What is going on with food prices??

[londongirl12]

A 500g packet of mince in Aldi is now over £5!! What on earth is going on???

Great. Thank you.

Wow! That sounds like a nice haul. Not tried it. Whenever I checked what was on offer in my area, it was always lots of bread, pastries and ready meals… not my kind of thing.

There is a LOT of bread products - ivd noticed this at my local community fridge too

I go out of area quite a bit at weekends just to escape, so I look along my route - it widens the search a bit

That’s a really good idea - pouring soup just got way easier

Re Olio and the like - we have it down to an art now. Bread if not needed gets turned into breadcrumbs here, or made into croutons or an Italian bread soup (name escapes me but it’s cheap and delicious), and croissants etc become a bread and butter pudding - tear them, two eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon if they aren’t already filled/flavoured, then into the oven when something else is cooking.

£10 for a basic spag bol and garlic bread sounds an awful lot, even with increased food prices. You must be using a whole pack of mince?

I'd recommend trying cutting down on the meat. We will use more spaghetti than sauce and just stir the sauce through the pasta before serving. You definitely need less that way than the "dollop" method. You can also add oats to the bolognese mixture.....just sprinkle in plenty of porridge oats while it is cooking. You genuinely don't notice them once everything is cooked together and it's a very cheap way of bulking out mince dishes.

Even with buying some pre-made garlic bread I reckon spag bol for 4 of us would cost me no more than a fiver.

I agree. I also bulk the sauce out with various vegetables (carrots, celery, courgette or whatever I've got) and sometimes lentils. I've cut down on meat consumption overall - the prices are shocking.

Ribolita?

Yes! Thank you.

We don't really do garlic bread, I dont see the need for it with spaghetti. But, if I do, I like to make it. Just mix some minced garlic with butter, season and spread in a baguette. Bake and serve. Much nicer and cheaper than premade, in my opinion.
I also really bulk out mince. Lots of veg and a tin of lentils. £10 seems excessive.

@Wilfulignoranceabounds I just make the soup and freeze in old take away boxes. I guess freezing the veg would work, but I generally find it easier to make the soup at the time as I tend to be cooking a few things at once.

I've got some deep soup bowls, so when making sloppy food to freeze I line the bowl with a freezer bag ladle the mixture in put into the freezer. When frozen you can remove the bags from the bowls easily and stack the contents.

Don't forget to write on the bags first to avoid defrosting the wrong dish.

Cadburys Options (Sainsbury’s) if not used with Nectar is currently £5.40! I can’t believe anyone would actually pay that. It’s not even a luxury brand.

Any product with a loyalty card discount has probably had the initial price artificially inflated to make getting the loyalty card look like a good deal.

Googling ‘Cadburys options’ shows it’s £2.50-£2.70 in all shops (either as a purported ‘deal’ or just as the regular price).

Still expensive but not as expensive as it pretends to be.

Edited to say: so you are actually right - nobody does pay that!

This thread has really turned around into something inspiring.

@justasking111 I freeze soup in deep ice cube trays then transfer to silicone freezer bags - I can then either defrost a bunch for soup or add a few to other sauces, currys etc.

Our food shop has really creeped up, we used to spend no more than £50 a week, now it is pretty much always £70 and it can easily be more. I am really focusing on cutting it down as low as possible - while keeping us all well fed.

We are a family of 4 - 2 adults (one vegetarian one a picky eater) a hungry 5yo and a picky 3yo. We both work I have one non working day in the week DH is wfh 3 days and I am wfh every day.

We signed up to out local community pantry this week - £5 to join then £5 for 12 items (6 apples etc. count as 1 item)

I have had a really good look through the cupboards and freezer to really try and use up what we have too as it is all to easy to end up with a cupboard full of tins that you buy week on week.

We shopped on Friday and spent £51 - (£10 was a paypal voucher for uber eats that we spent in Iceland) £34 was spent in Aldi and £5 at the community pantry.

We bought frozen chicken in Iceland - cook from frozen breasts 1kg bags £5 a bag
Aldi was the bulk of the shop, tins, shelf stable stuff like noodles, pitta bread, fresh stuff like. tofu, milk, coffee, butter, cheese, eggs, yogurt, bits for lunchboxes etc
Community pantry we bought all our fruit and veg for the week. Apples, plums, celery, tomato's, peppers, potatoes, sweet potato, swede, carrots, leeks, broccoli and cabbages.
We already had plenty in stock including some veg left from the week before

Here is our plan for the week:

