A British shopper was confronted with the reality of the cost of living crisis after he found a receipt from grocery shop they did at Tesco in 1991.
The retro receipt showed he purchased 32 items – including a £24.99 toy – and was only set back £56.30.
Less than half of the things he bought back in 1991 cost more than £1 – a far cry from what Brits are forking out for basic supermarket items today.
The man shared the receipt online making viewers feel nostalgic about old grocery prices.
‘Recently found an old Tesco receipt in a drawer, prices have really changed in 34 years,’ he said in a Reddit post.
Among the items listed on the receipt were a loaf of wholemeal bread for £0.69, half a dozen eggs for £0.72, shampoo and conditioner for £1.75 and a £1.49 pack of toilet paper.
A copy of the Daily Mirror was bought for only £0.25 as opposed to £1.20 today and Dairylea cheese spread was £0.89 – less than a third of what it’s worth in 2025.
The total for all 32 buys came to £56.30, which would be the equivalent of around £126 in today’s money.
Less than half of the items the shopper bought at Tesco back in 1991 cost more than £1 – a far cry from what Brits are forking out for basic supermarket items today.
However, many noted taking away the £25 toy, the man was able to feed himself for the week for just £31 – or £85.05 in 2025.
According to the CPI Inflation Calculator, the pound has had an average inflation rate of just over three per cent each year since 1991, meaning prices are now 2.74 times higher than they were 34 years ago.
The post received mixed reviews but many were in disbelief at how cheap a grocery shop used to be.
‘The days when you could spend nearly half your weekly shopping budget on toys are sadly missed,’ one user wrote.
‘Those where the days. Wish we could go back in time,’ another replied and a third pointed out: ‘Only three items cost over £2 and one of those was toys.’
’47p for a loaf of bread wow! That’s impressive, you could only buy three slices for that these days,’ someone added.
‘Notice how nearly every item is under one pound… now I can’t think of any items under £1.70,’ one woman replied.
But not everyone was impressed by the nostalgic find with some saying many of the prices are similar to today, especially when adjusted for inflation.
‘Those prices seem steep for 1991, I remember prices like that in the 00s,’ one user said.
‘Crazy how some things have barely changed in price, while other things are wildly inflated these days,’ a second chimed in.
‘To be fair, I’m quite surprised at how little some of these prices have risen in the past 34 years,’ a third wrote.
‘Two litres of orange juice – £1.99, chicken – £4.92, spaghetti – 27p, bread – 69p, toothpaste – £1.17, bin bags – £2.19, shampoo – £1.75. You can pay less for all of these products today in tesco if you go for the cheapest options.’
Though another responded saying: ‘Suspect shrinkflation will play a large part in this,’ referring to the phenomenon of companies reducing a product’s size while maintaining the same or a slightly higher price to reduce their manufacturing costs.
Earlier this year, sweet-toothed Brits called out Cadbury for ‘shrinkflation’ after noticing multipacks of Twirl now only contain three bars instead of four – while the price has remained unchanged.
Shoppers took to X, formerly Twitter, to complain about the ‘outrageous’ change that means they’re paying the same price for a smaller quantity of their favourite chocolate, with one person writing they ‘could not believe it’.
Four-packs of Twirl previously contained four sets of two bars, with each pair weighing 34 grams, for a total of 136 grams.
The new packaging contains three sets of two Twirl fingers, weighing 43 grams, for a total of 129 grams.
Like the earlier multipack, the three-pack also costs £1.75 – meaning customers are paying the same price for seven grams (or five per cent) less chocolate in each serving.
The reduced size has been criticised on X, as well as grocery websites such as Asda and Ocado, with one person tagging the F&B giant in their angry message.
They wrote: ‘Just a curious post really to flag a @CadburyUK issue.
‘They have reduced Twirl multipack sizes from 4x2bars to 3×2 bars but still charging the same.
Not sure about other lines,’ they continued. ‘Prices skyrocket from £1.10 to £1.75 now this, frankly outrageous.’
Another customer declared the change to the Twirl multipacks was an example of ‘shrinkflation gone too far’.
They said: ‘The Twirl bars were already getting incrementally smaller but all of a sudden Cadbury’s have now reduced the multipack from 4 to 3-bars! ‘Could not believe it. Had to find a replacement.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .