Grocery Prices And Shortages

This room is so we can share current grocery prices and compare our prices wherever we live. 

Hello, Grandma Donna, this is my first post on your forum, and thank you for creating a place for us to share. I live near the Gulf coast in South Mississippi, and as in most places, the price of food and other items is rising. I have been buying eggs from my niece in the country for $3.00 a dozen; however, some of her chickens have died and there are predator problems they are trying to resolve right now, so no eggs from her at this time. Yesterday, I checked the price for a dozen eggs at Walmart, and it was $5.22, and that was for the store brand!  I wanted to add some more dried beans to our pantry, and the price for a one pound bag of Camellia large Lima beans was $3.22, the store brand was $1.98 but they looked moldy. I believe the last time I purchased the Lima beans they were $2.89 a pound, which was bad enough, and was surprised at such an increase. Also, the dried bean section was about a third of what it has always been. 

Grandma Donna wrote, thank you Marsha C for your comment and welcome to the forum. We are nearly neighbors being that Charles and I are in Southern Alabama. 

Yes, prices keep going up and the concern is with grocery it seems that they hardly ever go back down unless they are temporarily on sale. 

When Charles was out, he did some price checking today, January 9th. He went to two grocery stores in our area where we normally shop and wrote down prices for our food/grocery budget. The prices varied among brands the store brand for eggs was $6.89 per dozen, the the others were $7.33, $7.59 per dozen and a carton of only six eggs was $3.59.  At another larger store, W.M. they were out of store brand and the lowest price today for other eggs that Charles could see was $5.18.

Olive oil, Mayonnaise, lemons and Potatoes are increasing a lot.  Lemons are $.99 cents each. Maple syrup is not affordable right now on our budget at whopping price of $18.49 for 32 ounces and $20.89 for another brand. We will need to use what we have sparingly which we do anyway. Coffee $15.49 for 30 ounces. This is somewhere in the middle from low to high for coffee in our store. We wanted to check prices because we are going to another grocery store that is smaller but closer to home. We will be checking mileage and gasoline prices to see how much we spend going to the grocery store. Thank you Marsha for coming in and starting our conversation about food prices. 

Hi, I accidentally posted about the cost of eggs on the budgeting thread, I suppose it affects food budgets, but it was probably the wrong place to post. 

I know it's not technically food, but our cat food has gone up from 39p to 67p a can. When you are buying 24 cans at a time, that makes a huge difference. Also I noticed that coffee has gone up from £1.19 to £1.69 in the space of about a month. That is nowhere near as much in weight as you are saying by the way Donna. But it is still significantly cheaper. I find that things are up about 50% although they are saying that the rate of inflation is 10% (I think food inflation, if you can find the figures, are closer to 30/35%).

What I have noticed is more people are buying the cheapest ranges meaning they are in short supply. And my local supermarket has stopped selling a lot of the budget lines (I guess less profit margin). 

I pay $7 a dozen, up recently from $5.50, to a farmer for eggs, but the chickens aren't laying right now. We buy store eggs when that happens, but I didn't look at the price last time I bought them. The cows are resting too, so I am not getting milk from the farmer either. I use dry milk or canned milk when the cows decide they need a break. I will make a comparison. 

Jan. 13 The eggs at the store were $6.79 a dozen today. I know that's cheaper than when I buy them from the farm. The farm does offer sizes. You can get smaller eggs for $5.50 (when they are available). I like the smaller eggs for when I reduce the size of recipes and need to halve one egg. I use a little one in place of a big one.

Well, I feel better about my maple syrup stash then! I'd ordered some from Walmart. Did an order for something else and seemed to have had it saved in a cart because I wound up with two more! I don't use it a lot, so it will last a long time. I buy honey through Amazon because I use it a lot. I will be looking for a local place to buy this summer.

You're welcome, Grandma Donna. I do understand about the maple syrup, I use only a teaspoon or two on my yogurt, which I don't eat every day now...so I'm making it last as long as possible.      

I tried to reply in another place earlier, so if you get two posts from me on this subject, please excuse the error.

Hi, Laura! I've been reading that there is a pet food shortage here in the US, and I agree that food inflation is much higher than the official figures. 

Hi, Stephanie!  

