Cost of living

[BlueSharp]

So noticed our food bill has not been below £100 a week for a few months and decided to do a budget comparison compared to last August. Looks like we are spending an extra £600 a month of basic living expenses (Food, Mortgage - recently moved to a new 5 year deal, Energy). I had noticed prices creeping up but shocked when I looked at the three basics.

[jamesbrown]

I don’t think our food bill has been below £150 a week for more than a year and there’s only two of us. That is probably excessive by average standards, idk. It has probably doubled in the last 6 years or so and will likely double again rather sooner.

[xoggoth]

Keep Excel sheets of all my bank statements. Did a 2 month check compared to last August and increased from £52.03 to £52.85! Beginning of year was £52.5. Think some of this cost of living increase is fake news!

£150 for two? You ain't MF are you? Or maybe cut out the whisky.

[malvolio]

It's certainly not fake news. We buy roughly the same basic shopping list of day-to-day stuff and food basics most weeks, it's gone up about 12% over the last year.

[DealorNoDeal]

We're just trying to eke out the money we've got until we can draw our state pensions in a few years. At least these should more or less keep pace with this "rerun of the 1970s" now the triple lock has been reinstated.

[xoggoth]

It's certainly not fake news

Wasn't being serious d00000000000000000000gh. Dunno. Maybe I just happen to buy the least affected things. The supermarket luck monster. Excluding the major one off costs of revamping my house, I am still getting about the same net income less costs.

Being a mean old sod helps, some people are incredibly wasteful. Maybe this inflation will be a good thing in one way, when people start following the online tips to save money, turning their hot water settings down to save energy costs etc. Good green effect!

[jamesbrown]

£150 for two?

I'm not sure how we spend that much. Neither of us is a blimp like MF and we don't shop at Waitrose. We do use the Fish Society, which is pretty pricey, but that isn't included in the weekly spend, come to think of it. I suppose it is a pretty outrageous amount when I think that my mother probably spends £35 a week on food shopping, but then she likes to cook and we both hate cooking (anything serious). It's probably that we have the luxury of not caring - we don't especially look for offers or whatever.

[Paddy]

Money Saving Tips

4 Affordable Alternatives to Dom Perignon

https://www.thekitchn.com/4-affordab...erignon-227823

[Fraidycat]

Family of five, shocked to see our monthly supermarket spend hit £1250 in June

It used to be around £900 a month, a year or two ago, and i was never happy with that, but now £900 a month seems low in comparison.

We would buy whatever we fancy whenever we feel like it, never kept a count of spend, but will now budget to keep supermarket spending at £1000 a month max.

[mudskipper]

Family of five, shocked to see our monthly supermarket spend hit £1250 in June

It used to be around £900 a month, a year or two ago, and i was never happy with that, but now £900 a month seems low in comparison.

We would buy whatever we fancy whenever we feel like it, never kept a count of spend, but will now budget to keep supermarket spending at £1000 a month max.

If you're spending that much, definitely worth bothering with voucher discount things - e.g if you have access to perkbox (e.g as an IPSE member) you can get 4% off at Tesco and Asda, 5% at Sainsbury and Morrison. Given the 'essentials' membership is just £95 a year (doesn't include the insurances that most people enjoy - for that you need standard or plus) it's worth joining up for that alone. £10 off essentials membership with https://www.ipse.co.uk/joinme/066626/ (or £50 off plus!)