Can we talk about the price of groceries?

Before we talk about groceries, can I please ask you to tell me ONE thing on this post?

Thank you kindly because I really don't fancy talking to myself!

My Baggu shopping bags - bought about 8 years ago, still going strong :)

Our grocery bill has increased dramatically in the last 3 - 5 months. I can't say that we're eating differently - if anything, I was cooking less because the heat wasn't kind to me, and I therefore avoid my kitchen in summer. Good thing everyone around here thinks eggs on toast is a perfectly good meal :)

Usually one or two months of not sticking to the budget doesn't unduly alarm me. I tend to think maybe there were lots of specials (D is a sucker like most of you for The Sale) or we were having show houses (I am a sucker for all the cleaning things).

But then month 3, and I realised we needed to increase the budget. I can't keep making a line item called "overspent" - it just doesn't feel right.

My colleagues and I have been talking about the grocery issue for months now.

Yes, we moan about it but somehow there's somewhat of a money buffer in our budgets so we can stop doing other things to pay more for groceries.... and water and electricity (next blog post) and petrol.



But what of others who are living "on the bread line"?

I felt so guilty about this issue that we gave Nanny S and the gardener a cost-of-living increase in March.

Back to the groceries. R24,99 for a head of broccoli or cauliflower that used to cost R15,99. All packs of 1.5 kg apples now R25,99 each - they used to cost R15,99 and we bought 3 every week because we all eat lots of apples.

Carrots, thankfully, are still about R10,99 a bag. These prices are at the blue and red retailer.



So, no wonder the grocery bill has exploded. And I am getting more fussy so I'm checking that fridge daily to see what needs to be used, what can be tossed into the freezer for when we make soup. I even said, "we are not buying any more cereal until everything is used up". It still isn't, two months later.

Also, thank you to Kelloggs for the huge hamper of cereal I won at the blogger meet-up. I shared with Nanny S but we still had plenty for ourselves that will probably last til mid-June since we only eat on the weekends.

Anyway, so tell me, are you feeling the pinch?
Do you have any new tricks up your sleeve to not waste food/ use up food in interesting ways? I'm letting my pantry run completely bare a lot more... and making do every couple of weeks with what is here instead of adding more.

What are you doing to stretch your rands/ dollars?