The Rising Cost of Food

VfM4meplse

parsonswife8 wrote: »

I've ended up playing Mr S and Mr T and Ocado, against each other tbh.

I load an order onto each and then leave it there, but don't check it out.

I often then receive an email with a discount offer. I order from the one who gives me the most money off offers and voucher codes/discount.

Empty the baskets on the others and then...guess what???????????

Offers from the others. :rotfl:

Excellent tip for those with larger families.

I am on my ownsome, and the only processed foods I buy routinely are bread and soya milk. With the exception of my favourite handcooked crisps with a G&T (a rare treat), the rest I make from scratch if I really want it. Lidl, Aldi and the local fruit stall are my weapons against the supermarket's mass exploitation of my purse. Works for me, I'm fit, happy and have a figure that is universally admired.

VfM

PS I don't consider cola / a dog to be essentials - although accept once you have a dog, not feeding it is not an option!

grumpybear_3

I don't have a TV - how old school is that! but I can definitely see what they're saying.

I don't buy a great deal of stuff, and am pretty choosy about what I do buy

I tend to use Asda / Aldi and Lidl mostly which tend to be quite resonable - or at least have enough offers on that I can usually choose the cheapest

Shopping at other places like Tesco and especially sainsburys though you can really see the difference - everything is expensive to the point I've put the basket back and gone without until I could get to somewhere else!

VfM4meplse

grumpybear wrote: »

everything is expensive to the point I've put the basket back and gone without until I could get to somewhere else!

Whilst 80% of me think this is just plain mean, part of me begrudgingly admires your actions. Unlike my parent's generation, I've never known what it's like to feel hunger in my belly, I don't think it's well appreciated in a era of rising obesity. It's amazing how quickly your body can adjust to less food.

Maybe we should all show a bit more discipline like you, there would be less waste for sure.

Just watching the show on replay now....I don't think the Wesh woman has a clue about anything really. How can feeding cheap cuts of meat to young children be any good for them? She needs to sign up to MSE and look at the OS moneysaving board. Am I the only one who loves the challlenge of making a meal from random things left in fridge and cupboard before buying more?

GreyQueen

I'm so old school I don't have a TV either.....:rotfl:
Yesterday on the Radio 4 news at 5pm / 6pm they were talking about food prices and how this impacts on the rest of the retail sector. The latest stats reveal that we're all spending more on food and less on everything else.

F'instance, Halford's sales are down and they attribute that in part ot car owners using cars less. M & S are up slightly but only because they are starting their sales early.....and so on.

I'm a singleton with some grow-you-own on a lottie and am managing to keep on budget but only with creative use of independants and whoopsies. As a "small basket" kinda supermarket customer, I don't get the biggest offers of money-offs, the best I ever got from Mr T was £3 off £20 shop and I struggle to do £20 at once as I mostly eat fresh stuff.

Whoopsies are being offered at much smaller levels of discount (pence not a pound or so for late-date or damaged goods) and although I check most days, I'm not finding a lot worth my while.

Shopping it getting a bit manic with running around from store to store for the best prices. The darndest of blokes are talking grocery prices at my workplace, even young single lads in their twenties are noticing and complaining about it.

The extra prices certainly aren't being fed back to the producers; I live in a dairying area and the regional paper is full of stories of yet another dairy-farmer being forced out of business. These are often 3rd generation dairymen with award-winning large herds but the price they're getting for their milk is below the production costs. Yet the price we're paying for it is up 50%. I know packaging and transportation have to be factored in, as well as retailer-profit, but you feel that the latter must be excessive if the producers are being paid at sub-production cost rates.

It's barely any better for veggies and other farm-gate goods.

I worry about the long-term consequences for the farmers as well as the rest of us who have to eat. It will have serious impacts on the non-food section of the economy, too.

When the gas and electricity price hikes kick in at the coldest time of the year and we're having to pay more and more for food, something will have to give. A lot of purchases are pleasant but not essential so if someone who would've gone to the cinema decides to stay home, or a little item which isn't essential is postponed indefinately until better times, some shopworkers will lose their jobs/ have their hours cut and businesses will go under. Smaller tax take for the governement and round and round and down we go.

