Rising Food Prices

The news channels report that food prices are increasing at a phenomenal rate across the globe. If you don't have a sensible approach to shopping, grocery and other, then now is the time to start planning a change, unless of course you have infinite resources or you want to go into debt with every day expenses.

Credit cards are useful for some things. They are fine for one off purchases when you can repay them properly. If you buy all of your months shopping on a credit card and then repay everything without incurring charges then this is reasonable too. However once you start putting day to day expenses on your card and then being able to repay everything monthly you are on a slippery slope. No-one wins then except the finance houses.

So, how can you cut down on spend?
Some things are tactical and other require a real change in attitude.
The tactical changes are the easiest to adopt but they don't get you as far as the attitude changes would.

1)Find the supplier than gives you the best produce for the least cost (taking into account any ethical issues you have of course)I can buy fruit and veg now in the Saturday market. I haven't previously done this as the only veg stall in our market was awful but now we have someone new and the prices are good and so are the veggies.
2)Buy food less far along the production chain. Buy pastry and chick & veg is cheaper than buying top of the range pies (I am not mentioning bottom of the range pies as they seem to have no contents anyway)but buying flour and fat and the constituent ingredients for chicken pies would be a further economy. They would also have a better taste unless you are an awful cook.
3)Look at the cheaper end of the range in products. I am talking stewing steak rather than braising steak here, not economy burgers & sausages.

However if you can change you attitude, even a bit at a time, then you move on to a life where you are in control.
1) Put an end to waste. Don't allow food to go off before it is even cooked, use up leftovers, don't eat things up when you aren't even hungry. My sisters family and my parents have both had bins delivered by the council for 'food waste'. Both families are using them for other things because, as my sister when they were issued, 'we don't have any waste, we eat ours.' Admittedly I cant find a use for chicken bones but can it ever be morally right to through away edible food in a world where someone is starving?
2)I deserve a treat! What % of you shopping basket is treats? Maybe none or maybe half? Perhaps you could find treats that don't require purchasing if you really feel you need a treat so often.
3)Do I really need to buy that? This is grocery shopping but often more so with other things. Can you fix what you have? Can you adapt something you already have? Will you get good use from this item? Stop and think about major purchases for some time and you might well find that the desire for a specific object just disappears.
4)What can I make myself? Obviously you can cook from scratch but maybe you can also sew, knit, crochet not sure that this is always cheaper than buying though sadly)mend existing clothes, grow vegetables and fruit, keep chickens, bees (sheep?)

Take the pleasure in your life from making do and for not spending that you once got from shopping and you are on to a winner.

Have to go now or there wont be any decent veg left on my favourite market stall!

I have just logged back in to amend this post. Since finishing writing I have been clicking aournd the web havinga read here and there and every blog I have come across is talking about saving money on food shopping. I am beggining to think there is a blogger group collective consciousness.

Tomorrow or maybe later today I will talk about making savings in a bit more detail.