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

TheAble

EssexHebridean said:

Floss said:

TheAble said:

Wraithlady said:

I think she was more highlighting to make her point - pasta is, after all, a basic foodstuff.

Yes, you can get 20p pasta - 

It's 70p at Asda, specifically. Tesco and Sainsbury's still sell it for 20p. And they still sell 45p rice, and baked beans at £1 for four cans. 

I just thought the story was a bit sensationalist. You're not forced to buy it at one particular supermarket. And ok - you may not have transport, but Tesco will still deliver to you for £3, which isn't bad when weighed up against the cost of petrol and running a car.

Actually Sainsbury's cheapest is fusilli at  58p a kg, Tesco is 29p for 500g for the same shape. So not 20p any more, but a 45% increase.

I bought a packet of shortbread biscuits in Lidl last night that used to be under a £1, but are now £1.09 so there's a 10% increase.

The suggestion that people should shop around and buy everything from where it's cheapest assumes that people have the time available to do that - again it's easy to forget that this level of time is, in itself, a privilege. 

Milk is the thing we've really noticed an increase on. 4 pint bottles used to be £1 not so long ago - we're now paying £1.15 - that's a huge increase on an absolute basic. 

I wouldn't say it's a privilege as such. I make time. Alternatively I could not make time, which would be easier, but I'd spend more as a result. It's a trade-off between time and money.

Incidentally, the pantry principle is a time saver rather than a time consumer. By purchasing several weeks' worth at the place where it's cheapest, you save the time (and money,) you would otherwise have spent buying these items every week at the more expensive place. Granted, it might require a bit of initial investment of time (learning your prices) and money (buying in bulk) but you will save in the long run.

Of course it's easy to find reasons why things can't be done (time, transport etc) but is generally more enterprising, if sometimes unconventional, to look for ways in which they can.

As for milk - yes that's a rise. But 4 pints for £1.15 - it's still cheap, no? Ask the farmer who produced it if he thinks it's expensive. The previous generation had things a lot tougher - my mum used to pay more for the weekly shop 25 years ago than I do today, to feed fewer people.

Chris_English

EssexHebridean said:

Floss said:

TheAble said:

Wraithlady said:

I think she was more highlighting to make her point - pasta is, after all, a basic foodstuff.

Yes, you can get 20p pasta - 

It's 70p at Asda, specifically. Tesco and Sainsbury's still sell it for 20p. And they still sell 45p rice, and baked beans at £1 for four cans. 

I just thought the story was a bit sensationalist. You're not forced to buy it at one particular supermarket. And ok - you may not have transport, but Tesco will still deliver to you for £3, which isn't bad when weighed up against the cost of petrol and running a car.

Actually Sainsbury's cheapest is fusilli at  58p a kg, Tesco is 29p for 500g for the same shape. So not 20p any more, but a 45% increase.

I bought a packet of shortbread biscuits in Lidl last night that used to be under a £1, but are now £1.09 so there's a 10% increase.

Tesco's 500g bags of pasta shapes haven't ever been 20p as far as I can recall - it's the spaghetti that is - and that has been at the same price for years - at least 7 of them I'm guessing, probably more. 

I do get the point that was being made about the Jack Monroe article although I don't think I would have used "sensationalist" as the word to describe it - "selective" perhaps. It was a really important point that was made though - that the "inflationary" rises that get reported on don't tell the full picture - and it was certainly important that she called out Asda on their stealth removal of the budget lines from the shelves. 

The suggestion that people should shop around and buy everything from where it's cheapest assumes that people have the time available to do that - again it's easy to forget that this level of time is, in itself, a privilege. 

Milk is the thing we've really noticed an increase on. 4 pint bottles used to be £1 not so long ago - we're now paying £1.15 - that's a huge increase on an absolute basic. 

I thought Jack Monroe was pretty disingenuous on her interview on the More or Less program. She was rightly challenged on her claim that low price goods are disappearing and admitted that she based her whole claim on one supermarket near her own home. She was rightly called out on how dishonest that was, and pretended that shopping somewhere other than her closest shop was the same as saying that you have to shop at several different shops.