These are worrying times.

lifebeginsat...

worried_jim wrote: »

I shop at Aldi and it is getting cheaper. Most vegetables are 39p, I admit I don't eat much butter, bread or pasta. A bottle of diet lemonade is about 20p so if someone is paying £78p at Tesco there are massive savings to be made.

Hiya, really good point, we have an Aldi, I think I have just got used to having it delivered, but tbh a taxi home would cost only a little more than the delivery charge , and from what you say there will be huge savings, :jI think I'm going to give this a go next week. I used to go weekly but stopped when I was working long hours.

(do they still do their ready brek.) used to love that and was only a £1.

Cheapskate

People I know who never paid attention to the cost of their food are suddenly getting it, too, after years of sneering at me for trying to shop smarter. Food waste is a pet hate of mine, even though I'm sometimes guilty of it, too; get cross with myself when I have to do it, but this week have only thrown out a couple of teacakes and a bread crust that had slipped down in the cupboard and gone mouldy cos I didn't see them.

DS works in a supermarket, so we get staff discount, but even with that I'm paying more than I did a year ago, especially for ordinary things. He also sees how much the store throws out because it's the last date they can legally sell it, etc., and even he is sickened by the sheer volume! Staff aren't allowed to buy it cheap either, for legal reasons - absolutely barmy! :eek::eek:

I'm shopping more locally, using places like Aldi/Lidl more, grow a few more things each year, trying to make my own bread more often. Sounds pathetic, I know, but I'd got out of the habit for a while and am now regaining those habits.

I think people have to change their way of eating (returning to a less varied diet), shopping and cooking, but so many people either can't or won't - MSEers excepted I suppose! :rotfl:

Think we can all teach the general public and government a great deal!!

A xo

GreyQueen

Hi cheapskake, know what you mean about a change in attitude. I'm finding the ones who formerly took the p*ss a bit out of me personally for thriftiness are now parading their own moneysaving to me as if they've just invented the wheel (bless!) or discreetly asking me for tips............

In a way it's refreshing not to feel like an oddball, I've always joked that I was poor before it was fashionable, but they are getting in my way at the whoopsie sections.....:rotfl:

Agree with your about how disgusting food waste is and it's infuriating that supermarkets allow so much waste to happen. Good food doesn't morph into toxic sludge one second past midnight on the Best Before day. Heavens above, people keep stuff at home for days before they eat it.

I think the whole of society needs a massive injection of Common Sense.

Butterfly_Brain

I think that it will get much much worse
Gas and Electric up by 18% so the supermarkups have to pay these bills as well us we do, so who is going to bear the brunt of that ..........the consumer of course :mad: So watch out for more big price rises girls :eek:

I shop at Aldi and get some things in Asda - the best basics lines are actually from Sainsbury and there is a lot more of them - I have noticed in Asda that a lot of the smart price lines have disappeared.
I go foraging every year and grow a lot of my own veg but I have lost tomatoes to blight again this year my courgettes have flowered but show no sins of fruiting and caterpillars, slugs and snails have dessimated my cabbages, lettuce, etc so I won't be growing next year because the price of seeds have shot through the roof as well

ubamother

My daughter usually shops at Tesco, as she gets a 10% staff discount there (her boyfriend's the warehouse manager which is very useful when you want a sale item bought, as I rarely go to a Tesco). She came with me to Aldi yesterday - very cross she spent over £2 on large FR eggs when they were half that at Aldi! Also very cross that Aldi's spaghetti was something like 50p for a kilo. She'll be coming with me again!

flippin36

I'm developing an absolute obsession with grocery shopping and waste. It actually upsets me to throw anything away. I have become reunited with my freezer and I urge anyone who hasn't got a good size freezer to get one, perhaps on freecycle. I check my fridge daily for things that will have to be either used up or frozen.

Whoever said they love to create a new dish from things left over in the fridge - me too! Makes cooking interesting. I should be on readysteadycook. I've never been much of a cook but over the months I've had to learn and discovered I'm quite good and it saves me money and I'm teaching my kids about cooking economy.

Also changing the areas I look in the supermarket helps. Last week I saw a piece of Pollock for 90p. Never cook fish normally, but I took it home and found a great fish pie recipe and my family woofed the lot! So that will be on my cheap recipe list.