I have noticed this year that just popping into the supermarket for tea things for that night is costing more and more.

Now, I'm not expecting prices to be going DOWN, but they seem to be rocketing. Certainly more than my wages are going up, that's for sure!!!!!!

But yesterday, I came home truly shocked. £27 for 2 small bags of groceries!! And one of those bags was padded out with 4 rolls of kitchen towel (£2.00)

I bought a book @ £3.86 (for holiday reading), but other than that everything was legitimately foodie. And only 1 lot of meat (£2.00)

The little luxuries are going to have to be cut back!! And I'm not kidding! Can't carry on like this.

And the thought that vegetables next year will be costing more in the shops is almost making me cry!

Maybe once I get my Lottie it will turn into a neccesity! 'Free' veggies and fruit.

Growing certainly does make a difference to the grocery expenditure, just don't calculate the cost of your time! Remember it is exercise with a food benefit at the end.
I think it improves the diversity in diet. For example, cooking gooseberries in January (from the frozen stock) is a real treat. You just don't find much range in soft fruit, particularly out of season.

£1 for a handful of woody/watery radish, I love radish but haven't grown any and i'm short of space now.

I think we are being subjected to a lot of opportunism, traders are increasing their prices because everyone is increasing their prices opportunistically rather than out of need.

I just ordered a spare part for my van, it's gone up £2 in four years from £15 to £17. Fine. A load of wood fuel has increased from £80 to £100 in 12 months, when I asked why, the answer was that everyone was dearer than him and he couldn't see the point in being cheaper and his competition was criticising him.

Over here in the far west the price of a dressed crab is down to what tourists are prepared to pay rather than a sensible price but why do we expect a crab fisherman to live in a pokey-semi, drive round in a battered old van, ride out to sea in a just-seaworthy boat and often risk his life and the glitteratti around us earn thousands and millions a year for just the ability to be very-sneaky.

I am very partial to Golden Granulated Sugar and in Dec 2011 I could buy a kilogram pack for 99p but today the cheapest you can buy is £1.69p which is a real price hike. If everything went up by the same amount there would be a need for soup kitchens!
JB.

Aren't groceries a shocking price now!?

Quick answer yes, but it could be worse!

I'm sure I've posted this before, and I don't like admitting to reading the Daily Mail website, but think of how much more expensive things were 150 years ago - in real terms, that is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -1862.html

You/we have just got accustomed to cheap food. I could easily post some recipes for the typical North Welsh diet which persisted well in to the 20th century in these parts. It mostly consisted of oatmeal, oat bran or dry bread soaked in hot water, tea or, if you were lucky, buttermilk.

Sadly it looks set to continue Piglet, harvests have been poor in many areas, that will be another reason to raise prices.
Do you have a nice light windowsill or balcony, you could grow salad leaves, pea shoots, and some patio veg ? If you can't get an allotment yet perhaps some elderly neighbour might let you plant up their garden in return for a share of produce ? Or an existing allotment holder might share produce in return for help if they are finding it a struggle
Some veg box schemes work out cheaper, especially if you factor in the cost of your petrol to and from the supermarket, many also do dairy and other produce
Doing a once a month store cupboard / frozen shop works out cheaper than going each week especially if delivery is free over a certain price spent.
Price hikes everywhere, not just food, luckily we set in motion enduring power of attorney for my mum years ago £240 for solicitor and court fees - new legislation and now it costs £1,400 for lasting power of attorney - some hike!

That is another very good example of 'The many' being fleeced by the 'few' though it does appear at times to be 'The many' fleecing the few. those in the business of representing us in legal matters have very few scruples in the same way as my wood supplier oiking-up the price of his wood because everyone else is.

Some years ago I asked a local bod here in the far-west in the business of soliciting how much he would charge me to sign a form that identified me. (Thats all the information he needed) £10 in the tea/coffee box was what he was happy with. When he saw the prepared paperwork done by a high-price solicitor in Bath he decided he wanted £100 on the basis I could probably afford it if I managed to pay to be fleeced in Bath.

How some people can sleep at night beats me.

Diesel's come down 10 pence a litre in the last few weeks.

Hi Alan,
My next fill-up of Diesel will be at £1.309 per litre thanks to a voucher entitling me to 6p off per litre from Morrisson's yesterday. What annoyed me was that I filled up at Morrisson's garage before going into the supermarket! However I have a lot of miles to do in the next week and will be almost empty when I then fill-up.
JB.