Wonder why groceries cost so much?

Middy

If you are feeling the pinch, why don't you get a friend or relative to go food shopping with you and if there is anything on BOGOF, 2 for £2 (when the individual item costs £1.50) etc and pay half of the deal? My friend and I will be doing this when she retires later this year (not at my employer as I will get disciplined)

For example, I live alone and when beer is £12 for 1 case, £16 for 2 and 3 for £20, I buy one case and she and her dh can buy the other 2 cases and they will pay me £13.33. I haven't got the room for 3 cases anyway.

augustsmummy

picnic wrote: »

we should all go on the dole.... they dont seem to suffer much and get a 'pay rise' every year (when a new sprog is popped)

My DH is on "the dole" through loosing his job, and we are struggling. We are definately suffering! Please don't tarr us all with the same brush.

blue_monkey_2

I think there are things you can do to cut down on the food costs, buy value food. I buy one big shop and then I have some cash in the house, that is my limit for spending on food and ensures I do not spend too much or buy rubbish.

I buy fruit in bulk and, bananas aside, I keep them in the fridge, you can get a month out of fruit kept in the fridge so I stock up when they are on offer.

As an example, when we was kids we never ate like I do now, this is the 70's and 80's. We ask how our parents coped and how they must have struggled but I think that we buy FAR more luxuries now than we ever did as children. We only had 'pop' at Xmas. We had a takeaway once a month, on a Friday I guess after dad had been paidand he would bring Chinese home, there was no MacDonalds, or cinemas nearby, a day out was a 12 miles hike (OMG, they were horrendous) with egg and salad cream sandwiches half way round, or a trip to the park or ford to catch fish. I take my kids to the ford and we have never seen anyone else there doing that. Such a cheap and simple thing to do. We only ever had crisps once a week and rarely had chocolate, we simply could not afford it. We saw it as a treat and never fussed for them. Clothes were usually 2nd hand in our house too - the only thing new I remember getting was from my nan at Xmas (I remember those nylon blue check flare well, I wore them until it looked like my trousers had been fighting with my ankles, LOL). And we never had a home phone and internet and computers never existed, Sky TV and cable. And we rented our first Video player from Rumbelows (remember them!!). Everything was home cooked and veg was home grown. I certainly do not remember grazing on food like we do now.

I think that much of the problem now is we go to the supermarket and, with our food shopping, see DVD's, TV's, Phones and Clothes and when we cannot afford them, we feel bad. I get value food where I can and I buy a limited number of treats, enough to last the kids a week and once they are gone, that is it. I think that we have to live sensibly, no, not everyone does but that is life. There are always going to be those that are 'poorer' than others but the option to buy cheaper goods is there. I spend around £300 a month on food, petrol and toiletries for the 4 of us, extra for school dinners but it works out better that way with the kids having their big meal at lunch time.

We will get through but some of us will have to learn to be more resourceful than others, it has always been this way though but only now we have people to talk about it too because of the internet. A lot of what people have as a standard way of living, we did not have back them so you really cannot judge as our lives now are so different.

picnic

im sorry if my post's have offended anyone, that is not my intention. BUT there are several familys local to me where both parents dont work and the child count goes up every year... I would loved to have had more children but both me and my OH knew we could not offord to. I am not aiming my posts at anyone that wants to work but at those that like being paid to stay at home....
sorry if I have offended anyone.

blue_monkey_2

I think we all know parents like these picnic, the ones I know that do not work have weekends away and have computer consoles and the latest games. I just remind myself that everything we have, we have worked for, and we get what we have by budgeting and being frugal and we should feel proud of ourselves for that. If they choose to live on benefits they must have very little self respect for themselves - and pride in what you have and how you manage is worth SO much more than a few fancy gadgets.

I think I would go insane to have no other life than popping out babies - and being with my husband 24/7!! Chin up.

augustsmummy

Picinc, I am just sick of people assuming we are lazy lay abouts.
We have 2 children, both of whom were born when we were both working in decently paid jobs (and we could support them very comfortably, they wanted for nothing and had everything they needed). Due to matters beyond our control DH is now on JSA (having worked none stop since he left school 14 years ago) and I am on sick leave from my job (awaiting a very serious operation).
We are struggling so badly. We have reduced our out goings as much as we can.

We would give anything to be back at work. I hate relying on government help.
I know there are families out there who do seem to be professional dole claimers, but we are not one of them.

Thank you for the appology.

[Deleted User]

My son-in law was threatened with redundancy where he works and was worried silly he is 40 and has a mortgage and five children my DD works fulltime ,now his firm have offered him a different job but at 4K less a year, he will take it as he has no choice but things were already tight and they will get a lot tighter from next month.I think it will come down to the fact that a lot of people don't realise how desperately broke this country is and how if you think this is hard wait a year and look back and see how much harder its going to get.I am stock-piling dry goods as and when I can to help out with my Dds family budget.If I see something I think is a bargain I try to snap it up .My cupbaord in the lobby is full of tins and bags of pasta,rice,cereal,museli ect.I sometimes feel like a squirrel or how my late Mum must have felt during WW2 when there was rationing maybe we should return to rationing and realise how to get by on a lot less than what we do now.re baby wipes whats the matter with some cotton wool and a bowl of luke warm water for cleaning baby up Its what I did in the 1960s when my babies were small ,but then there were no such things as baby wipes then.I had terry toweling nappies and a bucket of nappies under the sink soaking in napisan .The soiled ones were boiled in a huge pot on the stove to get them clean as I didn't own a washing machine , dryer or even a freezer but we survived okay.I had a glass scrubbing board and washed everything by hand.When we got a bit richer I used to go to the lauderette with the sheets and towels rather than cart them over to my sis-in-laws once a week( a 4 mile walk each way with two kids in a pram ) to chuck into her bath with a small child on top to jump up and down on them :)What you don't have you don't miss and my two grew up o.k.I had only a small gas water geyser with a tiny arm over the sink and we had to share a loo with two other families but I'm still around and it didn't kill me just a lot of blooming hard work really

passatrider

Sainsburys Red Tai Chicken Curry with rice last week was £3.19. Today it's gone up to £3.50! How can they justify a rise of 31p in under a week??:(

blue_monkey_2

Maybe their suppliers rents/rates/electric/wage/fuel bills have increased. Maybe the cost of poultry has gone up. Maybe the cost of rice has been increased.

You can either put it in your trolley or you find something cheaper to eat instead.

As I have said on another thread, in one corner people are complaining that food is too high, in another corner we are complaining about animal welfare, more money for farmers, a higher wage for minimum wage workers, more british foods - all of these things come at a price if we want them. One that is going to be felt in our pockets.

antrobus

geordie_joe wrote: »

If you don't read the daily mail, how do you know it's full of crap?

And talking of the Daily Mail, here's a very on topic link to an article in that very paper detailing the squeeze on family incomes over the past few years.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004884/Middle-class-families-squeezed-soaring-food-fuel-bills-leave-900-worse-year.html