.
Me and DH have just treated ourselves to a museum visit without the kids, in the centre of Manchester. We sat in the car and ate our packed lunches like a sad pair of losers.
He's a teacher, and me a midwife. Yet this is what life has become. It's shocking as far as I'm concerned. We don't even live in an expensive area of the country. So I don't know how other people manage!

Steady on there @ThisMustBeMyDream !
A packed lunch can be a wonderful thing, I have a long abandoned eating out and all other commercially prepared food in favor of that made by my own fair hands.

I didn't say I don't like it 🤣. I've actually lost 7.5st as a result (well, okay, not just the not eating out, but as more as part of a huge lifestyle change). It's more the fact that we should earn enough to be able to choose! It was less choice, more necessity!

And pringles

And chocolates are getting higher in price. Starting buying fake snickers/ twix from lidl instead.

Where are you buying your ground almonds? Even Waitrose is cheaper than that, as is m&s.

I planned to make a lamb casserole the other night, until the lamb was £7.50 for 300g, I usually cook double and freeze half, so would need two packs. I just can’t justify £15 for a week night dinner. Went with chicken instead.

Too Good to Go is another good app, locally supermarkets like Morrisons and shops like Greggs put bags together to save food waste which can be bought for less than a fiver.

https://www.toogoodtogo.com/

I used to buy ready made pizza's fairly regularly. Now Pizza's are an occasional treat and I make them from scratch - then at least they do seem like a proper treat (although I think buying the ingredients probably isn't cheaper than the ready made ones)

I can't remember the last time I bought lamb.

I only use olive oil on salads etc - rather than cooking., I use rape seed oil instead.

Yep! I paid £5 for 500g of Tesco’s lean mince last week and thought blimey that’s gone up, looked at my receipt from six months ago from when I did my online shop and it was £3.60! A 38% increase in six months.

We also used to get the cheap Tesco chocolate and raspberry cereal bars and about 18 months ago they were only a pound and now they are £1.85 and the size has almost halved!

How can we keep going on like this?

I'm certainly moving away from convenience foods and making more things from scratch. It costs in time, but the results taste better and do end up being cheaper in the long run because I can make more and freeze. Pizza toppings are usually taken from what I have in the house so tomato paste for the sauce, I usually have cheese in the fridge, mushrooms, ham etc so I'm not buying them specifically for pizza which, in my head, means a free meal.

I'm on such a tight budget with food. I buy the cheapest fruit and veg, use frozen where possible.
I eat banana a lot as it seems the cheapest and give the kids more variety.
I buy value beans etc and pasta.
I have also started buying frozen sausages and very little other meat other thana one a week extra large chicken which does me and the 4 kids a few meals and lunches.
I don't buy branded anything. But doing the bove has kept our food bill to 250 per month.

Tesco

would you be able to reccomend a book or chef/site that's good for beans and lentil recipes please, Im trying to incorporate more veggie meal ideas at home but apart from adding a tin of lentils to ragu I am not familiar with how to make the best of them iykwim?

Have you tried ChatGBT - type in recipe to include XYZ and see what it brings up - it’s quite good

Look in places like B and M for ground almonds, very often they have the Whitworths brand dried fruit and nuts in. And Poundland.

If you have a Grape Tree nearby then they have big sales and are excellent for buying all your dried things in bulk. Herbs and spices too, much cheaper and in larger quantities than supermarkets.

Use ground rice and almond essence. Lots of the WW2 recipes and substitutions work really well

Same with the mince - I actually said FIVE POUNDS?! out loud in the shop because I was so shocked.

@AtomicBlondeRoseyes I was the same when I saw the size of it when it was delivered as I thought I’d ordered the bigger pack as I only looked at the price! I was so enraged I had to sit back and look at every online receipt to see how much it used to be as I was convinced I had never paid that much before.

Salmon has almost doubled in the space of about 2 years

In the Lidl app you can see all your digital receipts so I can tell you in July 2021 500g of lean mince was £2.49. 😭

I stopped buying coconut water.

£5 for a carton :o

If you don't mind veggie - I use quorn mince. It's half the price from what you are all saying mince costs.
If using in a chilli or spag bol, my biggest tip is to fry it up in a seperate pan to anything else, and only add it in to the rest for the last few minutes of cooking. It keeps firmness this way. Sometimes it can break up otherwise.

If you don't mind veggie - I use quorn mince. It's half the price from what you are all saying mince costs.
If using in a chilli or spag bol, my biggest tip is to fry it up in a seperate pan to anything else, and only add it in to the rest for the last few minutes of cooking. It keeps firmness this way. Sometimes it can break up otherwise.

Just doing my food shop the cheapy southern fried chicken i get to make burgers as a fakeaway kfc and break from much cooking have gone up 30p since last week. mince has gone up another 20p. The jar of peppers i use for soup has gone up about 50p since I last got some a couple of months ago. Growers harvest tomatoes are now only only 2p cheaper than Tesco own brand! Its crazy.

Get used to higher prices. This dry weather has severely impacted crops and we are facing shortages. Crops feed animals and increased crop prices = increased bread, meat, milk etc.

Thank you for making the argument for vegetarianism!
Energy is lost at each trophic level and therefore it makes sense to grow crops for human consumption rather than feeding them to animals who are then eaten by humans.