Caitriona Redmond: How to make comforting carrot, apple and ginger soup on a budget 

I’ll continue to spread things a little bit thinner and trying to make my shopping stretch to last the week

If you use low salt stock cubes then this is also a great dish for weaning.

I'm feeling like my household budget has been spread a bit thin nowadays. Last week I bought a packet of biscuits that used to contain 10 biscuits and now they contain 8. I also bought some capsules for the coffee machine, a packet used to contain 16 capsules but this time there were only 12. Both items cost the same price as previously, just contained less. This method of increasing food prices is often called shrinkflation.

Speaking of spreading things thin. The cost of butter has increased again in 3 of the main supermarkets, which means the remaining shops will follow shortly. When I started tracking the price of a half-pound of own-brand butter in March it cost €1.49, the current cost (as of writing my column this week) is €1.99 per half a pound of Irish butter.