Wow, inflation

[Toddy]

The barter network is alive and well in my bit of the world.
I shortened a pair of trousers for a friend who does the beating for some of the estate shoots, and he handed my husband a bag of venison loin, and venison lorne sausages.
My husband's chuffed, and I'm pleased that he's getting decent meat for his dinner and I don't need to trail to the butcher's or the supermarket

 

[Woody girl]

Well the Bank of England says we have two more years of surging prices. A worrying thought.
I'm cramming my raised beds with veg and salads, and foraging for edibles, I'm lucky in that during the covid emergency, I stockpiled a lot of household items such as bleach, soap, washing up liquid etc. So I'm not having to buy those items.
Finding ways to cut the outlay in our extremely expensive local (gotcha by the er, hrrm hair) supermarket, isn't easy.
It shocked me that six items cost a few pence less than my first weeks wages!
Can't eat from the supermarket for a pound a day any longer!
But even what I consider cheap meals are no longer cheap.
Take a cheap meal i had served up as a kid, £ 4.60 for a packet of fish fingers, £1.80 for a can of baked beans, £1.80 for a packet of instant mash, followed by bread and marge and marmite, honey, or peanut butter.
Honey is crazy at £7.50 a jar...and I'm talking about real honey, not the adulterated sugar water in the value range for less than two quid.
Peanut butter was always a cheap staple, but its gone from 60p to almost two quid a jar!
Please bear in mind I'm talking about my local rip off Co op, which I have no choice but to shop at, unless I can persuade a friend to take me to town and liddels.
I come home from those trips with absolute stupid glee, having spent more than I wanted to, but I have three jars of olives for the price of one Co op one! Havnt been for a while, so it might be two jars now with price increases.
And they tell us inflation is 5%, .........

 

[bearbait]

...unless I can persuade a friend to take me to town and liddels...

Do you have a local Community Transport Charity that you could use to get into town? My local one does shopping trips, medical appointments, prescription deliveries, lunch trips, etc., as well as days out for the members.

 

[Woody girl]

We do have volunteer drivers, but it costs far too much to be viable. £15 return to nearest town.. only viable for nessasary hospital appointments, its an hour , to hour and a half on a bus, trip in and back can mean a whole day gone, depending on which town you go to, so easier to wait for a trip with a friend.
Luckily, I'm pretty well stocked at present, so hardly need anything, except milk and eggs. I get fresh eggs from a lady I know, so I'm doing OK. I do miss shopping at times, but it gives me more time for the veg plot and foraging, and more money in my pocket not rushing to the shops every week. I don't get tempted by stuff I can happily do without.

 

[British Red]

Please bear in mind I'm talking about my local rip off Co op, which I have no choice but to shop at, unless I can persuade a friend to take me to town and liddels.

Do the supermarkets not deliver where you are (genuine question)?

We find if we are willing to accept awkward delivery slots (middle of a school day) that it's far cheaper to have shopping delivered than to actually go to a supermarket also far simpler to compare prices. Its also important to note that, for many items, no supermarket is cheap. Coffee is a great example. Much cheaper from many online sources.


Camelcamelcamel is your friend

 

[British Red]

Take a cheap meal i had served up as a kid, £ 4.60 for a packet of fish fingers, £1.80 for a can of baked beans, £1.80 for a packet of instant mash,

Here's my point
Fish fingers £1.50
Baked Beans £0.28
Mash 0.95


Total £2.73 vs £8.20 in your example. The saving on that meal would pay for at least two supermarket home deliveries

 

[Scottieoutdoors]

I did supermarket delivery a few times and I can't stand it... maybe its just me, but I find they pick the worse produce with the shortest shelf life left...

 

[ESpy]

Total £2.73 vs £8.20 in your example. The saving on that meal would pay for at least two supermarket home deliveries

If I order online from Sainsburys I invariably go for the £1 slots (about an 8 hour bracket IIRC). On the one hand, it's a damn sight cheaper than driving there, on the other I invariably end up with short-dated stuff if I do.

 

[Scottieoutdoors]

If folks are having good success then thats great, I found I perhaps wasn't organised enough for it... we'd plan out a weeks worth of meals, put an order in with ingredients that would satisfy that meal plan (with leftovers and stock etc) and we'd find that all the key ingredients of each of the separate meals needed to be used on the same day(ish) and/or the substitutions to various ingredients wouldn't world, invariably leading to a drive to a shop anyway...
But then I've got all the supermarkets available in about a clear 10 min drive anyway...

 

[British Red]

If I order online from Sainsburys I invariably go for the £1 slots (about an 8 hour bracket IIRC). On the one hand, it's a damn sight cheaper than driving there, on the other I invariably end up with short-dated stuff if I do.

I suspect the difference is that I rarely buy fresh food from supermarkets - there are so many cheaper, fresher and better quality options available to me. However the OP was talking tins, frozen and freeze dried food. In those instances, as you observed, delivery can be had for a tiny fraction of the saving on one meal!

 

[Stew]

We started grocery deliveries when we had our second kid as it was more of a challenge, especially with living upstairs. That was 12 years ago and we’ve not stopped since. Absolutely great value having someone else pick it, pack it and drop it off!

 

[British Red]

If folks are having good success then thats great, I found I perhaps wasn't organised enough for it... we'd plan out a weeks worth of meals, put an order in with ingredients that would satisfy that meal plan (with leftovers and stock etc) and we'd find that all the key ingredients of each of the separate meals needed to be used on the same day(ish) and/or the substitutions to various ingredients wouldn't world, invariably leading to a drive to a shop anyway...
But then I've got all the supermarkets available in about a clear 10 min drive anyway...

Around here only the foolish buy fresh food from supermarkets. We pay 25p a kilo for spuds as an example, 20p a cauli etc. However even the farmers generally have to buy in coffee, salt & sugar!

 

[Broch]

We didn't try deliveries until lockdown but now use it for all our bulk buying - tins of stuff, dried goods, toiletries etc. It means we buy local for fresh meat and veg.#

Eggs are £1 a half dozen from the farm gate

 

[Toddy]

During Lockdown I used the supermarket delivery services. I generally make from scratch so short dated wasn't an issue I noticed. Pretty sure I read somewhere that they'd pick with at least three days on fresh stuff though.
I thought Sainsbury's and Iceland were excellent. Sainsbury's rarely needed to subsitute, but always did it well.
Iceland was free delivery and carried not just frozen foods but a lot of dairy, fresh juice, etc., too.
Asda was a bit hit or miss with replacements, Tesco was good but didn't have everything I wanted (two gluten free adults, one dairy free and two out of three are vegetarian too) but was very good about careful packing and their GF range was sound. Morrison's didn't have everything I wanted, and Waitrose was a nightmare to try to get online and book a slot.

I still bought from usual on-line suppliers though, like Whole Foods Online, Dove's Farm and RealFoods.co.uk. Those three were truly excellent. Dove's farm went above and beyond during lockdown, and sold catering sized packs to individual households. It made a huge difference when scammers were buying up any normal sized packs and trying to sell them at massive mark ups on eBay. A bag of flour then was £1.75, the scammers were charging nearly twenty pounds. I was very glad I had a decent stock in and could wait until Doves Farm sorted things out to supply more by home delivery. They made up packs of multi items which was an excellent buy too.

Even though shopping is back to normal, I still like the ease of having deliveries for a lot of stuff.
It's only within the last ten years that the village shops here stopped home deliveries. The Greengrocer used to deliver weekly. Milk, butter, potatoes and eggs are still delivered to many either daily or weekly. The Butchers used to do that too, but the supermarkets pretty much closed them down, there's only one between the two villages now when there used to be six.

Different times, but I think time slotted home deliveries are good things especially if you're happy to take off peak times, or a 'morning' or 'afternoon' time range.

 

[Stew]

I suspect the difference is that I rarely buy fresh food from supermarkets - there are so many cheaper, fresher and better quality options available to me. However the OP was talking tins, frozen and freeze dried food. In those instances, as you observed, delivery can be had for a tiny fraction of the saving on one meal!

The problem is that you need to shop online to do that and WG has said a number of times that they won’t shop online.

 

[Stew]

If folks are having good success then thats great, I found I perhaps wasn't organised enough for it... we'd plan out a weeks worth of meals, put an order in with ingredients that would satisfy that meal plan (with leftovers and stock etc) and we'd find that all the key ingredients of each of the separate meals needed to be used on the same day(ish) and/or the substitutions to various ingredients wouldn't world, invariably leading to a drive to a shop anyway...
But then I've got all the supermarkets available in about a clear 10 min drive anyway...

It’s handy for getting bulk dry and tinned goods. Sainsburys did an offer of loads of money off a first order - I just put one order in of tins, pasta, rice and stored it away.

 

[Scottieoutdoors]

@Toddy those people were such leeches... goes to show how some peoples minds work in tough times. I did hear a great story about a friend of an acquaintance who rented a garage on a 6 month lease to store £10,000 worth of toilet paper... wasn't long after the stock returned to normal and he ended up having to store it all in his house.. think he has enough for a couple generations

 

[Woody girl]

The problem is that you need to shop online to do that and WG has said a number of times that they won’t shop online.

I don't buy online, that's true. Its a personal choice, and I was using the fish fingers etc of a marker how my local co op overcharges, and its a great example of why so many people , especially in rural areas are being overcharged, and having to resort to food banks.
I grow a lot of my own veg, rarely eat meat, though if there is a bargain in the reduced section I'll take it. But here again, co op think reducing the price by 25p is OK.
I mostly shop at the local greengrocers, where I can buy much more than just veg. I can get honey, eggs, and milk bottle refill, cheaper than the supermarket anyway. I get g/f flour, dried lentils, nuts and dried fruits such as blueberries almonds walnuts etc.
Realy nessasary items I can't get locally, my best friend will put on her tesco or waitress order, and I do a lot of swopsies for plums, currants and rhubarb for instance.
Currently I've swopped a baby tomato hanging basket for rhubarb whenever I want it, and pea plants for blackcurrants when they are ready. Some of my extra squash are swopped for sheep poo for the garden. Free plums for occasional dog minding, I'll make jams and chutneys and swop for other things. Much more fun than supermarket shopping!
Now I have my apple press, I will be adding apple juice to my stores and swopsies.
For me it's a way of life rather than a chore to get done quickly.
My costs are mainly time.

 

[Stew]

I don't buy online, that's true. Its a personal choice, and I was using the fish fingers etc of a marker how my local co op overcharges, and its a great example of why so many people , especially in rural areas are being overcharged, and having to resort to food banks.

Or those people could just get it delivered. They’re not limited to the one shop.

 

[ESpy]

... its a great example of why so many people , especially in rural areas are being overcharged...

On everything. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-64281858 for example.
No mains drainage, no mains gas, no streetlights (but we do now have FTTP thanks to a government initiative), there's no facilities nearby so you need to drive to pretty much anywhere - BUT no streetlights (yes, I think that's a benefit!), the lack of mains gas/sewage means there's little interest in housing development, there's cows in the fields out the front, sheep & horses in the fields to the back...