Grocery Prices Are Out Of Control

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree. A few years ago we used to be a $300/week family and could do mostly organic for that, and now we’re at $450 for the same stuff.

Crackers (which I don’t really buy, but noticed) are $6/box. Bread is $8/loaf. Eggs are $12 for a dozen. We pay $8-$9 for half a gallon of organic milk.

You are so full of crap and you know it. Even organic milk is only about $6 for a GALLON, not half gallon and I paid $3.09 for a gallon of whole milk which is up from about $225 a year ago. Eggs aren't $12 a dozen anywhere. I just paid $1.65/dozen for eggs. Where are you paying $8 for bread? I paid 12 Grain Bread Wide Pan (24 oz) $2.85

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just got back from my weekly grocery trip at the Giant in Potomac Yard. A bag of Stacy's pita chips was $11. Conventional Giant brand baby carrots were $3. Radishes were $3 a bunch. A case of garbage domestic lager (Coors, Miller) is THIRTY DOLLARS. I lived on $30 a week in college in the late 90s.

Two years ago, the chips were $6, and the carrots and radishes were routinely $0.99.

What the hell is actually going on? Where is the money going?

I just checked and both target and Amazon have the chips for $8. You need to check prices before you purchased items

No one should be normalizing $8 chips. I think Lidl wins for the best prices. Aldi and Walmart tie for second.

Chips are junk food, not a necessity. When you feed your family garbage and complain about the price it's hard to feel sorry for you. Like a smoker complaining that a pack is over $12.

[Anonymous]

Can you mitigate the rising prices by shopping at Aldi or some other discount store, looking for sales, going off brand, buying in bulk? Yes of course. But the whole point is if you have to do any or all of these to get back to prices you thought were reasonable a couple of years ago, the prices are overall up.

Yes, I can get cheaper bread or meat or orange juice or whatever else if I go to Aldi or buy a no name brand, but just a few years back I didn’t have to do that to spend a reasonable amount on groceries.

And of course, it all ignores the fact that most of DCUM can take the hit in prices or, at worst, do the shopping hacks to bring prices down a bit. But the bulk of the world outside of DCUM already shopped for sales, off brand, discount grocers etc. So they don’t have a lower tier to go down to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. A few years ago we used to be a $300/week family and could do mostly organic for that, and now we’re at $450 for the same stuff.

Crackers (which I don’t really buy, but noticed) are $6/box. Bread is $8/loaf. Eggs are $12 for a dozen. We pay $8-$9 for half a gallon of organic milk.

Where are you seeing these prices????? I pay $4 a loaf for my fancy bread loaf and I bought 30 eggs for 3.99 today (regular price) and I typically buy the 18 pack from target for 2.50ish.

$3.99 for 30 organic eggs?? Where are YOU shopping?

Trader Joe’s sells a dozen of organic eggs for $6, and that’s the cheapest I have found. The prices I quoted are at Whole Foods, where I’ve been shopping for nearly two decades. The prices are fairly typical of major grocery chains where I live (Safeway etc). The prices have skyrocketed.

This is my Aldi receipt today: Gold hen Grade A Large Eggs (12 oz)
3 x $1.65 Final item price:
$4.95

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What the hell is actually going on?

Trump.

A bunch of idiots thought he would do something about egg prices.

And he did. Where were you? Actually he didn't have to do anything. The Biden admin reacted to the bird flu by ordering millions of egg laying chickens to be killed. Neither Canada or Mexico did the same. That raised the price and after Trump was in office, it came down as the supply returned to normal. Presidents always like to take credit for anything good that happens on their watch, and get blamed for the bad stuff but he didn't really have to do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op I know that that Walmart has terrible customer service and I went in today and I asked for a manager because they wouldn't refund me some clothing I bought at another Walmart even though I had the receipt because they said the clothing had to be returned at that Walmart which is further away and I asked for a manager and they said there was no manager. But here your baby carrots for $1.32
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fresh-Baby-Cut-Carrots-1lb-Bag/10451315?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=5753&gclsrc=aw.ds&adid=2222222227710451315_161193766053_21214199653&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=697173827980&wl4=pla-2348450966064&wl5=9008148&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=10451315&veh=sem_LIA&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21214199653&gbraid=0AAAAADmfBIrZeO3ecCnt5I6yztwEHXyKz&gclid=CjwKCAjw5s_QBhAdEiwADD_gBn9qzEil3meBdmbBy-RwBNfU3gBtBMyZrYfB8XVbJk4HV6DUIrZO3BoCFJ0QAvD_BwE

Try to stick to the topic of Groceries, Karen. No one cares about your clothing return.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why your food costs more:
1. Import Tariffs: Tariffs enacted on foreign food products and agricultural goods imported into the U.S.
2. Labor shortages: immigration bans, crackdown on seasonal workers
3. Higher fuel prices (Iran war)
4. Disruptions in supply chains (Iran war/Ukraine war)

You can thank Trump for all of the above.

Tariffs are necessary to control trade. When we can't pay illegally low wages to illegal laborers, it will adjust to the true labor cost. War with Iran is temporary. Ukraine does not have a large impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents drink soda so I try to get a 12 pack every time they visit. I was floored by the cost of Pepsi- $11! They clearly need to drink water.

I remember about 10 years ago soda was regularly $4-$6 per 12 pack.

My cost for this sugar-water garbage is zero. That's a choice you make. It's not, groceries or an essential food product.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why your food costs more:
1. Import Tariffs: Tariffs enacted on foreign food products and agricultural goods imported into the U.S.
2. Labor shortages: immigration bans, crackdown on seasonal workers
3. Higher fuel prices (Iran war)
4. Disruptions in supply chains (Iran war/Ukraine war)

You can thank Trump for all of the above.

