Anybody else feeling a pinch at the grocery store?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We still shop at Wegmans and our grocery bill hasn’t gone up, but we’ve changed the way we shop. No more picking up the pricey prepared foods, cakes or sandwiches on a whim. I meal plan, make a list and adhere to it strictly. We cook from scratch and try to only buy what we will actually eat that week. I still buy the cuts of meat and the seafood the family requests so we don’t feel deprived, but it’s so much cheaper to cook at home.

Those of us who were already doing this haven’t notice much at all. Maybe my weekly bill is $10 higher.

+1, We have always meal planned and used a list to shop. I rarely buy a non-store brand for canned goods etc. We very rarely eat out - mostly on vacation.

[Anonymous]

Lots more shopping at aldi and checking Safeway sales. The 30 egg flats were $11 this am which is not terrible in the current market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is how we are managing to keep costs down -
1) Band with several families to get one Costco membership. Plan your shopping, buy in bulk and then divvy up all the stuff and costs etc, so that you do not have to pay retail prices for staples.
2) Check out store brands - Costco kirkland brands are basically top brands repackaged.
3) Buy vegetables and fruits from Asian grocery stores.
4) Do not buy pre-processed foods. They are usually marked way up. Instead of a packet of chips, pack a fruit in your kid's lunch boxes.
5) Learn to cook from scratch and teach the same to your kids. Expand your repertoire of recipes and cuisines to explore new ingredients that may be inexpensive compared to your regular fare.
6) Buy whole spices, rice, flours, lentils and beans from the Indian grocery stores in bulk
7) Make healthy, whole plant based, commercially unprocessed foods that costs less than animal based or processed foods.
8) no junk food.

Fresh fruit is a lot more expensive than processed snacks.

And the above is also very time intensive. Giving up my job to grind my own spices would definitely be a hit to the wallet. We already do a ton of scratch cooking but I do have limits. Scratch dinners yes. Scratch snacks for every time the kids want a snack? No. Driving around to Aldi, Lidl, an Indian grocery store, and whatever all else to maximize the savings at each? No. I can't make time fo rthat.

[Anonymous]

Coffee was more expensive this morning at Whole Foods. It's happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We still shop at Wegmans and our grocery bill hasn’t gone up, but we’ve changed the way we shop. No more picking up the pricey prepared foods, cakes or sandwiches on a whim. I meal plan, make a list and adhere to it strictly. We cook from scratch and try to only buy what we will actually eat that week. I still buy the cuts of meat and the seafood the family requests so we don’t feel deprived, but it’s so much cheaper to cook at home.

Those of us who were already doing this haven’t notice much at all. Maybe my weekly bill is $10 higher.

Goodness, ours is $30-$50 higher per week. Admittedly I have a kid who has just entered the teen years, but we've always done a ton from scratch and meal planned and it's still just expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is how we are managing to keep costs down -
1) Band with several families to get one Costco membership. Plan your shopping, buy in bulk and then divvy up all the stuff and costs etc, so that you do not have to pay retail prices for staples.

When you violate the terms of your Costco membership, Costco has to raise prices. This affects me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, been struggling since 2021. Gone are the days of filling my cart, not Walmart, for $275

Same. I am single and truly MC (a nurse) and inflation's impact on utilities, car/home insurance and grocery/pet supplies has been killing me for 3+ years. ie, cost increases outstrip any wage gains I've made in that period.

I think we have short memories. Prices went up during covid and never went down. We were definitely subject to price gouging. There is so much data about record profits during this time (1st Trump and Biden). Kamala pledged to investigate and end price gouging, and I believed she would do a better stab at it than Trump, but then why was she letting it go when she was VP? That was the real question. Are administrations actually powerless over this collusion? Is their only power in DOJ preventing or whatever monopolies? Or some other agency? Chances of that are nil with Trump.

So prices had been going up and now they are going up even more with no plan to fix and no incentive to help MC families. All the shopping tips in the world won't fix the impending poverty thanks to this spiral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is how we are managing to keep costs down -
1) Band with several families to get one Costco membership. Plan your shopping, buy in bulk and then divvy up all the stuff and costs etc, so that you do not have to pay retail prices for staples.

When you violate the terms of your Costco membership, Costco has to raise prices. This affects me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is how we are managing to keep costs down -
1) Band with several families to get one Costco membership. Plan your shopping, buy in bulk and then divvy up all the stuff and costs etc, so that you do not have to pay retail prices for staples.

When you violate the terms of your Costco membership, Costco has to raise prices. This affects me.

They are trolling anyway. Costco now checks your photo as you enter.

[Anonymous]

Goodness, ours is $30-$50 higher per week. Admittedly I have a kid who has just entered the teen years, but we've always done a ton from scratch and meal planned and it's still just expensive.

We have two teenage athletes and our bill has increased about $50-$100 per week - cooking from scratch all meals but also buying prepared snacks (yogurt, MadeGood bars, etc.). Agree with PP that I have a demanding job and lots to do and don't have time to make every snack from scratch. Making a batch of homemade granola bars on Sunday and expecting them to last the week might work when kids are little, but talk to me when you are dealing with a ravenous 16-year-old who just got home from practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is how we are managing to keep costs down -
1) Band with several families to get one Costco membership. Plan your shopping, buy in bulk and then divvy up all the stuff and costs etc, so that you do not have to pay retail prices for staples.

When you violate the terms of your Costco membership, Costco has to raise prices. This affects me.

They are trolling anyway. Costco now checks your photo as you enter.

Yesterday they stopped the guy in front of me because the card didn't match him, and he said it was his grandmother's membership and he always shopped for her and no one had ever stopped him before. The Costco employee didn't seem to be budging, but I don't know if they eventually let him in as we kept moving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Goodness, ours is $30-$50 higher per week. Admittedly I have a kid who has just entered the teen years, but we've always done a ton from scratch and meal planned and it's still just expensive.

We have two teenage athletes and our bill has increased about $50-$100 per week - cooking from scratch all meals but also buying prepared snacks (yogurt, MadeGood bars, etc.). Agree with PP that I have a demanding job and lots to do and don't have time to make every snack from scratch. Making a batch of homemade granola bars on Sunday and expecting them to last the week might work when kids are little, but talk to me when you are dealing with a ravenous 16-year-old who just got home from practice.

+1 Teen athletes eat so much. Plus the food has to be healthy so we're spending a fortune on stuff like low sugar protein bars and muscle milk.