I was telling my niece today that more people will be looking to buy locally...her son, my great nephew, is raising goats to sell. He is only fourteen and I'm very proud of him for having the foresight to start doing this.

Hi, Marsha C! :)

Your great nephew is very smart (no doubt a hereditary trait). :) Having local products available is a bulwark against commercial shortages. And he's learning how to create an income! No wonder you're proud of him. Anybody would be!

I'm doing the history study on my own, but I do think rising grocery prices affect us all.  To keep grocery spending down and to experience how it might have been right after the crash, we are only buying perishables and essentials and are eating from our pantry and freezer.

I went to the warehouse store to buy eggs (finally back in stock).  I've been checking the website many times a day because these are the least expensive eggs I can find -- at $3 per dozen, and they have been out of stock for a couple of weeks.  The major big box store and the low price no frills supermarket are both at $6 per dozen.  I never thought I'd be so happy to be paying $3 per dozen!  In California the average price per dozen of large eggs is $7.37 as of the beginning of January 2023.

I also bought mixed nuts for my husband, who isn't held to the study I'm doing (which means I have to be even more frugal with my grocery budget so there is room for some of the small luxuries he enjoys). Five dozen eggs and a container of mixed nuts came to $28 and I used rewards cash to bring that to $11 total.  This put us at $42 for the month as we did a small stock up on olive oil, avocado oil, maple syrup, and organic lemon juice with the money from a return plus a $31 more.  But so far this month we have only eaten food we already had in the house.  I imagine it might have been this way for many people at the beginning of the Great Depression, using up what they had as they found themselves in a new place financially.  Our intention is to eat through much of the food we have on hand (other than what we might keep on hand for emergencies and our usual bulk amounts of flour, grains, and sugar), just as people would have at the beginning of the Great Depression, and then shop in an entirely new way for us once we don't have so much excess.  So for right now our food budget is incredibly low because we will only be buying perishables and then absolute basics as they run out.

I don't intend to take up gardening or canning this year.  My husband told me last year that I could have a puppy or a garden but not both, and I chose a puppy and agreed not to bring in a gardening project until the puppy is an adult dog, which won't be this summer.  Instead, for my history study I plan to buy canned items by the case when they are on sale.

One money saving thing we do with groceries is limit our variety of produce each shopping trip.  Buying larger quantities often saves us money on a per pound basis because we buy whatever is cheapest.  So for two weeks we might have broccoli and zucchini, and another two weeks might be cabbage and Brussels sprouts.  Usually the loss leader produce is seasonal.  This is in addition to always having onions, carrots, and celery on hand, plus potatoes in the cooler weather, and some frozen vegetables.  We still eat a lot of produce everyday.  I clean the prep the produce and we eat it over and over again.  We are working our way through a 25# of local Cara Cara oranges that we bought in late December ($18), so I'm not buying any other fruit at present.

Kimberly F Yay, it's you! :) :) I have missed you!! I'm not even supposed to be on the internet today, but a delivery got screwed up and I had to get online for my order number, and here you are! Hooray! :) I think we might have the same glass storage containers because mine have glass tops too. I got mine at Costco. I am glad to see you. :)

And you can add your topic about ways to cut usage of electricity!

Thank you, Stephanie! :)

Hi Stephanie G!  I missed you too!

My glass storage containers with glass lids are all vintage.  I didn't even know Costco sold them -- that's really cool!  I would be tempted to buy some, but I can't, as my 1930s study doesn't allow me to buy anything that isn't a true need.  The ones we have from Costco are glass with plastic lids and that works well for the family members who are rather careless when moving containers around in the refrigerator.

I ended up getting my pickup order today, it included 2.5# cheese, 3# banana, 3# tomatoes, 3# carrots, 5# potatoes, 2# coleslaw (I buy this if I'm not going to a store that sells cabbages), and a bag of 5 large avocados.  I was going to let them restock everything after they didn't get the order ready last night as promised, but my husband wanted to go.  We tracked our energy consumption and it cost us about 20¢ to drive there in our electric car -- we drove surface streets which takes longer but greatly increases our range because of the regenerative braking.  Now I have perishables to last a couple of weeks at least, and won't buy anymore groceries until we go to Costco to get dog food.  My total grocery spending for the month is $86 so far.