As you point out, you can still get 500g of Pasta in Asda for 20p.

You can also get it for the same price in Tesco, or you can get 1kg for 40p in Sainsbury’s and Aldi.

Floss

TheAble said:

EssexHebridean said:

The suggestion that people should shop around and buy everything from where it's cheapest assumes that people have the time available to do that - again it's easy to forget that this level of time is, in itself, a privilege. 

I wouldn't say it's a privilege as such. I make time. Alternatively I could not make time, which would be easier, but I'd spend more as a result. It's a trade-off between time and money.

Incidentally, the pantry principle is a time saver rather than a time consumer. By purchasing several weeks' worth at the place where it's cheapest, you save the time (and money,) you would otherwise have spent buying these items every week at the more expensive place. Granted, it might require a bit of initial investment of time (learning your prices) and money (buying in bulk) but you will save in the long run.

Of course it's easy to find reasons why things can't be done (time, transport etc) but is generally more enterprising, if sometimes unconventional, to look for ways in which they can.

Personally my time is as valuable as my money. I live alone, work full time with a commute 2 days a week. While I am relatively lucky to WFH 3 days a week, I have other things to do with my time in the evenings & at the weekend than trawl around different shops to save a few pence in each place. 

I have tried this way of shopping several times over the years, and it has worked, saving the family money when I worked part-time while my kids were small & interest rates were high in the late 80s/ early 90s. And while I can now access Aldi, Lidl, Home Bargains, B&M, Farm foods, Iceland and Asda all within a close distance, my targeted shop in Asda & Lidl would take at least twice as long if not longer when using several shops, and not necessarily being of an equivalent quality.
 
If I want particular items from Tesco or Morrisons it is an 11 mile round trip, Sainsbury's is 13 miles round trip. With the current high cost of petrol, those are short trips that do not result in any overall saving.

Living_proof

I factor in petrol to my Olio pickups and base the cost on 14p a mile. In the past I budgeted for £1/day to cover all petrol but I am finding £2 is more realistic. However that covers most of my food and saves a lot of perfectly good produce going to landfill. It also covers social travel and in the summer I will walk to some destinations although the trade-off is of course the time it will take up. 

mumf

Living_proof said:

I factor in petrol to my Olio pickups and base the cost on 14p a mile. In the past I budgeted for £1/day to cover all petrol but I am finding £2 is more realistic. However that covers most of my food and saves a lot of perfectly good produce going to landfill. It also covers social travel and in the summer I will walk to some destinations although the trade-off is of course the time it will take up. 

An accountant for a business,when calculating tax,uses the figure of 45p per mile- and that figure is easily 15 years old! That takes into account,not just fuel,but wear and tear and depreciation of vehicle.

KxMx

I'm a great believer of shopping around if you can, and I differ which SM I visit weekly/fortnightly depending on which items I need/like, but the way prices are going up across the board I don't think it's worth the time it costs now to go round several different places for one shop. 

joedenise

Most of our shopping is done is Morrisons as it's the closest SM and that's about 6 miles each way!  But when I'm doing a stock up of UHT milk, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, dishwasher tabs, washing liquid etc then it's a trip in the opposite direction (about 15 miles) to Lidl.  Definitely worth the extra petrol to stock up but not every week.

Living_proof

@mumfI know this but I would still run a car regardless of Olio. Last year I drove the vast mileage of 2200! In accounting terms I’d consider tax, insurance and wear and tear as fixed costs. 

nannygladys

I run a car but after tax, insurance, service and mot and then fuel on top it works out as an expensive luxury especially as there's a couple of sm within a reasonable walking distance but I live up a very steep hill but the biggest pay off is the convenience and being able to get to dd1 and dd3 which is important to me, so I will carry on whilst I can. I was thinking of getting one of this little old lady shopping carts as I could start to walk to the local town for a few bits and coming back up the hill would be very good exercise, if it doesn't kill me off!!!  
Nannyg

KxMx

I'm in my mid 30`s and have had a 2 wheel shopping trolley (funky pattern) for years... Love it!