Its totally out of control

I know the issue of Food prices has been discussed on here several times in the past. But a trip to the Grocery store yesterday to get the ingredients for a batch of a old time favorite family recipe really was a eye opener. I purchased the following:
2 Lbs. Ground beef – The cheapest, lowest quality I could find.
1 Lb. bacon – Once again the cheapest they had
5 Lb. of potatoes
small bag of carrots
2 16oz cans of kidney beans
32oz can of Tomato sauce
1 16oz can of fire roasted Tomatoes
My total bill can to 31.52
This was with the Kidney beans and the Tomato sauce on sale.
I bet when I was a Kid these same items would not have cost my mom 8.00 at the most.
I know there is not much we can do about it, but it is totally crazy the price of food today. Luxury Items is one thing, but basic food is a whole different issue. The question is, How did we get to this point, and what can be done to stop or slow it.

how long ago was it when you were a kid? 30-40 years? lol yes it sucks going to the grocery store now. i guess you could go on a ramen noodle diet and save money . i see eggs at kwik trip are back down to .99 yesterday

I buy a 1/4 beef and 1/2 hog every year from a customer of mine. Yes, paying upfront is steep but I dont think I have paid more than 3.75-$4/lb (hamburger,steaks,roasts) after processing for the beef and the pork is a little cheaper. I will never go back to paying for store bought meat again. I dont even know what hamburger costs in a store nowdays?

Live off the land as much as possible. Our trips to the grocery store are pretty seldom. Once a month or so. We buy a whole hog try for half a beef and 6 deer. Plus all the fish and small game as possible. Obviously lots of stuff still comes from Walmart or Aldi but we really try to limit that kind of stuff. Hogs and beef are not cheap. But they are way cheaper buying from the farmer then from the grocery store. We have a garden that serves us pretty well and a solid system of trading with the neighbors. Politically speaking , the inflated prices are doomed. But that’s going to be the same posts that are here everyday with the same exact answers of beating a horse that died 2 years ago

Bearcat89 wrote:

Live off the land as much as possible. Our trips to the grocery store are pretty seldom. Once a month or so. We buy a whole hog try for half a beef and 6 deer. Plus all the fish and small game as possible. Obviously lots of stuff still comes from Walmart or Aldi but we really try to limit that kind of stuff. Hogs and beef are not cheap. But they are way cheaper buying from the farmer then from the grocery store. We have a garden that serves us pretty well and a solid system of trading with the neighbors. Politically speaking , the inflated prices are doomed. But that’s going to be the same posts that are here everyday with the same exact answers of beating a horse that died 2 years ago

my neighbor has a huge garden and they make alot of different stuff. i trade with him all year long from my venison stock pile for canned goods and fresh vegetables. works mint for both of us

Not a lot the customer can do. Shop around, use coupons, buy bulk meat in beef/pork, shoot a deer in the fall, grow a garden, etc. At least eggs are cheap again like Coletrain stated. Cub and Hy-Vee have fuel saver rewards and the more food you buy the more you save on gas, so there’s that.

Yeah your normal $40 trip to the grocery store is now around $100. Sad really. Maybe they could make a dent in it if they put a large surplus of money sitting around doing nothing into our farms and distribution……

Not sure what can be done. I thing prices are the only thing that defies “what goes up must come down”, at least it seems that way. My in laws bought us a freezer years back and that was the beginning of bulk buying meats, frozen veg, and adding a couple of whitetail bucks each season. Since I cashed out of our hunting land in 2021, I became even more of a budget shopper for meat. Just bought our first 1/2 beef last week. I rarely bought cuts of meat or ground beef/pork and only when it was on sale or a special occasion. Got chuck, pork shoulder or loin on sale and ground or cut it up myself. When we want chicken I buy a whole chicken. I started gardening and canning in 2021 and just ran out of tomatoes about 6wks ago. Hot peppers aren’t expensive but I haven’t bought any in two years. I could easily spend $200 in my small town grocery store for half a cart full of food. Now I just go there for beer, eggs or something else I’m missing for a meal like buns or tortillas. I make a 45min trek to stock up at Costco every 3-4 months ($250 – $375) and do the 20min drive to Pick n Save about every 4-5wks for the rest. At Pick n Save I can get a cartload for under $200 using coupons and the savers card. My sister bought Italian beef and hot sausage for at least 50 people for a graduation party in IL on Sat. She didn’t have to ask me twice to take some home. That’s all we’ve been eating since we got home Sun night. Eating good and making nice meals is fun for me but that’s what I do to save where I can.

i stock shelves at the local grocery store 2 days a week in the morning. mondays and thursdays/

mondays…….they change out the end caps. take down the last weeks sales tickets and put the new weeks sales tickets up and new side cap stuff.

thursdays they go around and change price tags. the gal that does that says for every product that may drop a tad in price, there;s a 100 that go up and some by a buck or more!!!!!i stock the coffee, juice, crackers tea and cookie isle……its stupid crazy what they get for a box of cheezit crackers….or a package of oreo cookies!!!!!

Beer-flation isn’t bad unless you buy at a bar or restaurant. Then its bad….

fishthumper wrote:

How did we get to this point, and what can be done to stop or slow it.

We got here by both teams printing an unprecedented amount of money, and nothing you can do to stop or slow it except wait for the new normal to settle in. Until then shop at Aldi, it would be about half that price.

i get frustrated every time i shop for food. i started shopping at aldi about 6 months ago and that helped a lot. Food prices there are a lot lower for most items. Aldi isnt a good place for meat though – mainly just fruits, vegetables and some pantry items.