Kimberly F $86! That's amazing! I keep borrowing from my next week's money, and I have to stop it. :) Your vintage containers sound so nice! The Costco ones have silicone instead of plastic. Supposedly it's better than plastic, but all glass would be better still. 

Grandma Donna wrote, I would like to clear up a paragraph in my last weeks regular posts.  It was poorly written and my fault, and it was taken in a different way that I intended it to be. 

Here is the exact paragraph that I wrote. 

One thing people did in the past that is not done as much today is that they hunted and fished during the 1930s. They brought home food from going into the fields and woods.  But they did not over hunt or over fish. They did not have large freezers as we have today. Matter of fact if you research the new electric refrigerators during the 1930s (if they had one), you will find there is a tiny little freezer in that refrigerator. In some towns and cities people could rent ice lockers to keep things cool. 

*** The part (if they had one) was intended to mean that if a family had one.  I did not say this the correct way.  But I did not say they did not have freezers and I want to be clear that they did have freezers but the refrigerators were small and the freezers were very small.

I just did not want this to be misleading because it is an important part of our study to give us a mental picture of the time.  It is estimated that 8% of households in the United States had an electric refrigerator during 1930. 

Stephanie G, the way I do my budget I have all of my money available at the beginning of the month.  This is something we made happen by getting to place where we budget each month with the money earned the month before.  But for my history study, I'm just pretending my husband gets paid once a month, on the 1st.  Sometimes I spend more than half of my grocery money in the first week because I go to the warehouse store or order from the co-op, and then I have to stretch what is left to cover the rest of the month.  But I don't think about it as a weekly budget, just a monthly one.

Kimberly F That's a really good idea to think monthly instead of weekly! Thank you! :) I will do that! I did have a lot of expenses at the beginning of the month that I won't for the second half. Also, I'm getting used to a set amount and picked a number out of the air, which might need adjusting.

I am amazed at the prices of eggs reported above!  Like everyone else, we too have experienced the rise in the price of eggs due in part to the avian flu.  They are a little lower here, but not by much.  Aldi is by far the least expensive.  Their basic Grade A large eggs sold for $3.66 when I bought them on Dec. 30th, and I bought them again on Jan 12th for $4.16.  However, another Aldi store in the area had them for $4.99 on Jan 11th!  Prices are not consistent at the Aldi stores except for their advertised sales, so I checked out my regular store before buying.  Meanwhile, the local chain store's eggs are $4.69/dozen, and Walmart's eggs are $4.64/dozen.  Where I see a bigger difference is in the free range or cage free eggs.  There is a much smaller price gap between regular grade A eggs and the free range eggs at Aldi than there is at the other stores.

Debbie (in PA) Here is California all eggs must be cage free, which I've read is one reason eggs prices are so high.  Free range eggs are $9 and up per dozen, and my Aldi doesn't even have organic eggs in stock.  The only thing I can think is that Sam's Club was selling them at $3 per dozen as a loss leader.  I did see today that people can no longer order eggs for pickup or delivery at Sam's -- they are now "buy in club" only, with a disclaimer that the price might not be what you see online, and also they won't tell you if they are in stock anymore, it says "check in club".  Well, we still have 10 dozen, but I can't get my family to slow down on them when we have so many.  They see the eggs and suddenly it's eggs everyday and 3 eggs at a time, and no one listens when I tell them that eggs last well beyond the sell by date.

For a long time my son could get eggs at his Aldi (in another state) cheaper than I could at mine, but when he went back after the break he found that his Aldi is now higher, and his Sam's Club also had higher priced eggs than mine.

"What I have noticed is more people are buying the cheapest ranges meaning they are in short supply. And my local supermarket has stopped selling a lot of the budget lines (I guess less profit margin). "

And, because of that, I've noticed good markdowns on high-end items.  Ground lamb runs around $12/lb here now.  It's not moving well, so they frequently mark it down close to the sell-by date.  I recently bought 4 lbs at $3/lb.

in case some aren’t aware 

eggs can be frozen, 

Need to break with a fork

I’ve frozen them in silicone muffin tray 

However, I’ve not used them for baking, just scrambled 

Might be useful info for someone