Friday - we went out for dinner we used a voucher spent £12 on top of the voucher (this had been booked for ages)
Saturday - Shakshuka, - DH had some chorizo through his (from the freezer) served with a garlic baguette from the freezer - made with peppers, tomato's, celery onions
Sunday - pork medallions from the freezer (veggie sausages for me) leek and broccoli cheese bake, carrots, peas, cabbage, roast potato, squash (plenty of leftovers from this to make lunches)
Apple and plum crumble - already had in oats, flour and sugar - froze half the crumble topping as made too much (half got eaten will use up the rest in the week) - made granola at the same time as baking the crumble
Monday - Curry, sweet potato, squash, celery, peppers, onions, tomato, cabbage (me and the kids will have chickpeas from the cupboard, DH will have some of the frozen chicken) with rice, yogurt, pitta breads.
Tuesday - Homemade Pizza DH to make, we have mozzarella frozen that can be used plus tomatoes and peppers for toppings, sweet potato wedges and homemade coleslaw
Wednesday - Kids eat at my mums - garlic chicken (quorn for me) with veg, probably mashed swede, air fried leeks, peas and carrots, plus something potato
Thursday - sweet and sour stir-fry - tofu for me chicken for everyone else with noodles, broccoli, pepper and onions

Breakfasts - the kids and DH have yogurt and fruit - I made a jar of home made granola on Sunday to go with this, I don't like breakfast

Lunches
DS gets free school lunches
DD has three packed lunches a week, eats with me on a Tuesday (my non working day) and my mum on a Friday
Me and DH - combination of directly reheated leftovers from the week, freezer diving and soup that I blended from Saturday and Sundays leftovers - we don't have any bread - but we do have flour in and probably a packet of yeast or two so I could make a focaccia tomorrow (the only bread I ever have success with)

Re the minced beef price increase, I've started mixing the beef mince 60/40 with pork or turkey mince. It's much cheaper and there's no taste sacrifice. Lentils play absolute havoc with my digestive system so bulking it with lentils is not an option for me.

I've just invested in an instant pot and im hoping to make nutritious stews/casseroles this winter using cheaper cuts so if anyone has any tried and tested instant pot recipes please do post.

If you have sliced bread left over, you can roll it thin with a rolling pin (or a glass) and use it as a pastry substitute for the bottoms of mini quiches or jam tarts. Just cut it with a pastry cutter (or again, a glass).

I've just joined a community pantry too, or it's called a food club. It's £5pw and apparently you get £35 worth of stuff. So I'm looking forward to that.

I'm terribly broke atm because I've had a lot of changes and just bought a house so housekeeping is the only thing I can skimp on.

Plus my dog needs a medication that isn't covered by his insurance and it's not something that pdsa would help with, I checked.

I'm not risking his health so I can easily economise on housekeeping and will probably be healthier for it.

I'm going to get stewing steak for about £4.75 from tesco and stretch it to death with vegetables, pearl barley and dumplings and I think it should last most of the week with a couple of baked potato / omelette days.

I'm wondering about the economy of buying a slow cooker v having the gas cooker on. I have a soup maker that I don't like if anyone wants to swap?

Our charity shops always have slo cookers. Ours is invaluable in autumn and winter. If you live in an area where there are shoots, are prepared to pluck and draw birds Yourself. They're free here, but do tip the gamekeeper.

You can also get very cheap slow cookers at this time of year for 'equipment for students' promotions.

I got one a few years ago for £9 from Asda and the same one is currently available for £12.

That's a good shout for a slow cooker in the charity shop, I'll drop off the soup maker while I'm at it.

My lunch prep for this week for kids pack ups was pizza pin wheels which came to around £3 for 10. Tuna, sweet corn pasta salad around £2 (it makes loads as well) and steak bakes which aren't the healthiest but go down very well they were £4.19 for 6 to make. I prepped a tub of apple slices that can go with any sauces we have in the cupboard or just by themselves, we have bananas and pears. I also baked some fork cookies, slowcooker jam cake and rocky road.

I have had an Instant Pot for years and when there were 3 of us used it every day. Even though I am on my own now I use it to cook a whole chicken in in 30 mins and makes great stock at the same time. Just use 1 cup of water in the pot and sit chicken on a trivet. When cooked leave it in the pot for 10 mins before opening. There will be no crispy skin but I don't like it anyway.
You tube is a mine of information for IP recipes

Here's one old recipe my mother made to feed five, I used it to feed four. I used curry powder and more bread to line the dish . I used beef, but you could do beef and pork. It's so moreish but cheap. We used to scrape the dish 😂. Beware some of the recipes are stupidly complex so I scrolled for the simplest and cheapest

Thanks. I’m about to harvest squash, so was debating whether to buy other veg to make the soup but, actually, it turns out the freezer is almost full so they may stay on the vine for a bit longer.

I do a similar thing to PP and freeze sauces and soups in silicon muffin trays or cases. Once it’s frozen, I take them out of the silicon cases and put them in labelled freezer bags. Makes it easier to portion, so can grab a couple of blocks for DS, or for a work thermos for me, or a bagful for us all.