Are your food bills rising?

[KatieMumsnet]

Radio 4's You and Yours are asking for Mumsnetters' views on the cost of our weekly shops. Have you noticed your food costs spiralling, are you having to change your shopping habits to compensate or are the effects of high global food prices yet to impact your pocket?

Would be great to hear your views.

Yes. I used to spend £50 a week on tesco online delivery, including the delivery charge, this would include a bottle of wine. To keep my bill under £50 I have to go in person to Aldi first, then tesco, in person (very annoying as I work f/t) and forgo wine, and also look for reduced things.

Cheddar cheese seems to have rocketed in price £5 for a block seems ridiculous and that's for the cheapo stuff not vintage cheeseboard.

Our shopping was between £150-£170 a week at Asda for 7 of us but we still seemed to have to get odd bits and pieces from the local shops.It was a thread on here that got my shopping bill right down.I started doing a meal planner and started shopping once a month online with Asda and my bill went down to £400.I had quite a few problems at the end of last year with wrong orders turning up,things broken,wrong items so decided to ditch Asda.We now shop at Lidl and get our meat from the butchers in town and our fruit and vegetables from our local market and toilitries and some cleaning products from our local 99p shop.Our shopping bills now gone down to under £300 a month which is going to save us between £300-£380 on what our weekly asda shop was.So thankyou lady's and Gentleman of MN for all the great tips.Oh and Lidl 50p for a bag of bread flour we get 3 loaves out of that.x

We do a monthly shop, and it's gradually crept up in price, despite the fact that we've dropped more and more 'luxury' items. We do about 2/3 via Tesco, the rest in Lidl.

I cook pretty much everything from scratch which is fine, but time consuming.

I nipped into a Tesco express and picked up a bag of their cheap blue stripe teabags 27p for 80 teabags. I haven't tried them yet, but I'll be interested.

They say try stuff.

we were terrible for buying daily but now find a weekly shop in iceland/farmfoods is much cheaper. We tried aldi's at the weekend and didn't get half as much as we would normally. I try to look for offers wherever I am shopping. It just seems such a significant price increase on essentials

Yeah. We eat a lot less meat now and make our own bread, pizza dough etc. We spent about £75 a week on groceries before (including toiletries and household stuff like washing powder) and now it would be over £100 if I hadn't altered our spending patterns.

Yes. Because I'm in Italy. Can never believe how cheap supermarkets are in the UK.

Swapsies anyone?

Hell yes - if I don't look much at prices a monthly online shop (tick most of 'my favourites') has gone from around £100 to £150 over the last 2 years. Local supermarket most prices now are over £1.

I can go to Lidl and save some money but they often don't stock stuff I need. The nearest fruit+veg market is actually more expensive than Sainsburys!

I am finding it going up a lot. I am spending £100 a week on a family of 4. Admitedly we have special diets to cater for but once upon a time this was half the cost it is now.
The kids favourites are only brought when on offer and Bread and Milk has to be stored in the freezer becuase there are times where I can't afford to go and buy some so I use it in an emergency.

Meat is brought from my Butcher but he gives me great deals otherwise we would all be veggie.
I am bulking out more and more with lentils, rice and Pasta.
At the moment I am seriously considering giving up my Cat becuase im struggling to afford to feed her and buy her litter box stuff.

well i've not been very savvy, but have noticed of late the prices are stilly - on the w.e we did a trip to asda and spent £45 on basically 'one eats' meals - there was a lot of veg/fruit, but only one packet of mince for meat. To be fair it did include £5 on dog food, and £3 on porridge, but it's still rediculas. it's now £1.80 odd for 4 loo rolls, the same packet when I first became a single mum was £1.20.

The costs are rocketing and there's only DS & I most of the time. I have been reducing my waste (read that as the dogs no longer getting our left overs) freezing more in the plastic tubs as 'ready meal's using the slow cooker, adding lemon/herbs etc to things to make it more tastier.

DP and I have also discussed that if need be we will only buy one big joint of meat a week for £6-£10 or something and make it last 3-4 days with the others being veggie days. it's a little hard as I do prefer meat from the butchers but even they have got silly prices now so we can't afford to be choosey.

I have gone on an economy overdrive this month due to impending fuel bills.

Have shopped in Aldi and Asda only. Still cost me £200 so far this month.

Gghvh

I done a shop at Iceland this week and was really surprised at some of their prices compared to the supermarkets will definatley be going there again!

