It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Rosa_Damascena

My little niece is visiting over half term so the other day, Mum went down supermarket aisles she rarely has cause to venture down these days. She was shocked at the price of kids goodies! Hardly essentials, I agree - but she did have to think about how much she would buy (in part because we all end up picking at the little one's treats). In a way it reminds me of the seventies, when she had to think hard about what went into the supermarket trolley for her young family, back in the days when snacking was unusual. 

We've had decades of slinging everything into our oversized trolleys without a second thought and shopping is now giving us a reality check!

Greenglockenspiel

Does anyone know, is it likely to be cheaper to use the smaller conventional (top) oven, or the larger fan (main) oven? I’m assuming the fan oven as it doesn’t have to heat to as high a temperature, but it’s got a larger volume of air to heat.

mumf

nannygladys said:

dander - what sort of things can you cook in an air fryer, I've been thinking of buying one, but can't afford the really expensive ones and thought you would only be able to cook chips in the small ones. I live on my own and hate putting the oven on just for a couple of things.

My wife bought one from B and M for thirty pounds. She cooks chips,sausage,burgers,spuds etc. it saves time and energy.Ours is only a small one,but it’s plenty for two of us.

Brambling

Rosa_Damascena said:

We've had decades of slinging everything into our oversized trolleys without a second thought and shopping is now giving us a reality check!

I think attitudes started to change when we stopped paying for our food with cash. I had a Saturday/holiday job in the early 80's in the local small SM the majority still paid cash for the weekly shop and if at the till didn't have enough money they put stuff back.  The weekly shop was usually  Friday night (open til 7.30) or Saturday after being paid in cash on Friday.

 I think today we are less likely to return things at the till it comes to more than we want to spend out of embarrassment, we just hand over the card 

A friend of mine worked at a children/family centre and pre lock down some of the advice on trying to manage on a very limited budget and to try and avoid debt was to use cash in different purses and once it was gone it was gone as some people can't process what they are spending just using cards.  My dad never has a bank account and I have a memory of every Friday night he would sit with a long rectangle tin with compartments and divide up the cash for the week. No credit or HP although I'm not advocating the jam jar of emergency cash in the loft!

Nonnadiluca

Remember a couple of years ago when there were problems with using cards for some of the banks? Since then I keep £50 cash to hand. I figure that will buy food and petrol for a few days if needed, but it's not an amount I feel nervous about keeping in the house. Pre covid, I used cash for my shopping, but most places prefer cards now. What I liked about cash was that I could see what was left over and squirrel it away which was an incentive to part with as little as possible.

pelirocco

London_1 said:

I think back at time to when rationing was king and things were bought by availability . NOTHING was ever wasted or binned, my late Mum would be horrified by the amount of food thrown away today. Perhaps its time for a TV series or cooking programmes ,maybe run by Ms Monroe, to show people how to make the most of what we have in our cupboard, instead of the fancy cookery programmes shown on TV at the moment It would be a hit with many cash-strapped Mums I bet. I have never seen the point of cookery programes that use expensive ingredients as is it just egotist chefs showing off their skills ?.
The majority of recipes you couldn't get an average child to eat anyway  Teach people how to make the most of basic foodstuff that they can afford to buy, not stuff that is above and beyond tha majority of hard up peoples lives .

I have been cooking and feeding myself and then my family for over 60 years and have learned a good few ways to extend my food and consequently my purse when times are tough .
I lived through the times of rationing, post war austerity, the dreadful days of the 1970s when the mortgage rates hit 16% and the electricity blackouts when you only had three hours at a time to cook food for your family
(I made a 'hay box' from my childrens toy box and used pillows and a duvet in it)
its surprising how you can adapt, and this present high inflation will be a great time to reinvent your way of living, by perhaps not buying and throwing away food ,or just thinking how you can make it streetch a bit further.
 I know it won't be easy for many people having grown up in the land of take-away and instant gratification when it comes to food ,but it really is the case today for returning to some older ways of managing
Not relying on the supermarkets to provide this instant food all the time

 I am a great avocate of cooking from scratch, and with the internet and YouTube its possible to find almost anything you want with a few clicks.
I look at stuff in the supermarket and think hmm I could make that myself for half the price and get twice the quantity. I think the more expensive stuff I saw yesterdays in Dobbies food department was one of those fancy fish pies Charlie something,  priced at £8.50 !!! its white fish in cheese sauce with mashed spuds on top,cost to make if bought and cooked yourself about £1.50 at most and twice the amount ! 

So OK maybe there are some who can't manage to cook very easily and the one pound frozen meals fro Iceland is Ok and very useful (my DDs ma-in-law is 85 and loves them) but if you are in reasonable health and able, cooking is just a case of research .

I grew up without the internet to help, today its possible to find out how to do things with just a quick google search. I am a single widowed pensioner who manages to live reasonabley well on my income

I don't have any extra private pension (my late husbands one went over the side with Robert Maxwell off his yacht )so I too live on a restricted income ,but by golly am I a carefull shopper when it comes to food stuff.

