Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Bought a new tube of toothpaste yesterday. (My life is brimming with such excitements. ) Noted it had gone up in price by 25%! Nothing to be done about that, given it is hardly a non-essential impulse purchase. Anyway, scroll forward to this morning and I notice the tube seems to have shrunk in length. Check the back ... and the contents have dropped from 100 ml to 75 ml.

So, 25% on the price and 25% off the volume.

 

I started using those pump toothpaste dispensers, I bought a spring clip and fixed it to the wall in the bathroom.
Don't see them anymore, have they stopped selling them?

 

I’ve noticed the prices increasing each week now. We use a hand pump style for soap in the kitchen and last week it had gone up 50p. These aren’t small increases when factored in to all the shopping when others prices are increasing. My weekly bill is steadily going up and up.

 

I’ve only really noticed price rises on chocolate, which have really gone up. I do tend to go for the special offers on the brands I like, and stock up when there is a saving. I usually have a small stockpile of essentials. I too bought toothpaste this week! It was on a half price offer, so I stocked up.
Small panic with my credit card yesterday. I had to order a new one, as I think maybe not a good idea to keep it in my back trouser pocket. I think it’s been sat on too many times and the chip was starting to get pushed out of place. In the meantime, I’ve been using an alternative one that I usually only use abroad. I tried the contactless payment, which didn’t work, so had to insert the card and put in the PIN. All fine, and I got my receipts as usual. However, I checked my phone when I got home, and there were three messages about payment being declined, either as a result of my card being frozen or reached my credit limit! Aaargh! Managed to get it sorted after a call to the bank. Turns out that I had ordered the card without a contactless function, but had forgotten that! So I was notified about the failed contactless transaction, but the usual chip and PIN had worked as normal. Phew!
Annoyingly, all over their website, it says I can switch the contactless function on, or off, via their App. I don’t have the App, and don’t want to download it, but can’t do it through their website. I am being discriminated against!

 

Milka milk chocolate bars have been on special offer in my favourite SM but 100% cocoa powder utterly absent for weeks. I finally tracked some down in another SM. Need it for a baking marathon this week. I bought Possum's Easter egg yesterday from a proper Belgian outlet - Geoff de Bruges. It's filled with mini chocolate eggs and has her name written on it so not cheap but worth it. Good job it's only once year!

Must admit I don't keep track of toothpaste and soap refill prices other than to compare like with like and take advantage of offers, as with any other essential product. i also check content rather than go by brand names which are automatically more expensive.

 

Do you use an electric toothbrush @ViewAhead? I find you use a lot less toothpaste with one than with a traditional brush. That could be why the toothpaste manufacturers have come up with a cunning price increase and volume decrease strategy .

 

Every time my OH visits a certain SM, she buys Yorkies for me, in three-packs. At least four at a time.
In our local shop, Yorkies range from 85p-£1.20 EACH, but OH gets them at £1.50 for three (they used to be 99p for three, and went as high as £1.85 for three).

Am I boring anyone? Or is it a case of "must try harder"?

 

I don't ... as I am noise-averse and would not willingly use something buzzy that close to my ear.

Re chocolate, I read somewhere the cocoa harvest was poor in key production regions last yr, hence the price increase.

 

Prices will never come down though, they are more likely to increase. Still, they will blame it all on climate change, when other factors are rarely mentioned. Illegal mining on the cocoa farm land, aging farmers that struggle to recruit younger workers in to the trade plus the increase in demand, all ingredients that will push prices higher.

 

There are a couple of nasty fungal diseases spreading through the cocoa plantations, climate change plays a role with change in weather patterns, but also the things mentioned above by GKS and increasing urbanisation.
Similar things are also affecting coffee production, increasing temperatures are pushing coffee production up to higher altitudes.

 

Some farmers holding food back to make a "shortage" heard this from the cows mouth

 

I have to stick to some branded items as I am allergic to most perfumes and scents that are in soaps, washing powders and hand soap so am stuck with paying higher prices.
I’m glad I don’t have a sweet tooth or Id be skint with choc prices going up too.

 

I can remember them saying there was a virus killing banana plants and being that the main fruiting banana of commerce was a single clone there were problems coming.

That was years ago, I'm still buying bananas.

 

It's a new strain of Panama fungus. This fungus pretty much wiped out the Gros Michel and was replaced by the Cavendish variety (named after the 6th Duke of Devonshire, cultivated by Joseph Paxton) this provides 99% of the bananas in supermarkets.
The problem is that the Cavendish is sterile so breeders have to go back non sterile bananas to breed resistant forms and so far they've not bred an alternative yet. However there is a genetically modified resistant form and also biological controls have been used recently.