Everything costs too much. I went to the grocery store yesterday I spent $50 to get a packet of bread, a dozen eggs, two yogurts, two yellow onions, a jalapeno, two tomatoes and a bunch of parsley. This covers breakfast for 2 days for my partner and I. In 2022, $150 would fetch the entire week’s groceries for the two of us. We are paying more, while having to change what we eat with cheaper/unhealthier options. Otherwise we would be spending almost $1500/month on just groceries for 2.

I used to eat high quality fish every week, now it’s beans and cheaper cuts of chicken. And we make good money, but our wages have gone down since 2022 when adjusted for inflation.

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pllbnk 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm in Europe. I have been tracking my all expenses to the cent religiously since 2010 in Excel sheets. I also haven't changed my grocery habits much since around 2020, except very recently when I actually started looking at the deals (discounts) and buying more generic stuff. We haven't been eating out much (~5 times per month on average) Obviously, it varies month-by-month but my family's (2 adults, not counting the child) expenses on food have risen by around 100% since 2022.

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Brybry 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I feel like some of that is maybe shopping at the wrong place. Which the article I guess covers by saying people are addressing by changing retailers to save money.

Where I am in the US, you can get a dozen eggs for ~$2 at Walmart. A loaf of bread with 22 slices is like $2 to $6 depending on store brand vs name brand. The canned refried beans I buy are still $1.30 to $1.50 for 4-5 servings.

Some stuff is way too expensive (beef) but other food items seem at normal prices to me.

	▲	darth_avocado 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don’t have Walmart to go to but I do have a Costco. But like I mentioned in a different comment, I can’t do normal groceries there because of the space I have + how much I can consume before it all goes bad. I still shop for a lot of things at Costco, but the point I was trying to make was comparing my same exact situation from 4 years ago to today. The article points to shopping around and buying cheaper brands to make it work. But that’s the point, you didn’t have to do it, but now you do because things are too expensive.
	▲	_DeadFred_ 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		When you have to start shopping down market because you can't afford your normal store that is an indicator that you have less buying power now. Saying 'everything is fine, you just have to shop down market, you can no longer afford your normal store, you need to go to the poorest store now because you are poor now' is just rephrasing what is being said.
	▲	pseudohadamard 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		It also depends on what sort of stuff you're buying. For example here (non-US) the cheapest white bread is USD1.20, but you can bet that's the worst, most unhealthy garbage they can make. Something with high fibre is more like twice that.
	▲	bmitc 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Where I am in the US, you can get a dozen eggs for ~$2 at Walmart. Some people prefer to shop at less conglomerate and evil stores.

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reliabilityguy 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Where are you located? I think even NYCs groceries are not that expensive.

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darth_avocado 13 hours ago | parent [-]

SF Bay Area. I will say that these are not Costco prices or a store where I’d be couponing, but it’s not Whole Foods either. I would love to go to Costco but unfortunately I do not have the space to accommodate the bulk quantities that I’d have to buy and consume.

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adelie 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

hi! i live in SF. at trader joe's, these items would be priced at - $5 (bread loaf) + $5 (eggs) + $3 (yogurt) + $2 (onions) + $2 (tomatoes) + $1 (jalapeno) + $3 (parsley) = $21.

i'm rounding up on eggs and bread since you might be buying a more expensive variety, and guesstimating parsley because i haven't bought it from trader joe's before. everything else is pulled from my last few shopping trips.

if you're spending $50 on this, i would highly recommend finding a new grocery store.

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darth_avocado 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t have a Trader Joe’s around me. Sure I drive 20 mins away to one and then spend another hour going to a different place to shop for all the things Trader Joe’s doesn’t have, then yeah I could get things for cheaper. But that’s the point. You didn't need to do this a few years ago and now you do.

	▲	disgruntledphd2 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, I'm in my 40s and I never understood why people hated inflation so much until 2021/22. I get it now, it's massively disruptive and annoying.

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dieselgate 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems inflated roughly 40% to prove a point but regardless stuff is still too expensive and I don’t eat meat. Don’t know though yesterday was reading some comments here about people literally saying “$50k income a month in SF and you still can’t buy a house,” stuff like that is ridiculously out of touch.

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beAbU 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

$5 a loaf of bread is truly diabolical.

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thegrim33 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>> Chooses to live in one of the highest cost of living, most expensive areas in the entire country

>> Complains that groceries are expensive

	▲	darth_avocado 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Bay Area was the highest cost of living areas in 2022 as well. You seemed to have missed the point.