I shopped twice in January and only bought essential and basic stuff and I am slowly working down my freezer and using up surplus stuff in my cupboards. I have a food budget of £60.00 per month and had around £11 to roll over into Februarys food budget, so for February I will have around £71.00 to last me 28 days. its more than doable and I will eat a cooked meal every evening and cereal or porridge for breakfast and soups and cheese and craskers or an omellete or some small snack for lunch

I don't eat 5 or 7 portions of fruit a day its really nor necessary I will eat at least two portions of veg and maybe two of fruit and I am quite healthy and haven't seen a Doctor for over two years. I have frozen blackberries picked for free in my freezer. I have a good few frozen bags of home made soup in the freezer as well I use every scrap of food I get and either cook and eat it or cook and freeze it for another day I make my own cakes and biscuits and find that I can make almost anything edible with the help of my herbs and spices even the blandest food perks up a bit  

Energy is foremost on people minds at the moment I know, but agaain thinking back we never had CH or double glazing in the 1950s and we survived to better times as hopefully we all will this time.

So sit and think this morning what you can make that will extend your food .Even if its only a saucepan of soup. A 40p bag of carrots will make, with a few herbs and spices and that odd couple of sprouting spuds in the spud bag a good two litres of spicy carrot soup for pennies to feed at least 8 people with some crusty bread, rather than the tin of soup from the shop at 75-80p that will only feed one person.

See what you can come up with today thats a new recipe of something you have never tried to make. Why spend £3.00 on a quiche when, make a bit of pastry,line a tin,bake it 'blind' for ten minutes, and fill with odds and ends from the fridge, a sausage cooked and sliced up,a quarter of and onion diced up, a few herbs .fill the case with a couple of beaten eggs and pop the bits in, finish off with a tomato sliced thinly across the top and bung in the oven. this is delicious with a few chips and maybe a tin of beans as a side dish or cold with some salad. be inventive

I chuck almost anything into a quiche (it was called bacon and egg pie when I was little ) Cooking bacon from the supermarket is your friend, you can cook the odd shaped bit to a crisp and in a bacon sandwich you won't know any difference, the fat you drain off ito a dish to use to make fried bread, cut a hole in the middle of the fried bread when cooking and throw an egg into it Kids would love a 'dragons eye ball' as my kids called it for breakfast .
Its thinking outside the box as is said, give it a go, you never know you may come up with something else

JackieO xx

Just  a quick point mortgage rates hit 16% in 1991 when we bought our present  house ( I don't know about the 70s we didn't know anyone who had a mortgage lol )

Flugelhorn

the base rate was 17% in 1979

jackrabbit123

Rosa_Damascena said:

My little niece is visiting over half term so the other day, Mum went down supermarket aisles she rarely has cause to venture down these days. She was shocked at the price of kids goodies! Hardly essentials, I agree - but she did have to think about how much she would buy (in part because we all end up picking at the little one's treats). In a way it reminds me of the seventies, when she had to think hard about what went into the supermarket trolley for her young family, back in the days when snacking was unusual. 

We've had decades of slinging everything into our oversized trolleys without a second thought and shopping is now giving us a reality check!

Rosa, I agree with you regarding the over size trolleys, for someone who is height challenged like myself they are so big and cumbersome to move around corners etc. I have found a way around that and it sames me a few pennies in the long run, when I do my weekly shop the supermarket that I go to has a pull along basket and I fit everything on my list into this and as there is little space left it saves me putting any 'extras' in and its easier to move around so win win, I completely understand you need a trolley if you have wee ones on board though, going without them to the supermarket is sometimes an option but not always possible in many cases though.

OrkneyStar

jackrabbit123 said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

My little niece is visiting over half term so the other day, Mum went down supermarket aisles she rarely has cause to venture down these days. She was shocked at the price of kids goodies! Hardly essentials, I agree - but she did have to think about how much she would buy (in part because we all end up picking at the little one's treats). In a way it reminds me of the seventies, when she had to think hard about what went into the supermarket trolley for her young family, back in the days when snacking was unusual. 

We've had decades of slinging everything into our oversized trolleys without a second thought and shopping is now giving us a reality check!

Rosa, I agree with you regarding the over size trolleys, for someone who is height challenged like myself they are so big and cumbersome to move around corners etc. I have found a way around that and it sames me a few pennies in the long run, when I do my weekly shop the supermarket that I go to has a pull along basket and I fit everything on my list into this and as there is little space left it saves me putting any 'extras' in and its easier to move around so win win, I completely understand you need a trolley if you have wee ones on board though, going without them to the supermarket is sometimes an option but not always possible in many cases though.

I am not really 'height challenged' - I am 5ft 7, people often ask me to get them things from high shelves ha ha, even though there are over 6ft men in the vicinity, but anyway I digress, and I just came to say I often take the wheelie basket too. It's handy when I don't have a £1 for the Lidl trolley (I shop there most often) and saves sticking extra bits in - they can take a fair amount too, if you load wisely! The only disadvantage is that they cannot be wheeled out the shop to the car, shopping has to be packed and carried out (which is fine unless your small shop included heavy things). Out Tesco only has standard baskets then trolleys, but the Coop also does the wheelie baskets.   I often shop with cash too, we do buy some treats, in moderation, but when paying by card it's easier to stop choosing between sweetie a, b or c and just buy all 3!

Flugelhorn

the shallow supermarket trolleys are better as easier to get things out of the bottom and also hold less - I do smartshop and can keep tabs on the total as we go round