If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Feeling the pinch?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Is anyone else noticing a massive difference in what they can afford to buy at the supermarket? I've noticed there's a lot of things have got too expensive for me to afford, and a big reduction in value products at tesco. I went yesterday to get some nice food because my mam is coming to stay but I found when I went that I really couldn't afford it! Me and my boyfriend have a food (and household stuff like toilet roll) budget of £120 a month including packed lunches for us both and last month we managed to stick to it but its getting harder and harder!
For me fresh fruit and veg seems to have gone up a lot, even in season fruit. Apples, oranges and bananas are the only things I buy at the moment
So what products have you noticed going through the roof and what's hit you the hardest? Have you changed how you shop and eat?
Also here's the place to share any food bargains that you've spotted
For me fresh fruit and veg seems to have gone up a lot, even in season fruit. Apples, oranges and bananas are the only things I buy at the moment
So what products have you noticed going through the roof and what's hit you the hardest? Have you changed how you shop and eat?
Also here's the place to share any food bargains that you've spotted
0
Comments
Man I can't afford to be snobby at the moment (not that I ever have been, I love a bargain haha)
I rarely buy frozen stuff, only quorn mince or sausages occasionally but I've had those on deals in Iceland before
It's worth having a rough idea of what stuff would cost elsewhere as the nice round prices occasionally mean stuff is more.
Wow. Thats more than our month's budget for us both! How many people did you shop for, 1, 2 or more?
You are lucky not to have to worry
My boyfriend said a few weeks ago that I was spending a lot on shopping and he didn't see much coming home. I took him to tesco and set ourselves a budget and priced everything as it went in the trolley on his phone. He was so suprised how little our money went compared to a few months ago. I think if your budget is £30 a week rather than £130 then you do notice the difference a lot more
Personally I've cut out using any pre-made sauces, I've just stocked up my spice rack and do my own.
:thumb:
That jar of Dolmio sauce at £2 or so is just a couple of tins of value tomatoes, onion and herbs.
As for the origina question, yes. We've cut back quite a bit. Nevr used to buy a great deal of premade food, occasional pizza or some chickeny thing to bung in the oven when i can't be arsed to cook. Eat a smaller variety of veg. Frozen veg is quite cheap but frankly it's shit except for peas, so usually buy fresh but the price of things like courgetts and marrow and cauliflower is just stupid so mainly stick to carrots, spuds and cabbage now.
Try and buy British food (carbon footprint and all that) but sometimes the cost is prohibitive. Was in Morrisons last week. 6 big juicy tomatoes from Poland 59p. 4 small crappy ones from Kent 79p ????
That was for two of us. We don't buy booze usually either. Maybe the odd bottle of Cava/Champagne, but definitely not that week. We tend to pop to the Sainsbury's local when we want a drink and I don't usually drink mid-week.
Yeah, I certainly raise an eyebrow when I notice the sub-total rocketing upwards as the items go through, and both are usually hovering near the top of my forehead when the final total comes
Oh yes, and I don't buy pre-made sauces for anything Italian. Sometimes some of the chinese stuff, but most things I prefer to make from scratch
cant believe its £1.30 for a loaf of warburtons bread too at asda.
Did you use all of the lasagne sheets? Also, how many portions did that make? I find that when I make lasagne, sure it costs a few quid, but I get enough for 6 meals. Works out quite a bit cheaper that way, and I am also able to control the ingredients that go into it, hence it is a healthier option.
Up to about £1.85 where I work... :eek2:
Wow - lasagne is one of my pound stretching meals. And how are lasagne sheets a pound! They're less than 40p for the value ones (27p last time I bought them but they'll have gone up), and a pack lasts us for about 4 lasagnes so thats 10p per lasagne!. Can of chopped tomatoes is about 20p. Veg - say you use one onion, one pepper, one courgette and one carrot will probably be about £1.50 (cheaper if you've already bought in bulk). Then if you make your white sauce yourself if will probably cost about 50p, plus probably 50p's worth of cheese. You can make the white sauce even cheaper by using cornflour, have done this before when I've been out of butter.
That equals £3. With lasagne you can use up your leftover veggies too and I tend to get packs of value peppers, onions and carrots which will probably bring the cost down to about £2.50
You can tell I watch the pennies! Although I've never actually worked out the cost of a lasagne before :chin: Its definitely not £6.50 in my house though!
I find I can save alot of money from my usual ASDA shop by going to Lidl instead. Only thing is, Lidl doesn't stock nearly enough of the things I usually get from ASDA. Saying that, it does have some nice things that you can't get in ASDA, but not enough to have me shopping there full-time.
