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Guess how much?

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I am growing weary of the experts who do not buy their own groceries making predictions about this and that. So I decided to do my own calculations.

I have weekly grocery receipts from early March through late June of this year. I have last week’s receipt. Of the 38 items we bought last week, I found previous prices for 20 of them.

Earlier this year those 20 items cost $67.59. Last week they cost $81.23. That’s a 20% increase.

I’ll be honest. The list included a London broil. As Mr. Big Food has a slot limit on the size of the cuts he buys, I’m sure the two were approximately the same. On June 18th he bought one for $9.89. Last week, $18.46. We actually had a discussion about this in front of the meat case. The words, “It ain’t going to get any better any time soon,” were spoken and in the cart it went.

But if you want to do the math without the London Broil, prices have increased 9%.

Interestingly, brown eggs have gone from $3.05 to $1.59 per dozen. Celery, Jell-O, and avocados have stayed the same, as have plain Lays potato chips. We don’t buy much soda or pre-processed food (though I do love some original Kraft mac & cheese) so I cannot speak to whether or not “junk” food is going up in price. But that would be an interesting question to ask. Are grocery prices for those who do their own home cooking going up at a faster rate than for those who buy prepared (frozen, boxed) meals?

I have a chicken cooling in the pot and chicken and biscuits to get ready for supper tonight.

6 Responses

  1. I’m going to start saving grocery receipts and see what happens the next 6 months. Dairy products, bread and pasta are our consistent purchases.

    1. Produce, dairy, meat. We’ve got a pretty good pantry stored up with stuff but I hate to start dipping into it too soon.

  2. From the USA desert southwest.

    I haven’t saved receipts, but have looked at the weekly grocery spending over the past few months and the spending has gone up about 15% per week. This is, of course, making the possibly rash assumption that the stuff we are buying is “mostly the same” each week.

    As for gasoline. That’s easy. The price per gallon has gone up 45 cents in two weeks.

    Over the past (almost) 33 years of our marriage, my wife and I have figured out our eating preferences, so the pantry is well stocked with long lasting stuff that we normally eat, so the food in there isn’t “decades” old.

      1. I wish this was the case for our freezer.

        Despite monthly checks and clean outs, we still find dinosaur meat in the freezer.

        Most certainly, it’s proof of time travel and teleportation. 🙂

      2. Ha. John keeps spread sheets of the meat in his freezer and on occasion he’s surprised to discover something, or more likely something missing. You do the best you can.

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