Comments on: This awkward need to eat…

By: Top 10 ways to cope with rising household costs « Becoming Domestic

Top 10 ways to cope with rising household costs « Becoming Domestic — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:37:15 +0000

[...] I read her blog post & comments from others where recent increases in food prices had been noticed by individuals but downplayed by the media I [...]

By: Becoming Domestic » How to cope with rising household costs

Becoming Domestic » How to cope with rising household costs — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:37:35 +0000

[...] I read her blog post & comments from others where recent increases in food prices had been noticed by individuals but downplayed by the media I [...]

By: Pewari

Pewari — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:14:34 +0000

That sounds excellent :) I do need a bigger freezer at some point, I think… then I can do similar with the meat thing.

At the end of the day, I suppose it’s what you enjoy doing. I loathe the whole process of planning of shopping for food, but I enjoy cooking and eating it :)

Would much rather spend more time on the cooking and family mealtimes and get the shopping part done with a few clicks and then it turns up on the doorstep!

I have done the shopping at independent stores thing, but besides the problem of it being time consuming, I also didn’t enjoy the process as I was repeatedly told I would. It didn’t add any enjoyment to the food, for me. Nor do I like any kind of shopping as a leisure activity (I’m guessing browsing the online Amazon store doesn’t count).

The shopping once a month for meat sounds doable – but the trick is finding a decent quality but cheap source where I can buy in bulk for the month…

By: Spinky

Spinky — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:03:39 +0000

I must admit, I go to the indoor market in Birmingham to stock up on meat and fish. £40 will fill the freezer for a month, I then go to Lidl for grocery shopping (no stigma for me as i grew up in Germany where Lidl and Aldi were the norm) and finally Tesco/Sainsburys for anything else I need. I tend to cook lots of weird and wonderful dishes as I enjoy cooking and get bored easily – not as easy with children I guess.

By: Pewari

Pewari — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:12:24 +0000

Looks like the papers now have the story: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article3799327.ece (you heard it here first at the Prattle!) Bad news is, prices are set to rise even further.

Still, at least we actually *have* food in the cupboard :(

Spinky: don’t be impressed – it’s because I’m fundamentally lazy and want the food planning and shopping completed as quickly as possible.

By: Ys

Ys — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:46:31 +0000

weirdly, our shopping bill went down when everyone said there’s was going up. i don’t know how that happened. sometimes we have a tight week (usually when everything runs out at once) but we do okay. probably jinxed us now!!

By: Spinky

Spinky — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:57:34 +0000

I am just impressed that you have a rota menu system.

By: Blue Witch

Blue Witch — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:39:53 +0000

As we don’t eat meat or buy bread or eggs, and grow a lot of our own veg year-round, and I use Aldi, the local market, and Costco (plus Sainsbury’s for BOGOFs and the odd thing I can’t get cheaper elsewhere), I haven’t noticed as big a rise as others are saying.

If you eat rice and have the storage space, buy some extra as it’s already gone up 50% in the last few months and is predicted to go up another 75% before the end of the year.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:28:08 +0000

Japan has run out of butter.

By: Pewari

Pewari — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:38:30 +0000

In general, I should say that I’m happy with our current diet. We have a fair amount of cooking from scratch, I don’t buy organic as I’d rather have greater quantity of veg (but I do buy free range chickens and eggs), we don’t eat a whole lot of meat and I’m not really prepared to change our diet as such (especially as I’m finally winning the battle to get the kids to eat THIS one).

I just have to reallocate the budgets! I really wanted to find out if this was happening for everyone or if I was just imagining it somehow…

Lisa: cheeky moo. I do buy normal block cheese with the exception of mozzarella which I buy pre-grated cos I can NEVER grate the damn stuff.

Kitchen Witch: hello and welcome :) Nice to see you!

Bealers: that is scary stuff and I think your right :( Lots of belt-tightening to come, I think.

Thank you for all your comments :)

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:30:06 +0000

You could buy normal block-shaped cheese?

By: anabels

anabels — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:23:50 +0000

This is a world wide thing. Here in NZ there are bleats in the paper about the price of cheese. seeing as we produce a lot of the stuff everything thinks it should be cheap but of course the producers aren’t going to sell it at anything other than current (expensive) price!

By: DG

DG — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:00:45 +0000

Bealers – great link :)

I’m not surprised; the government has been fudging their ‘official’ inflation figure for many years to the point where it’s pretty much meaningless as it doesn’t include anything useful.

Guess it’s time to buy SmartPrice stuff and wean Kat off her confectionery addiction!

By: Bealers

Bealers — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:46:45 +0000

30%+ rise in prices on staples such as bread & milk, 15% plus price rises for energy and if you, like us have to pay for fuel oil for heating and cooking then you’ll notice huge rises in costs there too. I think most people are noticing huge petrol increase whilst all the while the RPI is only currently around 3.1% such a ‘high’ number that Merv will need to write to Alistair Darling soon an explain why it’s above the BoE target.

They* are so paranoid that people will start noticing and then start demanding wage rises that’ll feeding back and further increase pressure on an the (already IMO f00ked) economy that it’s being downplayed like you wouldn’t believe.

Anyway, the daily Mash summarises it much more eloquently than I could in their usual genius manner:
http://tinyurl.com/4tx8sr

* For the record I am not generally a conspiracy theorist

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:36:11 +0000

Another option is meat-reducing, which also has other sustainable lifestyle benefits.