Tariffs are necessary to control trade. When we can't pay illegally low wages to illegal laborers, it will adjust to the true labor cost. War with Iran is temporary. Ukraine does not have a large impact.

Do you listen to yourself? How can you say these are temporary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes a lot of things are so ludicrously priced I just no longer buy them. A box of entenmann’s donuts at Harris Teeter was $8. At a certain point you can’t justify spending $8-$10 an item on nutritionally void things like donuts or pita chips.

I did try Aldi for awhile but in all honesty some of the swaps are not worth it. The coffee was terrible and not strong enough, I felt like I was brewing tree bark. The cheese tastes like nothing. I’d buy blocks of cheddar to shred for things like tacos and chili and the cheddar had zero flavor, it was just like rubber. So unfortunately even though it’s less expensive it’s still sometimes not the better option. I will say things like chips and crackers and chocolate are worth getting there though.

I'm a big fan of Aldi but I echo your statements. The coffee, while cheap, is sub standard. They used to have a wide selection of whole beans but not anymore. The cheese is a real mystery. No flavor at all. But, that authentic, dark German chocolate is pretty awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, you can shop at Walmart instead but I think the broader message is that many people who rarely closely did comparison pricing are now having to change their behavior. I never thought of Giant as high-end grocery shopping but prices there are now literally insane, particularly for snack prices. We also have teenagers in the house and things like chips, snack foods, drinks are really crazy with high prices and less volume in each container. We are lucky to be able to absorb the prices but I have many family members who have had to radically change their grocery shopping behavior.

According to the Consumer Reports, "And across the board, food prices rose 25.5 percent between December 2020 and December 2024" which means most of the inflation happened under the prior administration.

Anyway, it's an intriguing but flawed report. I shop at both Whole Foods and Wegmans and for the same basket, same brand, they are the same price, so not sure how one can be significantly higher than the other. Also agree with the pushback from Whole Foods that this survey isn't looking at quality.

Our coffee went from $10 to $21 and my tea bags are up $2 for 12 bags since the tariffs hit. It is recent price hikes not from 2020. This is worst than the 1970s.

Dude (or ma'am) I pay $10.99 a pound for coffee at MOMs. Has it gone up? Yeah, but it's nowhere near $21. It went up from $8.99. And coffee prices are always subject to harvesting conditons.

I just paid Simply Nature Fair Trade Organic Peruvian Whole Bean Coffee (12 oz)
1 x $7.99

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why your food costs more:
1. Import Tariffs: Tariffs enacted on foreign food products and agricultural goods imported into the U.S.
2. Labor shortages: immigration bans, crackdown on seasonal workers
3. Higher fuel prices (Iran war)
4. Disruptions in supply chains (Iran war/Ukraine war)

You can thank Trump for all of the above.

Tariffs are necessary to control trade. When we can't pay illegally low wages to illegal laborers, it will adjust to the true labor cost. War with Iran is temporary. Ukraine does not have a large impact.

Do you listen to yourself? How can you say these are temporary?

Your reading comprehension is terrible. These? Read it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why your food costs more:
1. Import Tariffs: Tariffs enacted on foreign food products and agricultural goods imported into the U.S.
2. Labor shortages: immigration bans, crackdown on seasonal workers
3. Higher fuel prices (Iran war)
4. Disruptions in supply chains (Iran war/Ukraine war)

You can thank Trump for all of the above.

Tariffs are necessary to control trade. When we can't pay illegally low wages to illegal laborers, it will adjust to the true labor cost. War with Iran is temporary. Ukraine does not have a large impact.

Global trade is good. It allows us to use slave labor in foreign countries without the guilt. Children assembling your iPhone in China? That's someone else's problem.

[Anonymous]

I was intrigued by someone's checking their Amazon record for the prices. I have Prime too, and pay by Prime so it keeps a record of everything I buy at Whole Foods going back the last few years. I just spent 20 minutes reviewing it. On the whole, while there has been some individual price increases, there's been plenty of prices not going up. I am paying the same for yoghurt, milk, boneless organic chicken thighs, breaded chicken strips, frozen crispy fries, bread, 365 brand crackers and cookies, as I did two years ago. I bought eggs last week for $5.70 and that's up from $4.99 two years ago. Non organic lemons went up 10 cents each. Butter dropped 25 cents. Peacan halves did go up about 75 cents a pound.

So I can't say I've experienced dramatic inflation in food prices from 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes a lot of things are so ludicrously priced I just no longer buy them. A box of entenmann’s donuts at Harris Teeter was $8. At a certain point you can’t justify spending $8-$10 an item on nutritionally void things like donuts or pita chips.

I did try Aldi for awhile but in all honesty some of the swaps are not worth it. The coffee was terrible and not strong enough, I felt like I was brewing tree bark. The cheese tastes like nothing. I’d buy blocks of cheddar to shred for things like tacos and chili and the cheddar had zero flavor, it was just like rubber. So unfortunately even though it’s less expensive it’s still sometimes not the better option. I will say things like chips and crackers and chocolate are worth getting there though.

I'm a big fan of Aldi but I echo your statements. The coffee, while cheap, is sub standard. They used to have a wide selection of whole beans but not anymore. The cheese is a real mystery. No flavor at all. But, that authentic, dark German chocolate is pretty awesome.

Yeah, Aldi isn't great for everything, but I still get 80% of our groceries there. Coffee is definitely not one of their strengths. I drank the bad Aldi coffee for months until the prices went up and it became worth it to go to another store for better beans at a better price.

The cheese is fine for some purposes, like grating for pizza or mac and cheese. The feta is just sad though. I also get that elsewhere.