The price of food....and everything really

[Purplepixii]

Originally Posted by stripee

Maybe there will be the return of fruit trees in gardens, apples, pears, cherries and plums. Gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries and allotments, and veg plots.

We put an apple tree in last year and have just planted a cherry tree (there are unripe green cherries on it already!). We're also planning a veg patch. I want chickens - will have to discuss with my other half. Ideally I'd like to move to somewhere with a big garden as ours is too small to do what we'd like to it.

I filled up with fuel the other day, admittedly it's the expensive Shell stuff, but it cost me just under £50 for a tank!!!!! Luckily my cycle is road-worthy and I will start using that now for short journeys.

I'd like to leave England, where we are so ripped off, but I think it would be out of the frying pan into the fire

[Rich_]

The price of fuel is reaching a point now where people who need to use a car for work and other essential trips will be cutting back on other things to buy fuel. I know people now, who can't afford buy a full tank of fuel every week.

[galanthus]

Originally Posted by Pat

Coasty, where do you get eggs at £3 per dozen in 5 years time, I bought 6 free range eggs at Tesco yesterday cost me £2.48

I must have eyed-up the same eggs, they were organic free range and were marked up at £2.69 I bought instead the local free-range eggs from tesco which were over a pound cheaper and I know they live on scraps etc.

[Purplepixii]

Who will feed the wildlife when we can't afford to feed ourselves...?

[Deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Purplepixii

Who will feed the wildlife when we can't afford to feed ourselves...?

DEFRA ?

[Susie]

It costs me over £55 to put a full tank of fuel in the car now, I am very careful with the shopping but the weekly shop is still going up, I reuse leftovers and hardly anything gets wasted but because I work part time (cos I have three kids to care for too) I got hammered by the tax changes and am £25 a month worse off in my salary every month. To say that things are getting tighter financially is an understatement at the moment.

However, a walk in the countryside is free, birdsong is free and happiness is FREE!

[ron1863]

Hi Coasty,

I think your predictions are conservative, especially petrol. Every Government blames the previous one for price rises, stealth taxes etc. but when the opposition get into Government, do they reduce the taxes they were complaining about - no chance.

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by Susie

However, a walk in the countryside is free, birdsong is free and happiness is FREE!

The way prices are rising, hapiness is going to be in short supply, so they may very well tax it.

[Blackbrook Eye]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

There was a piece in the [I

Guardian[/i] pointing out that bread from your own machine saves at least £1 per loaf; that making your own tomato sauce (for pasta) costs next to nothing and produces no waste if you plan properly, that hummus, pesto, all sorts of things take little time and save vast amounts of money.

I wonder where the Guardian buy their bread, I still pay 78p per loaf from my local Co,op so it would be difficult to save a pound a loaf by making my own and anyone who has tried making their own tomato sauce will tell you, it's not cheap by any means, unless you get the ingredients for nothing to start with, but then again the Guardian is not a paper for people who live in the real world, now is it. Regarding eggs, it may be all well and good for individuals to feed their fowls on grass and kitchen scraps, but commercial growers are required to feed their stock more responsibly and that adds to the cost of production, no matter if they are battery or free range. Another point regarding eggs is that although battery rearing is not ideal, at least there is some control over the age of the product, unlike true free range, where eggs can remain hidden in unsavory conditions for days before being collected

[Susie]

Pasta sauce doesn't have to be expensive. I reckon I can make a pan of pasta sauce for about 30p. It is just one sauted onion, one crushed clove of garlic, a tin of tesco value chopped tomatoes, a squeeze of tomato puree, dried Italian herbs (or fresh herbs from the garden) and a sprinkle of salt. Try it, it tastes as good, if not better, than any stuff you can buy in a jar.

If I add to my shopping list a packet of value mince, a packet of pasta and a french stick I can feed the five of us on Pasta Bolognaise with garlic bread for 50p a head. I usually do a salad with it too so that works out at about a pound more for all of us. Any left over bolognaise sauce can be put inside a folded pizza dough base with a bit of cheese for Calzone. Yum.