That's very interesting Andrew. The Jamaican dollar is also devaluing. It seems as though the whole world is experiencing economic hardship of some kind. I have also noticed for years too that the contents with certain packages and containers are getting smaller, but the prices keep on going up. I have always noticed this in Jamaica too.
Food prices definitely are still rising but some of the staples like butter have reduced in price or they are often on offer. The staples like butter are what I buy so I'm pleased with that. The cost of meat does seem to be going up. I used to be able to buy 500g of minced beef for £2.30 and the price now is closer to £3.
I definitely feel like food prices are still on the rise. I am surprised when I go grocery shopping to pick up a few items and still end up spending $50 or more. I have decided to go back to clipping coupons to make grocery shopping more affordable. I am spending about $300 a month sometimes more on food. It is ridiculous!
Where I live they are. I have to be really careful when i'm shopping or my bill will be outrageous. The healthier the food is, the more costly it tends to be. I have to really decide which items are worth the price and which ones are not. I'm not a crazy couponing lady or anything, but sometimes i'll use the really good ones. Just last week I found a 75 cents coupon off something that originally cost 1.98.
Yes, food prices keep increasing due to the lack of food supplies. For instance, broccoli, which was $29.99 a case three weeks ago. Now, a case of broccoli has jumped to about $44, which is insane because it's a big jump. I believe people make the same amount of money, but the prices of things have been going up because of short supplies and high demand. Housing, for example, has been going up in the past three years because more and more people move into the state.
French Fries in fast food even become shorter and shorter yet the price are getting higher so yes prices are still rising. Whats worse though is that you don't have a choice the fact that your income isn't that enough so its a tight budget.
I have noticed this too when I was grocery shopping the last time. With cereal, I buy the generic plastic bags rather than the boxed cereal. The cereal in the plastic bags is cheaper and gives you more per bag than the name brand boxes. The store name or generic cereal tastes just like the more expensive stuff.
I just moved to a different state, so I have been able to see how this affected all sorts of things, from cost of living to pay scales, so I'm happy to report that Texas (I lived here about fifteen years ago) has better prices on food especially. Also, I did manage to find a house in the neighborhood I wanted, it is the exclusive lakes vacation area, so it hard hunting for us. Then, I also have thing sort of THING about grocery stores and supermarkets. I'm just spoiled from having grown up in European type city like Boston where everything is uber boutique. My bf is always like who cares? Its a grocery store! Oh well, I like my grocery store to be the food version of Dillards. Silly I know but it just this whole other level of enjoyment for me when the place is like the Disney land Hilton of shopping experiences, with the awesome deli, the hundreds of imported cheeses, the selection of meat, the flower section, if you are a foodie like me, you probably get this. If I could, I have my own restaurant for the fun of it, and it would be in a french Canadian town where I could go to the farmers market and buy everything super fresh every morning.. .SO my point is that I was totally looking forward to this experience because we moved into a neighborhood where the houses are four million dollar mansions towering a thousand feet in the sky overlooking the Colorado river valley. I guess I thought that the food prices in the supermarket would reflect that, but guess what, they are LOWER than in the indecent neighborhood in rural New Mexico!! Now I don't want to get all conspiracy theory on you here, but I do HAVE a couple theories. On one hand, Texas has cheaper fuel and the price of shipping things to small markets is going to naturally affect the prices I get that. On the other hand, I know that the issuance of SNAP food benefits is easier and more prevalent than ever before, and I have a tiny suspicion in the back of my head, that in areas where almost a larger percentage of families may be getting this assistance, could it be that the prices are higher? Ok, I despise political cynicism, myself, but you do have to wonder. It isn't fair at all. That issue aside, the truth is always going to be that states like Texas are going to blow the food prices away in New England. NYC city was charging seven dollars for brand name cereal and 5 dollars for a gallon of milk, everything there is ridiculous. I can say thought that the high tech job market has paid off for us, we were both working again in a matter of two weeks upon coming here to scope out jobs, and this has been boosted by the lower cost of food.
I have as well, in particular it seems like once previously inexpensive cuts of meat have now gone up in price due to them becoming "trendy". These include pork belly, hangar steaks and chicken drumettes & wing tips. I've also seen the price of canned tomatoes and jarred tomato sauce go up as well. Some brands of jarred sauces are close to $10 in some areas, which is ridiculous. The "San Marzano" brand tomatoes are regularly around $5-$6 per can, which is nuts. Since when do some tomatoes cost almost as much as a steak? I've also seen a lot of frozen food items spike in prices, generally when they label themselves as "organic", "all natural" or some kind of "health food". I used to pick up a bunch of them to bring to work each day for lunch, since it was cheaper than buying all the ingredients to make them myself, but now that's not really the case.
Food prices are definitely on the rise. I do a lot of comparison shopping now and that has forced me to pay attention to prices when I normally wouldn't. Like previous commentors said, I've noticed that companies keep changing their packaging to fool us. Either they are shrinking the size of their package but charging the same price or they are increasing the box, but giving the same or less amount of food, but raising the price. Most boxes and bags today are only half or just shy 3/4 full. Sometimes, I see the stores giving sales; and I'm like "this is so sweet". But then the following week, that same item is listed several cents more than the price it was listed before the sale.
The cost of living has gone up everywhere in the world. Naturally, farmers also feel the pinch of inflation and to level the ground up, they have to increase the prices of whatever they sell. So once they increase the prices it follows that those food to re-sell it will pass that extra costs down to the buyer. The only problem is that these middle men are the ones who hike up the prices significantly to increase their profits.
A small box of Pop Tarts usually has 8 Pop Tarts in it. I noticed that the peanut butter Pop Tarts only have 6. I wonder if that's just the peanut butter ones, or whether they're going to start selling 6 Pop Tarts for the same price as 8 ,for all the flavors. The older I get, the smaller food packages seem to get. It's kind of depressing.
