Are food prices (especially on staples) ever coming back down at all?

[Anonymous]

Just spent $7 on flour (used to cost $4-5) and $9 on butter (used to cost $6-7). And these were standard brands from Harris Teeter (King Arthur flour, house brand butter) -- nothing fancy.

Is this stuff ever coming back down? Eggs are better than they were for a while but still more expensive than pre-Covid. I was making a special cake for a family birthday so I don't mind too much, but when you combine that with the ingredients I expect to be pricier anyway (chocolate, vanilla, etc.), it's a lot of money for a homemade cake.

I thought the government was working on addressing inflation for food staples, in particular. Did we just give up? Do I need to permanently adjust my thinking on food costs? Our incomes have not gone up 30-40% in the last three years, so continuing to see these prices is kind of exhausting.

[Anonymous]

No. Best you can hope for is that future increases will slow down.

[Anonymous]

Probably not coming down in the near future. When there is not a special occasion to buy for...buy items in cycles when they go on sale, make as much as you have time for yourself, freeze stuff that goes on sale, package snacks from larger bags into single servings, use mnfr. + store coupons. Eat less meat. Drink water first when you are hungry, and cut back. I grew up poor with 8 kids in my family, but am rich now. I still shop like I am a poor person.

[Anonymous]

No. And if deflation occurred that would be an economic disaster that would trigger a forceful response by the Fed.

[Anonymous]

Some. The eggs that I buy are noticeably less than they were. I’ve paid under $5 for butter at both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. I don’t buy it often, but I was pleasantly surprised by the cost of milk at Trader Joe’s. I was unpleasantly startled the last time I bought mayonnaise, but I’m hoping that the price goes down as the price of eggs decreases.

[Anonymous]

There were a bunch of articles quoting CEOs on earnings calls being very direct that they will keep raising prices until demand staves off. It’s an extreme version of the sticky price concept. Prices go up due to a supply side issues, consumers are willing to pay the high price, supply side problem goes away, prices stay up and new profit margin norm is established.

Until there s enough competition willing to do volume with lower prices ver higher prices/ lower volume then consumers are stuck. The mass consolidation of food distributors and processors is really screwing everyone.

[Anonymous]

We cook from scratch and it's always significantly cheaper than store-bought/restaurants on average, even when we buy organic and high quality foodstuffs.

We've always taken advantage of sales. We're Amazon Prime members so we get discounts at Fresh and Whole Foods, and we also buy certain things for cheaper at Trader Joe's and H-Mart.

Since we've always been careful, our food expenses have gone up with inflation, of course. But this is normal. In your lifetime, prices will rise. They won't rise in a linear way. There will be spikes of inflation. As a PP said, it wouldn't be normal for prices to go back down to pre-inflation levels. All this is actually to be expected, OP. People need to factor that in for salary, other incomes and retirement. Your dollars will progressively not buy as much over the decades.

[Anonymous]

When something spikes in price, I shop around and have found some surprises. I just switched to local organic flour, which is substantially cheaper than King Arthur. (Local organic eggs continue to be 3-4 times to cost or standard grocery store)

[Anonymous]

Those prices sound higher than what I find. Shop around. From what I have noticed, prices have already come down noticeably. I bought butter for 2.79, eggs for 4.49, KA for 5.50 last week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just spent $7 on flour (used to cost $4-5) and $9 on butter (used to cost $6-7). And these were standard brands from Harris Teeter (King Arthur flour, house brand butter) -- nothing fancy.

Is this stuff ever coming back down? Eggs are better than they were for a while but still more expensive than pre-Covid. I was making a special cake for a family birthday so I don't mind too much, but when you combine that with the ingredients I expect to be pricier anyway (chocolate, vanilla, etc.), it's a lot of money for a homemade cake.

I thought the government was working on addressing inflation for food staples, in particular. Did we just give up? Do I need to permanently adjust my thinking on food costs? Our incomes have not gone up 30-40% in the last three years, so continuing to see these prices is kind of exhausting.

Harris Teeter is expensive. King Arthur is fancy flour and yes your prices are expensive. I shop at Trader Joes, Whole foods and giant food to keep costs down. there are other grocery stores that are cheaper, you need to shop around.

[Anonymous]

I find it's best to stick to discounted items at Harris Teeter and buy during their sales cycles. Once it goes of discount, I just don't buy it there any longer. If you use their app, sometimes they will offer $10 offer grocery pickup curbside.

I find it's best to shop the discounts and stock up on dry goods for later. I have noticed some prices stabilizing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just spent $7 on flour (used to cost $4-5) and $9 on butter (used to cost $6-7). And these were standard brands from Harris Teeter (King Arthur flour, house brand butter) -- nothing fancy.

Is this stuff ever coming back down? Eggs are better than they were for a while but still more expensive than pre-Covid. I was making a special cake for a family birthday so I don't mind too much, but when you combine that with the ingredients I expect to be pricier anyway (chocolate, vanilla, etc.), it's a lot of money for a homemade cake.

I thought the government was working on addressing inflation for food staples, in particular. Did we just give up? Do I need to permanently adjust my thinking on food costs? Our incomes have not gone up 30-40% in the last three years, so continuing to see these prices is kind of exhausting.

Lol!! Sure, the government is totally working on that, they always fix everything, right? Omg lol.

I quit buying stuff that the price got too high on. I try to buy stuff on sale or on clearance. I don’t find Giant to be a good place to save money, but sometimes I’ll go in there and stock up on something like canned soup when the price is really good. I find Trader Joe’s does have pretty good prices on some things and so does Costco and sometimes Walmart.

I also try to do meal planning to make sure I use up what I have and send leftovers (if we have them) for school lunches.

I wouldn’t buy stuff to bake a cake because it’s too expensive and wasteful since we have a small family. We just get a few cupcakes from a bakery.

[Anonymous]

*Prices are never coming back down. For anything.*
If limited items do decrease, they are loss leaders for the business advertising them. It means they are ok with the price being too low because they’ll make up the difference on other stuff you buy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There were a bunch of articles quoting CEOs on earnings calls being very direct that they will keep raising prices until demand staves off. It’s an extreme version of the sticky price concept. Prices go up due to a supply side issues, consumers are willing to pay the high price, supply side problem goes away, prices stay up and new profit margin norm is established.

Until there s enough competition willing to do volume with lower prices ver higher prices/ lower volume then consumers are stuck. The mass consolidation of food distributors and processors is really screwing everyone.

YES this. Unfortunately, this.

[Anonymous]

No.
Climate change.
war.
Pandemics
Pollution
End of Earth
Greed