latest prices increase on food how will it effect your food budgeting ?

the_cat

I agree, if you can take up large amounts of the 'offers' to tide you through to the next time they reduce an item it works out much cheaper

My question is, if you are lucky enough to be able to stock up on basics too(which don't ever seem to be on offer) is it worth doing that now as well?

With what items? And how about storage?

Hapless_2

I bought 2 large wheeled stacker boxes with lids, 1 for bags of flour and 1 for tins. This was originally to stock up for winter, but it may have to carry it on for a little longer now.

Skintmama

I can see from this thread that I am not the only person starting to get worried! As other posters have said it isn't just the food but also other costs which we are pretty much tied into paying.

To answer the stock piling question, I have started to do this by using a bedroom cupboard for tins, pasta, cooking oil etc. This way I buy the BOGOFS and reduced offers when I can, not in a huge way but I feel it will all help a bit.

Perhaps it is just me thinking this but I believe it is really important for consumers to be honest about the difficulties and hardships these price rises will cause. Old Style is becoming increasingly important for many of us even though I know that I am comparatively lucky in my circumstances. It concerns me that many people will go on spending out of habit for the sake of appearances and end up in a scary mess.

halia

I've noticed it alot, I try and keep our food budget down but I swear despite my efforts its actually gone UP recently due to price increases. The only thing I can do is become even more miserly about spending cash. DH likes to 'impulse buy' and to eat meat so I have to plan ahead and have things precooked for him to eat.
I make my own bread and hunt out cheap produce whenever I can. Luckily i now have more time as I'm a f/t student so I can take the time to go into herons/netto etc.
I'm not getting an allotment (not enough time and i don't think you save that much really) but I am planning some big pots/troughs for herbs and salads as the most costly items to buy.
I'm also stockpiling to a certian extent, anything I spot on special offer or BOGOF.

csarina

The effect will be disasterous for us, on a limited income, I did buy extra flour a few weeks ago, pasta will also be affected...........and we are going to have to cut down on meat, in order to survive we will have to eat less of everything........those of us who live on fixed incomes do not have a choice............a penny is going to have to do the work of three.

We do have some stuff in the allotment that will help through the winter, but the potato and tomato crop were ruined by blight due to the rain, I will have to buy a bag of spuds in the near future, and they will have to be rationed.......we have some sweetcorn still on the plants, but another 3 weeks and the beans will be finished.

I do not use butter in bread, you can make it without, but it does affect the keeping quality, I use a tablespoon of veg or sunflower oil, depending on what I am using at the time. Milk, I have bought value milk for years........stopped when the cost of fresh milk started to go up. We do not take milk in drinks anyway, its just for OH's porridge and any sauces I make. He does like ice cream though.......that may be something that has to be looked at too.............

I was looking this morning and I have £20 to last me the rest of this month, £5 will have to go in fuel and we need some salad stuff and fruit, I am hoping to keep it down to under £10, which leaves me £5 just in case. WE only use the car when we have to, we have passes for the bus so trips to Tesco and the library can be done on the bus when we have just top up shopping to do. I like to buy my meat and we do not have a butcher close by, so I use the fresh meat counter at Tesco rather than buythe prepacked stuff........ the last time we had the order delivered the chap was so offensive I vowed I would not use the service again. I complained and did get the delivery chrage refunded.......but at £3.99 thats a couple of weeks meat for us unless I can find a deal for money off.

Sorry this seems to have turned into a rant, I had better shut up before the board guides tell me off for going off the os topic....................

