Hyperinflation has started at your local grocer. Plus security police are being stationed

reply to post by LeBombDiggity


oh...that stuff went beyond our price range a long time ago....
(halfway joking here...halfway not!)

I don't know if it's because we moved from NY to Va or what...but well, we've been here about 5 years now, and things seem to have gone up more than 50% on average, and still climbing...we see the increase every week when we go into the store.

corn that used to be bought a dollar a dozen now is something like 3/$1, triscuits have doubled in price....the smaller packaging, I really haven't noticed, but well, it would explain why some of the stuff I am making that used to feed five of us now won't feed four of us.

I wouldn't mind as much if my paycheck would keep up with it...but that hasn't happened, matter of fact, lack of work has kind of shrunk the check down considerably for most of this year so far.

and, it's not just the devaluing of the dollar, since I was noticing the 50% increase before the crisis hit!

I'm seeing sugar shortages.

I buy my flour in 25 pound bags, but I can no longer find that ANYWHERE but Sams and my card expired and I'm not paying for another one.

The deals are out there but it is a LOT of work to find them. Kroger had organic beans last week for .89- and they weren't in the BPA cans.

I like to buy beef clods and cut my own roasts and flatiron and grind my own hamburger, but no one is carrying them anymore.

Likewise, I buy boston butts and make my own sausage b/c the price of sausage is CRAZY- but, it's very affordable to make your own and it isn't that hard to do.

Chickens- my strategy is to deal with the bones. There's an excellent youtube video on how to cut up a chicken with apair of scissors. SO what I do is buy SEVERAL when they are on sale, and I cut my own.

Watch your chicken and turkey - they are plumping meat. If you buy 1.99 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and you think you are getting a deal - best consider you are paying 1.99 a POUND for salt water and water with GOD KNOWS what in it.

SO I buy my birds whole and I deal with it, and it is dirt cheap because hardly anyone wants to do that or know how to anymore.

Use a food dehydrator. If I use 1/2 an onion, I dry the other half. Makes the best onion powder you ever had....

A lot of spices in stores are 5.00 or more for a little bitty container. I grow as much as I can and buy the others online. Spice mixtures are crazy high - learn to make your own or you are gonna pay.

They have these packs now everywhere, with all the spices in the pack for you, single use, about 1.50. That's crazy.

People are working their tails off, and they have no time! They are paying out the nose for convenience.

My husband works and I stay home and work here. They aren't selling me their stupid convenience foods and my family isn't going to be eating them.

and the security guards are usually on the phone or talking to the employees or customers. Some of them are nice and say 'thank you/goodbye' to the customers. The store has a right to protect its property, plus if someone tried to rob the store, the security guard would most likely, according to protocol, be required to contact the police department before they try to be a hero. It's not like one security guard could do much in a gigantic store. They are there mostly to deal with drunks and the occasional (teenage) shop lifter.

As for price inflation, shop at Aldis, I don't have a problem with their prices, I find them to be cheaper than walmart.

[edit on 25-8-2010 by filosophia]

Last week I noticed they made a smaller can of Graves apple juice, from 1.8 liter to 1.1 liter and called it a new flavor with "speical buy " on the shelf tag.
It appears they want to break us in on the size change, while the price was lower for the new size I suspect it will go up to the old larger sized price or maybe a tad under, thats like a 40 percent size drop . They still have the largers cans atm, for how much longer I guess we will see.

Something tells me they wouldnt have gone through all that trouble to change can sizes if they didnt plan to keep it.



[edit on 25-8-2010 by Reevster]

Hyperinflation=no
Greed=yes

Companies are expected to keep increasing profits above and beyond previous years. They discovered that they could getaway with reducing package size due to American's apathy and the lack of real competition. Only a few huge corporations control most of the food supply. All those different brands are really part of a few companies.

Add to that the tendency of people to have brand loyalty and a refusal to use store brands due to their perceived lower quality.

It's no different than all the soda companies using the cheaper terrible tasting corn syrup instead of real sugar. There is no doubt among us that have lived long enough to know the difference that it's an inferior product, yet most people never complained and kept buying it. Of course caffeine addiction comes into play here.

Unless one of these large near monopolies start increasing their products size, the other companies have little incentive to increase theirs. It matter not what the state of the economy is, their job is to maximize their profits off consumers. They wold sell you spoiled repackaged dog food if they could get away with it.

