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.

also i have noticed that when things are 'on offer buy 2 for 2.50' they price 1 of them at 1.99 (when they are not on offer 1 of them is usually only 1.39 so there is actually very little saving on buying 2. i have noticed this a lot lately -

We have definitely noticed the rise.

I spend £120-£140 a fortnight at Asda then about £30 a week at morrisons for a family of 6 and a dog and cat. I have 3 in nappies although I only buy for 1 and the youngest is not on solids yet.

I made good use of the Asda voucher books at Christmas and we currently hsve huge boxes of loo roll, wash powder and steaks to use.

I have also started meal planning which stops me nipping to the shop for something for tea and splurging. I try to only buy meat on offer to freeze and dp only buys coffee when it is on offer.

With this new fuel increase it will only get worse as well

Yes. We eat less meat now and have "down labelled" on most products. I tend to buy products on offer, but check out more carefully what the offer is. I don't consider a 20 pence saving on an 80 pence plus item a good deal. Also cut back on the type of food we buy, e.g. biscuits are now usually custard creams etc.

I signed up to the co-op card, so when I need to pop to the local shop it is making money for me so to speak.

I've definitely noticed the rise in cost at the till. I spent £36 on Sundays shop and didn't have any meat or fish, just some (12) sausages. There were no extras except for a cheap pack of jam rolls for Ds's lunch box. Got fruit and only mushrooms and onions veg wise in that, so I'm not sure where the money went tbh.

I totally agree with all the other postings.

I have noticed a rise in prices over the past 18 months but a very definate rise over the past 6.

I have dropped "a brand", eat less meat, use more leftovers, and dramatically reduced wine intake.

We have always meal planned on a weekly basis but what we tried in November (December is always a bust with christmas and birthdays) and it really worked was to do a HUGE monthly shop of storecupboard items which included things like pasta, pasta sauce, beans, tinned toms, sweetcorn, chickpeas,cereal, condiments,coffee, household stuff, pet food etc. Because we were buying in bulk, we saved quite a lot. Then, we just did a small weekly shop for meat, fruit and veg, milk and bread each week. This worked very well as we were only going to the supermarket with a very specific list each week and knew that the back-up stuff to cobble together something edible was already there.
Also lots of home-made soups, freezing and re-using leftovers, slow cooking and no "luxuires" such as biscuits, crisps etc.

Many thanks for all your comments, really helpful. Need to definitely put some of your tips into action :)

You can listen here from 12pm today.

That was good, v. interesting.

I have become a "brand tart" and go with what is on offer (after checking the small print of course).

And more what I would call store cupboard meals (things with lentils, tinned toms, beans etc) to cut down the meat bills. I also bought us another freezer so we can take advantage of the frozen offers. Of late thats been on Quorn so we have tons of veggie meals ahead!

Can't believe the cost of loo rolls and am disheartened by cleaning costs, so have decided to give up cleaning