COOLTRIKERCHICK

on the dinner time news they were saying the italians are noticing the price of pasta go up.....and it will hit italian familes hard as they eat approx 28kg of pasta a year..

they are blaming the increase prices on.. that instead of growing wheat.... as there is a high demand for bio fuels.. land is being used to feed this demand....

so in this country they are saying its the weather... in italy they are saying that not enough is being grown..... i wonder what they are going to be saying in other countries for price increases...

i agree totally in buying in bulk.....to take advantage of good prices/bargins....

i tend to buy in bulk at the butchers ..and can spend anything up to £60....but i do this when i an flush so to speak..... so i know if money is very tight one week i know there is something in the freezer to make some meals with....

but when i have had times when i have been totally brassic.... and literly looking at the back of the sofa for any money that has got lost down there...so i can buy bread or milk etc..

now that i have no choice but to go back to supermarket shopping and looking for bargins..( i know... i am going to hate it.. but i cant afford any increase on my budget)
i think i will shop on a daily basis when they are doing their final reductions...... to see what i can pick up....

i also think i will have to start looking out for money off coupons.... to try and keep the cost down if poss ( do they still acept coupons if you dont buy the items ?)

lambanana

I think a fair bit is because more farms produce oil crops (sunflower and rapeseed I think mostly) for biofuel instead of wheat and this year was a bad wheat harvest...I'm guessing all sort of factors make it happen though.

On the butter hunting front when I was in iceland they were doing 2 packs of willow butter for £1 limited to 6 packs per customer.

I will just have to look for ways to cut back, it will affect me as currently we're a single income household but I'm sure we'll find a way to manage and be OK...fortunately it's only 2 mouths to feed, I can't imagine how I'd cope if we had children and I admire people who do manage!

newlywed

Tesco has put their milk up in the last week - 2lts has gone from 66p to 76p! But sainsbury online is still listing as 66p

Penny-Pincher!!

lambanana wrote: »

On the butter hunting front when I was in iceland they were doing 2 packs of willow butter for £1 limited to 6 packs per customer.

Willow is only 29% butter:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: ....I have just checked as that sounded too good to be true at 50p a pack!

Sainsburys has Anchor Spreadable 500g-2 for £3, but again they are not 100% butter. The only one I know that is 100% butter is Kerrigold and that has gone up to £1.16p a pack from 79p or something.

PP
xx

ceridwen

moanymoany wrote: »

I half heard on the news this morning that there is a crisis looming in the banking system. Something to do with banks starting to refuse to lend to other banks. The Bank of England is saying that it is not sure if it will bale out banks in trouble as most of the problem is the reckless lending they have been doing.

Just a five minute browse on DFW threads give an indication of just how much people have been able to borrow in relation to their income.

I do know in France their credit cards have to be paid each month and it is nothing like so easy to borrow money. Though last time I was there I did see a lot of 'buy now and pay in X months' advertised in shops.

Who is to blame the people who borrow or the people who lend is irrelevant, the situation exists. This is inevitably going to affect us all.

Who pays? Not the banks and their shareholders, very often not the borrowers, but always the rest of us.

Here is a link to the BBC story. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6992450.stm

Read your link Moany - its certainly true there has been some pretty irresponsible lending by banks, etc. I have had to take on a few loans one way and another over the course of renovating an old dump of a house - but I had carefully worked out whether I could manage to make the repayments and still leave myself a bit of leeway (just in case...) - but I have been surprised more than once by the lender offering me lots more than I was asking for (even though I have a very good credit record). I turned them down each time - and took just what I needed to have - but I do feel they shouldnt put the temptation in peoples way like that. Having said that - the onus is on people to be responsible borrowers in the first place.

MrsMcawber - I think the phrase you are searching for is "spend to save" - it is a concept I have followed as far as I can for some time (ie to buy things in whichever way is going to be the cheapest in the long run). When I did clothes-buying I used the maxim "cost per wear" - clothes of a bit better quality and in more classic styles were a better bet - as the cost each time I wore them would be lower (because I would get a lot more "wears" from them).

I am not surprised the price of oil is going up - we are now approaching Peak Oil (ie the highest amount of oil the planet is capable of producing). From pretty soon now on in - oil production will decline. We all know what happens when there is a shortage of something - the price goes up.

One of the positive ways we can adapt to the above is to learn O.S. ways from those who know them and "share the knowledge" with each other.