Ask Lemmy

I still have 50 lb of COVID rice in my pantry.

I've been slipping over to Aldi or Costco for produce. Sure I have to buy more at Costco, but the price is there are still lower per pound than they were at my grocery store before inflation.

I make a lot of stuff from scratch I don't rely on a lot of mixes. The price of bulk flour and the price of bulk rice hasn't gone up nearly as much as Purdue chicken breast.

Not sure if it's just me but my grocery spending hasn't changed in the last year. It's definitely more expensive then say 2 years ago but seems like prices have stabilized.

I cook often so most of what I buy are produce and it's generally cheaper than other stuff.

Fortunately for us we make a lot of money so we don't look at prices.

I shop at grocery outlet and ultimately eat very little.

Haven't noticed any difference. I buy non-processed foods only (meat, vegetables, grains, spices) and everything has been pretty stable for decades.

Carefully.

i shop bulk as much as i can, eat oatmeal for breakfast daily, and after i had my gall bladder removed i got in the habit of eating 2-3oz portions of animal protein no more than 5 times a week. i spend a bunch of time in the kitchen every week but it definitely softens the blow. it also helps that i have a couple of cheap staple meals i can make for less than $5 per serving.

i also shop around for value. i live near 4 different grocery stores so i dont spend a lot of time doing it, but i do make a run to grocery outlet every month in order to get discounts on bigger items but it can be hit or miss.

Step 1) plant potatoes Step 2) cry

I am lucky that my income to expenses is a good ratio so I can buy what I want without undue hardship but I cringe because I used to feed myself for about half the money.

I do buy items in bulk when the bulk unit price is significantly lower if it will keep and I will use it eventually. I will also try to get these items while they are on sale. This is a one time high expenditure that pays off in the long run and unfortunately the people who need to do this most are the ones who can't afford the extra expense at one time of buying bulk. I do this with things like rice, beans (I'm vegetarian so I'm not eating beans because I can't afford anything else, it's a big part of my diet). Also things like flour, salt, pepper, anything that doesn't easily spoil and will get used eventually.

I also allow the store to track the fuck out of me on their app by clipping store coupons. Unfortunately this is a necessary evil because it usually saves me $10 to $15 per week.

With fruits and vegetables, buying what's in season during the growing months saves a lot and buying frozen vegetables instead of fresh has the same or better nutritional profile but can be much cheaper.

Bought instant noodles in bulk. I could have gotten the cheap, tasteless kind, but I prefer the more expensive Asian ones. Still ends up being much less expensive than groceries anyways. I have a good portion of the pantry filled with just different types of instant noodles, all of which were bought in bulk. I do buy groceries, but I avoid the more expensive foods as much as possible. Just stuff like milk, eggs, spinach, fruits, etc.

I don't eat instant noodles every day, but if I don't feel like cooking or if I'm running low on food, I can "supplement" the meal with instant noodles. Having instant noodles as "backup" helps takes a bit of the edge off with regards to grocery spending, although I do admit that I could take more drastic measures to save. Despite living in an area where the cost of living is absurd (one of the highest in the country), I feel somewhat well off in that I can get by with just supplementing my meals with instant noodles every now and then.

Ramon keeping me alive.

Buying cheaper stuff. Doing fine I guess

My prices have come down quite a bit over the past few months. It was a stretch to feed myself on $250 but now I’m ending the month with a few dollars left over

It ain't fun, not even close.

Meat = almost eliminated from my diet except for frozen ground chicken that's 10 dollars.

Potato chips = replaced by crackers, much cheaper.

Vegetables = all frozen now

Where I live, the grocery prices aren't up anywhere near the double or triple that other people have mentioned. The basics / necessities have generally seen more modest price increases over the past few years. There have been obvious exceptions like when there's been shortages of specific things or like if I were to compare out of season produce prices to the prices of stuff when its in season, but in those cases I just go without (which also kind of proves they weren't necessities to begin with).

For the most part, any luxury items or luxury brands that have dramatically increased their prices and engaged in shrinkflation, I stop buying that stuff or cut way back. Even if I can afford that stuff, I'm not going to pay the prices. And if I weren't really able to afford to feed myself, I would definitely not be buying anything like that. No organic apples for me. No potato chips. No microwave meals. No soda.

In my adult life, I've twice experienced food insecurity. I can't speak to anybody's situation in specific, but for me what worked was willingness to be flexible and getting creative. I would grow as much of my own food as I could, even in a small shared living space I could grow some lettuce or spring onions in a window. I was also pretty knowledgeable about edible plants, including local/wild stuff, so that helped to supplement my diet as well.

For the past month I'm paying around 30% more than I was in July 2022, and 10% more than I was in April 2022. (I just picked two random months from where I wasn't yet either too lazy or busy to track everything I bought on the computer. Really need to catch up on that tbh because I haven't updated the file for more than a year.)

The amount of stupid bullshit such as energy drinks I buy varies so to get any actually usable stats I'd have to average it over a longer time frame but it seems fine to me.

Why, how bad is it elsewhere?

Bulk buys

My spreadsheet shows my grocery costs are about 12% higher than last year. A difference of around $10/wk.