I have an AMEX card that gets me 6% back on groceries, 6% off streaming services, 3% back on gas, 1% on everything else. That helps. I also buy a quarter cow in the fall every year and i always shop in bulk if i can. last month there was a manager special at cub where large 1 lb bags of large shrimp were on sale for 3.99. I bought 14 bags and stuck em in my freezer. i do that on damn near everything i find on sale.

I have a family of 5 (3 boys) and most nights i can feed all of us dinner for $8 or less and many times its $5 or less. Its not that cheap all the time but its not uncommon

I thought this was mainly due to shortages. Granted we only see higher prices but eventually it will be less on the shelf like covid days.

The chub of hamburger at Sams used to cost $19. Now its $30 in just a matter of a year or so. There is a lot of fat in that price and I am sure the farmers are not reaping the rewards of these prices. They just jack up the prices and as long as we pay it they keep them there. There are plenty of places that offer good prices on meat still, but you have to watch sales.

It’s all relative.
Beside a spike hear and there,
Percentage wise we’re probably paying the same as our parents did.

Guy in front of me the other day had a Snickers, a Monster, and a pack of Marlboro reds and it was just under $19. Made my stuff seem cheap.

The Marbs were probably $10 out of that.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

It’s all relative.
Beside a spike hear and there,
Percentage wise we’re probably paying the same as our parents did.

i would be willing to bet that the % increase in Food has far outpaced the average wage rate from your parents day . My guess is it will be almost 2X more.

fishthumper wrote:

i would be willing to bet that the % increase in Food has far outpaced the average wage rate from your parents day . My guess is it will be almost 2X more.

It mirrors the mandated increase in minimum wages. Force minimum wage up 20-30%, everything else in the economy will also increase at the same rate.

-J.

3lbs of meat, 5lbs of potatoes, one could assume you are making some sort of chili, etc. That would be easily at least 3 dinners for a single person, maybe 2 for a family.

This doesn’t scream absurd to me.

I think there’s alot out there to be worked up about out there. I just don’t think this is it.

I think he said only 2 lbs of meat.

Who the heck puts potatoes in Chili!

Grocery prices are up, no doubt but so is everything else.
Some stores much worse than others so like others already said, be smart where you shop and take advantage of the sales.

I ordered some food plot seed and the total was around $160 and shipping would have been another $100. What!
I drove an hour and picked it up myself.

It gets tiring biatching about things.

Now i biatch about other people biatching.

Not sure what I’ll do when this gets tiring too.

Coletrain27 wrote:

how long ago was it when you were a kid? 30-40 years? lol yes it sucks going to the grocery store now. i guess you could go on a ramen noodle diet and save money . i see eggs at kwik trip are back down to .99 yesterday

Yep. Like 40+ years ago. Still bet food prices have increased far more than average wages has in that time.

Deuces wrote:

It gets tiring biatching about things.

Now i biatch about other people biatching.

Not sure what I’ll do when this gets tiring too.

Biatch at yourself about you biatching about other people biatching of course.

However I agree.

I actually have started going to Aldi’s a lot more. It is about 30-40% cheaper than normal grocery stores and the non-name brand stuff is just as good. Produce is a little lack luster but everything else is solid.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I actually have started going to Aldi’s a lot more. It is about 30-40% cheaper than normal grocery stores and the non-name brand stuff is just as good. Produce is a little lack luster but everything else is solid.

Be careful of the packaged meats. We’ve found quite a few packages of meat, ribs seem to be the worst, that are not sealed properly. I picked up a slab of ribs and blood ran out of the package that smelled like it was about fly food.

fishthumper wrote:

My total bill can to 31.52
This was with the Kidney beans and the Tomato sauce on sale.
I bet when I was a Kid these same items would not have cost my mom 8.00 at the most.

Food prices today are a better bargain than they were in 1965 when compared to the wages for each time period.

As of Jun 19, 2023, the average hourly pay for a Factory Worker in the United States is $15.77 an hour. Historical wage data from Ford, for instance, shows that the base wage for a “major assembler” was $2.91 an hour in 1965.

So, wages increased by 542% (2.91 to 15.77) conversely your food bill @$8.00 in 1995 compared to $31.50 is a food increase of 529% .

Has anybody checked what food prices are in other countries?

Huntindave wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>fishthumper wrote:</div>
My total bill can to 31.52
This was with the Kidney beans and the Tomato sauce on sale.
I bet when I was a Kid these same items would not have cost my mom 8.00 at the most.

Food prices today are a better bargain than they were in 1965 when compared to the wages for each time period.

As of Jun 19, 2023, the average hourly pay for a Factory Worker in the United States is $15.77 an hour. Historical wage data from Ford, for instance, shows that the base wage for a “major assembler” was $2.91 an hour in 1965.

So, wages increased by 542% (2.91 to 15.77) conversely your food bill @$8.00 in 1995 compared to $31.50 is a food increase of 529% .

That same wage would have to be 28.10 today just to keep up with inflation.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_7347.png
   

Wait.

People actually buy beef at a grocery store and complain about the prices of that crap?

…that’s like going to church and bi*****g that the service is too long.

Find yourself quality, local farmer and locker. Save money AND get a better product.

This part of the equation isn’t rocket science.