Off the top of my head the things I can remember are:

(sorry my pound sign doesnt work so the $ sign is for pounds)

2 loaves Kingsmill bread $1.50
Large jar of Chivers jam $1
Pack of 4 toilet rolls $1
2 x 4 pints milk $2
6 free range eggs $1
or 12 caged hen eggs $1
Large bag frozen chips $1
Litre of ice cream $1
Various desserts $1
25 Wash box of Daz $3.25, although Asda have it for $3 atm

They had loads of things for $1 or $2

If anyone works somewhere that you can get a Costco card from that's well worth the yearly fee too (I go monthly). I save quite a bit on dog food (tinned and dried)

cheese, huge block for around $4, I cut it into smaller pieces and freeze it

Tattie scones $1.19 for 24, around 80p for 6 in the shops, again I just freeze them

I know you don't EAT either of these things, but the two price increases I've really noticed are:

Persil Small & Mighty (and I think the bottle size has reduced from 28 washes to 20)

My favourite loo roll, which was £1.99 for a 4-pack for years (it's very thick so you use less!), jumped to £2.13 just before Christmas and is now £2.30. Also noticed that it costs the same in Wilkinson as it does in Waitrose
Can anyone recommend a good, CHEAP, washing detergent BTW? I've tried own brands but haven't found a good one yet...

Well put it this way. My morrisons family pack curry is usually £5. It has now gone up to £6. What's that 20% increase.

Definitely higher than they were a couple of years ago, but this is a combination of rising food prices and higher expectations. I feel as if I should be able to afford free range or fairtrade, and so of course my bills will go up.

When you look at 'cheap eats' style cookbooks or online recipes from 5+ years ago the things they consider cheap seem very strange. Tins of tuna? Corned beef? Cheese? Those are not cheap at all.

Definitely higher. I never needed to plan my shopping before but it has to be done now.I also need to get rid of other debts. I'm thinking of going online to check the prices make sure that my bill comes under £70.00 per week.(2 adults 1 kid) Then some how print the list and use that list while shopping. While at the shops see if I can save further. Welfare and organic food has dropped off the list.
Still need night pants and washing machine on nearly every day due to work and wet sheets. God help those who can't afford to do that much laundry & buy night pants

Basics have gone up a lot. Pasta, potatos and flour noticeably

Russia's wheat harvest, lots of it burnt last year

We are ruthlessly meal planning and living on porridge oats in this household. Fuel bills and food bills are completely blowing our budget.

I'm still managing to be overweight though.

trice I've got into the habit of making a vat of soup on Monday and live on that during the week in the evenings. Lentils, Minetrone with kidney beans and Butternut squash with green beans & chickpeas. Last 2 can have any old veg thrown in to stop waste and bulk up.

hugely.....we used to do a weekly shop for (family of 5 and 1 cat) around £50 with maybe another £20 through the week and £8 on milk and eggs (milkman delivers).

We were spending over £130 a week at one point so switched to budget supermarkets and git it back to where it had been. Now the budget supermarkets are creeping up as well and our milk bill is now over £10 a week and we usually buy more in the week as well. We are probably spending about £110 a week now.

We do have 1 in nappies and I'm on a gluten free diet and the cat has suddenly taken a dislike to dry cat food and is eating her weight in puches per day, so that bumps things up.

Definitely, my weekly bill at tesco this week was £60, and that was just food for 2 adults and a toddler, used to be able to do it for under £50. Bread is very expensive at the moment. Have stopped buying expensive cuts of meat like chicken breast, only beef we have is minced and we eat veggie at least twice a week, so I think we are paying more for less really. Would rather eat veggie than compromise on animal welfare on meat. Gas bill has just gone up as well, with that and petrol prices it's really tight DH drives a lot for work and the amount he can claim for petrol hasn't gone up. We are batch cooking and freezing, any leftovers are lunch the next day, when we have time we will buy a whole chicken and that will last 3 days and cost the same as 2 chicken breasts. Nappies are own brand, washing powder is own brand..
Being forced to think carefully about what we eat has meant that we have got out of a bit of a food rut and some of the food we have discovered has been delicious, so its not all bad.

wash powder, i stock up when they have deals, my understairs cupboard i stocked last august, its still going strong! i also bulk it out with tesco value (blue and white) wash powder, that has saved me a fortune!!