Shopping on a budget is getting harder as we pay more for less – Hayley Matthews

You know your age when you start to moan about the price of items in the shops and how they've shrunk!

Goods in the shops in the past seemed bigger but was that just because Hayley was smaller or is something else going on? (Picture: V Thompson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

I remember as a kid my nana telling me how Cream Eggs used to be much bigger than they were back in the day and, I have to admit, I'm starting to see similar patterns. Maybe because I'm a fully grown adult, things are looking smaller on the eye.

But how do you explain my bin bags getting thinner and smaller? They seem to be vanishing before my eyes.

I could almost see every item in them when pulling out the rubbish the other morning. In fact, they're almost as transparent as my pasty Scottish legs!

The price hasn't gone down though – you'll be surprised to hear – in fact it's gone up. So what's going on?

I see biscuits smaller, packets reducing in size and cereal boxes that once were as big as a 4x4 car now resembling a miniature version of themselves.

And if you think you're getting good value for money in the bargain shops, then there's another sting that I recently discovered after watching a programme on it – their sizes are often much smaller too!

The best way to work out if you really are getting good value is to look at the price per unit/weight in the small print underneath the price. I've started doing this and can spot a bad deal off a mile away now, as well as noticing items do seem to be getting smaller and more expensive.

Bring back the days the council used to drop black bin bags at your door!

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