If you really want to see if groceries prices are increasing, keep an eye on the produce section where shrinkage would be hard to accomplish.

On the security guards, most large stores have always had such people. Though in the past they were plained clothed and hard to differentiate from other shoppers. Now that stores are contracting out instead of hiring such individuals, you will see more traditionally uniformed clothed security guards.





[edit on 25-8-2010 by Kaploink]

If you smoke, YOU CAN grow your own tobacco.

I don't smoke, but my husband does. He's not going to stop EITHER. In fact, he's the kind of person that the more the squeeze him to do something he doesn't want to do, the less he wants to do it.

Everyone goes on and on and on about how hard it is to grow. It is NOT hard to grow and it is a pretty plant. It is NOT hard to cure either, if you live in the South. I mean, it's native to a lot of areas in the US.

You get a cigarette machine for about 35.00 bucks, you buy boxes of cig tubes, not papers but tubes, and you have cigarettes that LOOK just like what you are smoking now, taste good, and the satisfaction of knowing you provided for yourself, and YOUR FAMILY doesn't have to suffer the cost of the taxes.

It makes me SO MAD they put crazy taxes on tobacco like that. Like it only hurts the smoker...and that money DOESN'T go to medical costs like they say. It's a scam.

Originally posted by LeBombDiggity
It's a revelation to this European to discover what you guys consider food. Because you're all talking about manufactured items ... bottles of Coca Cola, tinned this, packaged that.

What about fresh food ? You know, the cheap & good stuff which hasn't found its way through a chemical factory. What's happening with the price of fresh fruit & vegetables, fresh meat, poultry & fish ?

Prices are soaring on everything fresh or canned... I am stocking up with all I can can myself... plus store bought veggies fruits.... If stores run out at least we are prepared... but I agree.. Fresh is best!

reply to post by p51mustang

i've had no luck stockpiling beer.

Now that was a funny statement...


I've watched food prices increase over the past 25 years.
As a child, I remember it only took about $125-$200 (depending on family size), to fill a couple of buggies of food.

Now, that price has at least doubled.
I see full carts now that cost some people over $350-$400.

It's not like you can avoid it either because most people don't grow or make their own food.
They are dependent on the grocery store.

The grocery stores know this.

They are fully aware of what people can't provide for themselves and inflate the prices accordingly.

When the prices of food rise "because of oil prices", then the packages get smaller...
...and you watch the price of gas come back down, but no decrease in price/increase in size...
You know something is brewing.


All I can say is make sure to think of your family, and pay attention to your surroundings.
DO NOT let petty things bother you.
There are bigger things happening right now.

The writing is on the wall, in neon lights, with spotlights adjacent to a billboard.

And it says, "OBEY".

Oh yes we have noticed the difference in packaging and prices. Just this past summer I devised a new system for shopping. My first stop is at the local General Dollar store - lots of canned and dried foods (many with brand names) at discount prices. For instance a small can of asparagus at the dollar store is $1.35 a can - exact same product at Kroger's $4.75 a can. After that I move on to the grocery store - the one I go to has good deals on meat - 5 bundles for $20. I buy only fresh produce that is reasonable in price and not enough that will go bad before we eat it. I am happy with my new system - I don't spend extra for gasoline because the dollar store and grocery are close to each other. But I know things are not the same as they use to be - I can't go crazy with my treats like I use to and oh do I love treats - bakery goods are outrageous!

Now concerning store security - we just happened to find ourselves in a different grocery store in another part a town about a month ago and there were 2 security guards. What is that all about? Any ideas, I would like to know - this is new to me.

Another aspect to inflation in food prices is the proliferation of ready to eat foods over the last 30-40 years. You can buy almost anything imaginable, and you're talking things that would have been made from scratch at one time. You pay not only for the convenience but also for the meats, vegetables or whatever other ingredients go into them. The more that are used in this type of food, the less is available fresh.

So many resources go into preprocessed foods, it's almost incredible. The thing is, it's become the norm over time. Some people can't live without a microwave oven and many don't understand the fundamentals of real cooking.