So I tend to mix up my shopping depending on how wealthy I feel. If I feel I'm OK, I'll go to ASDA. If I'm counting the pennies, I'll go to Lidl. With my older sister, she goes to ASDA when she's counting the pennies, then M&S or Watirose when she's feeling wealthy, but then she's got a good job. Hopefully I'll be in a position to make that kind of choice sometime, though I'm quite happy with ASDA!
i see what you mean, i just looked at my tesco receipt haha...the cheese sauce was £1 but that was the cheapest one and i dont cook much so i wouldnt know how to make it from scratch. i thought the lasagne sheets were really expensive too but thats literally all they had? just one pack of sheets for 99p! they're tesco own brand, not finest or anything like htat. i would have been happy with the value ones if i'd seen them. we bought passata which is obviously more expensive than chopped tomatoes, that was £1, that was us splashing out though because it looked really yummy haha. 1 pepper is 69p! then the courgette and onion another 50p...then the cheese was 1.69. so altogether that comes to 5.88.
what g_angel said is right though i suppose, we have left over sheets and left over cheese, and cheese sauce, i've just been thinking about it and we're going to make another one today otherwise its a bit of a waste of money isnt it otherwise. this is a long post haha.
Ah they've possibly stopped doing the value lasagne which brings the price up. In a lasagne there's not too much point using fancy tomato products, especially not paying loads for them cos they don't make it that much better.
I find if you go to the shop to buy things to make for a certain meal then it always ends up loads more than if you have a properly stocked kitchen and make things from what's in. For example, I wouldn't be caught dead paying 69p for a pepper, even the 3 packs are better value than that. I buy a big bag of value ones and you get at least 4 or 5 big ones (although I just had a pack with 7 baby ones!) and they're £1.40 or something? Then its about 28p per pepper and you eat them over the course of a week. But if there's no value peppers then I just won't bother and have something cheaper instead
yeah definitely, makes a lot of sense. we both still live with our parents, and my mum and dad are away so the kitchen isnt very well stocked
also just saw an advert for aldi and a pack of 3 peppers are 69p! wish we'd gone there instead, hehe.
Pop to the bakery for your bread and cobs etc...
Generally i dont fall for the supermarket ploys of banging bogofs on items that dont interest me and surrounding them around expensive standard items.
I just go in for what i want and get it, and if there is an offer on something i want albeit a different brand, then consider that.
Oh and those that say "Go to Aldis" give it a rest, the place is woeful! yet again i gave it a go, went in with the intention to get most of my shopping, i ended up getting a 37pence loaf (Agreed, bargain) and some giant tea cakes, the rest is just tat.
Fruit and Veg that looks like it has been sat there all weekend, cooked meats that everyone claims are fantastic because they are from the continent where the standards are much higher than here in blighty... erm... Yeah... i'm not eating the stuff! Once is more than enough, the bland plastic crap streaked with fat and grizle!
I find you initially end up saving 20pence on items there, but in the end wasting £2 by having to throw the bloody things away instead of just popping to Asda/Tesco etc...
And i'm far from a food snob, i'll buy Tesco Value, Asda Smart price etc... providing its edible
But I have really noticed the rises. I noticed it even more as I was living in Poland for 4 months. When I came back, the food here seemed doubly expensive.
Cheese sauce is super easy to make from scratch, just google it for a recipe. The jar ones are manky.
I buy Value bananas, carrots, onions, apples, tomatoes, potatoes, cheese. Theyre fine.
I probably spend about £70 a week more or less for the 5 of us (and dog) and we eat alright
Food is so much more expensive now. I think I notice it more because I work in a supermarket and there's not much else to think about than how shocking the price/salt content of a product is.
Milk, eggs, bread, cheese and fresh produce have all increased in price loads. I find it really awkward to plan meals at the moment because I'm still working 3 lates a week and so I have to plan stuff that my OH can just stick in the oven and eat while I'm at work too, and then my lunches for work etc.
For my money saving meal:
Veggie beany broth.
Morrisons do a really really nice broth mix for 69p. It's 500g and you only need 1/3rd of a bag to make an enormous stock pot full of broth. I usually use an onion and some garlic, chopped carrot and whatever else veg I have available and then a bit of stock, tin of tomatoes and a squirt of tomato puree with 1/3rd bag broth mix and just let it cook. It's nice with a bit of cheese on top and some bread to go with it.
I'm going to try this! I looked at buying a broth mix once but it seemed to take years to cook!
I've really got into baking my own cakes again and it does work out a lot cheaper then buying readymade.
not to mention about a million times nicer