The Cost of Groceries Lately
This has been on my mind a lot lately. I go to a grocery store that isn't in the upper end of pricing. But, every time I go lately I'm stunned at what groceries cost. What the hell is going on here - in the grand scheme of things? Is our leadership trying to put our citizens on a diet? Trying to get us to eat bugs and weeds? One of my kids wanted dad to grille some hotdogs tonight. Pack of hot dogs, a little ice cream, buns and (for dad) sour krout. A couple other small items. About $65. I'm doing fine financially but what about Joe Sixpack? How are working, paycheck-to-paycheck families doing it these days? Is the government trying to grow the food stamp program? These prices are getting ridiculous. One obvious note is the price of turkey/chicken dogs vs. beef. Appears to be about a 3X difference.
Any similar observations? Any thoughts?
Any similar observations? Any thoughts?
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This is not super accurate, but I would say between 2008 and 2023 the money is worth about 1/3 of what it was- dollar for dollar.
Not everything goes up price the same amount. There are supply and demand differences, as well as production method and raw materials usages that affect it too.
That said, I am expecting that most things will have increased in price 3x since 2008. Chipotle lunch used to be around $8, and now its twice that. Gas costs at least 3x what it cost then.
I live in vegas and off strip buffets cost about $8 for lunch. Now, there's only one off strip buffet that you can get for $16. The rest are closed or are $25-30. Sit down lunch is more like $20-25 per person.
Its just that in the end, the money has depreciated by about 2/3 due to our thieving government people just printing up more money to pay for the programs they wanted to sell us all on. We let them get away with it, so its really our fault.
The government knows exactly what it is doing, and will probably go all the way with the money printing as a way of having more power without the people seeing whats happening through bigger taxes.
We let them have way too much power over us. We can buy gold, but the government is going to confiscate that like they did in the 1930's to keep people from protecting themselves from the money printing.
This time around they will do the Central Bank Digital Currency and forbid cash, so they can determine what you can do with your "money" easily and quickly.
I feel for the young people who are going to have to live though this. Its not going to be pretty. AS was NOT really a novel- its real life at this point, and in the end revolution will wind up taking place.
Cattle prices are definitely up because everyone was selling beeves during the drought when hay was unaffordable. We were bringing hay in from a 1000 miles away, and the cost of fuel was killing us.
Also, all other feeds are up 70 to 100% from a year ago. What some ranchers are doing is selling individual young calves to families and feeding them out to 600-800 lbs. Then they take them to a butcher, and the individual customer picks it up & winds up paying, for any cut of beef, around $4.50 per lb. That cuts out distribution costs and gets around asinine FDA requirements.
If you have storage for 350 to 400 lbs of beef, or go in with others, its a win win.
Actually it's that Puppet-In-Chief's Marxist handlers who want to commit the "fundamental change" Obamanation of finishing us off. Joe doesn't know what day it is.
And if you don't like all that Schiff along with all the high gas and grocery prices you need to be cancelled for being a racist riddled with every kind of "phobe" there is.
There was a big article about this in the Wall Street Journal. That's why beef prices are so relatively high right now.
Also, as a long term trend, expect to see beef keep getting expensive compared to chicken and pork. Chicken and pork are factory-farmed in a way beef cannot be, so the production of chicken and pork has soared compared to beef in recent decades.
Also, a few years of inflation above five percent will raise all prices notably..
and a vacuum sealer
and we are doing just as you suggest, buying on sale, stocking up when possible
I was trained by my parents to buy the grocery 'sales', to stock up when prices are down.
My freezer is always full of meat and seafood.
The 'sale' prices were affected first, if my experience is any guide.
Pork is the meat that many less-than-rich consume because beef prices were already too high for the budget.
Pork prices on sale are up over 100% in the past year. Sale prices on chicken in bulk are up almost 100%.
Sale prices on fish fillets at the low price end are up more than 200% in 18 months.
Fresh salmon on "sale" is up over 70% from last year.
Bulk bacon is not even available now at the store where I purchased it 18 months ago at $2/lb.
Most recently (6 mo.) it was $3.50/lb.
Tomatoes on sale are up 70% in the past year. The 'normal' no-sale prices is up 100%.
Onions and apples are up about 100% from last summer.
I don't buy prepared foods like hot dogs, sandwich meats, tv dinners, but frozen chicken pot pies
on sale are up about 70-100%.
Fortunately flathead catfish have been biting recently.
We hadn't caught any in past years, but this spring we have
caught several 12 to 15 lb and several about 5 to 6 lb,
plus some 2 to 4 lb channel cats.
and no way this can be don on "EVs", moving food around that is
the cost of groceries will be going up