It doesn't stop there, either. Think of all the food that is used by fast food restaurants and just how many of them there are. When I was growing up, there was one McDonald's within 10 miles of us. No Burger Kings, no Wendy's, no Arby's, no Pizza Hut. I now live in a modestly sized town that has a McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and an Applebee's within a couple miles of us. There are scads more within 5, 10 miles of us. Think of all the food resources that are used by just a few of these places over the course of a day and multiply that by thousands upon thousands.

It's not just inflation, the cost of convenience adds to what we consume every day.

If you can grow and preserve your food... do it. Start today.

Food starts increasing inprice from the time it is planted...diesel and labor to plant it, to tend it, to harvest it, to ship it. Then refridgeration and electricity to store it and process it, and pack it. Then more deisel to ship to the distribution center of a store company, then ship to store, more refridgeration until you purchase it.

So when we see increases in gas and oil, minimum wage, the proposed surcharges and taxes on power and electricity for enviroment/global warming-cap n trade/improve power grid..... food goes up.

Don't forget fertilizer and chemical herbicides and pesticides....and marketing...it goes up.

For instance...any of you notice the cost of fertilizer...a few years ago....5.00 for a 50 lb bag...now 11-14.00. Concentrates for irrigation fertilization have almost tripled.... food costs go up.

Plastics for green houses, plastic water pipes, plastic fixtures...petrol based plastics...gone up.

People desreve a minimum wage increase, right. well, you're now paying more to the harvester and field hand, to the loader at the dock, to the stock boy in the store... food goes up.

Then you throw in bad economic policy, bad monetary policy...inflation....food goes up.

See, all of these imported goods are produced by the lowest cost producer giving the importer...US.... a false sense of stationary inflation...so the 20.00 sneakers at Wallymart 3 years ago are still 20.00 now...but the things we actually still produce here and provide here have gone up considerably... food, cars, healthcare.

Packaging is psychological. You will notice price increases so the stores and manufacturersw slightly reduce the pkg size... 16 oz to 14 oz to 12 oz. Look at pork n beans. Used to be 16oz can ... 3 for a dollar...then 2 for a dollar...then they went to 14 then 12 oz. Now the last special i saw this summer was 2 cans pork n beans for a dollar....10oz cans.

Study the Weimer Republic of germany 1920-24 if you want to see the fruition of our current monetary policy. Prices were rising so fast that women were getting their husband's pay at 9am so they could buy food before the price changed at noon. One man was in a cafe...ordered a cup of coffee... when he ordered the second cup, the price had already gone up. I have pictures of women going to market with their children to buy food...with a wheel burrow of worthless money. Other pics show families digging through the tash piles to scavange enough food for dinner.

This is one reason we are importing food now, like shoes and jeans...it is cheeper to import than grow it here for the market...

So start now...start a garden and learn and read... summer is almost over, so start a fall and winter garden...lettuces, greens, rutagabas and turnips, cabbages, carrots, onions...learn to can and preserve for next year. If you can, buy chickens...easy to keep and the eegs are wonderful.

there are plenty of good threads and info here at ATS on such things....do it while you can.

reply to post by AlreadyGone


Unfortunately, for most people, growing their own food doesn't provide instant gratification.

"Ohhh but if I plant this, it takes xx months to grow!"

What I would say -

Buy your regular groceries. But also spend a few bucks on seedlings and seeds. In no time you will be buying less groceries, eating seasonally, and suddenly, you have a giant rotational, seasonal veggie garden and you didn't even feel the "pain" of "going without".

Months ago I planted herbs. I used to waste money buying dried and the packs of fresh. But now I have a decent patch of perennials and won't need to worry about ever going without or buying again, except to sprinkle a few seeds every year or so.

Join Costco. They continue to provide a source for the consumer who wants to waltz out of a store with a factory sealed duffel bag of laundry detergent, factory sealed gross of toilet paper rolls, and 50lbs of Keilbase sausage shrink wrapped down to the size of a medium briefcase.

All joking aside, while I refuse to darken the doors of Costco (I despise wading through the throng of people and the masses of humanity in those warehouse) our annual gold membership is well worth the membership fee. I can send the wife there and she can fill her Pathfinder tip to tail for half of what the same quantity of goods would cost at the grocery store. Besides, if you live in the sticks or are into planning for the worst case scenario, both economically and practically, 100lb sacks of beans, rice, and flour are a lot more manageable from store to storage than the equivalent 5-20lb bags. At least from my point of view.