The grocery store.....Inflation is here!

Just sayin

(second line)

Hi everybody...

42%of the corn crop went to ethanol which is about 2% of the fuel supply...think about that. 42% of what we used to eat went to 2% of the fuel supply. Look at the impact. Corn is used for or used in almost everything...I have a small farm and the cost of corn 18 months ago was 6.00 a 50lb bag...it recently was almost 12.00 a bag.

This in turn drives up feed costs and the costs of animal/meat production. that is why chicken, pork, and beef have all sky rocketed.

Wheat demands overseas have gone up as the chinese, Indian, and Russian markets grow and mix that with droughts around the world and you now know why macarroni is no longer 2 16oz boxes for a dollar, but on sale 2 boxes for 2 dollars.

In fact, anything with corn or wheat...which is all of your snack foods, convenience foods, pastas, meats, frozen foods, etc have jumped.

Now, throw in a dollar that is in free fall from over printing with nothing to back it up, and a race for commodities to offset a weak dollar... corn, wheat, oil, steel, etc...

And you have major inflation. I don't see how the US govt. can measure inflation and not include food prices...amazing.

I suggest all of us switch to eadible landscapes...flower beds are now small gardens, herb gardens, potato patches, etc. Also you can raise a few chickens in small pens or "chicken tractors" with no rooster...you get plenty of eggs and no complaints... no 430am wakeup calls.

Also, cook... cut the convenience foods, frozen foods, insta-foods. learn to cook. Talk to grand ma or an older aunt or uncle... learn how they did it.

Learn how to get multiple meals out of one chicken...broth, boney pieces for soup, white meat pieces as a course, and dark pieces for chicken salad...

Learn to preserve and can and freeze left overs, surplus from the garden,...use a lot of fillers...beans, potatoes, rice, flour gravy.... ever hear an old timer say..."We were poor. One night we would have beans and taters... the next night we would have taters and beans."

I remember as a child going to my grand parent's farm...For Sunday dinner we had a table full of food, but there were only about 5 items on the table:

Butterbeans and corn mixed together, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, steamed cabbage, slaw... made from cabbage. sliced tomatoes. soup made with tomatoes, corn, butterbeans, cabbage,potatoes, and chicken broth, fried chicken or BBQ chicken or chicken and dumplings...made from chicken broth and flour, bisquits or corn bread... see how that works?

Plus, look at where you live and what people grow and used to grow, can you have a garden all year? And when you see a special on staples...coffee, sugar, flour, corn meal, dried beans...load up. Sometimes that is all we buy. My wife used to luagh at us coming home with sacks of beans and flour and sugar...said we were like the waltons...she isn't laughing anymore.

Originally posted by AlreadyGone
Hi everybody...

42%of the corn crop went to ethanol which is about 2% of the fuel supply...think about that. 42% of what we used to eat went to 2% of the fuel supply. Look at the impact. Corn is used for or used in almost everything...I have a small farm and the cost of corn 18 months ago was 6.00 a 50lb bag...it recently was almost 12.00 a bag.

This in turn drives up feed costs and the costs of animal/meat production. that is why chicken, pork, and beef have all sky rocketed.

Wheat demands overseas have gone up as the chinese, Indian, and Russian markets grow and mix that with droughts around the world and you now know why macarroni is no longer 2 16oz boxes for a dollar, but on sale 2 boxes for 2 dollars.

In fact, anything with corn or wheat...which is all of your snack foods, convenience foods, pastas, meats, frozen foods, etc have jumped.

Now, throw in a dollar that is in free fall from over printing with nothing to back it up, and a race for commodities to offset a weak dollar... corn, wheat, oil, steel, etc...

And you have major inflation. I don't see how the US govt. can measure inflation and not include food prices...amazing.

I suggest all of us switch to eadible landscapes...flower beds are now small gardens, herb gardens, potato patches, etc. Also you can raise a few chickens in small pens or "chicken tractors" with no rooster...you get plenty of eggs and no complaints... no 430am wakeup calls.

Also, cook... cut the convenience foods, frozen foods, insta-foods. learn to cook. Talk to grand ma or an older aunt or uncle... learn how they did it.

Learn how to get multiple meals out of one chicken...broth, boney pieces for soup, white meat pieces as a course, and dark pieces for chicken salad...

Learn to preserve and can and freeze left overs, surplus from the garden,...use a lot of fillers...beans, potatoes, rice, flour gravy.... ever hear an old timer say..."We were poor. One night we would have beans and taters... the next night we would have taters and beans."

I remember as a child going to my grand parent's farm...For Sunday dinner we had a table full of food, but there were only about 5 items on the table:

Butterbeans and corn mixed together, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, steamed cabbage, slaw... made from cabbage. sliced tomatoes. soup made with tomatoes, corn, butterbeans, cabbage,potatoes, and chicken broth, fried chicken or BBQ chicken or chicken and dumplings...made from chicken broth and flour, bisquits or corn bread... see how that works?

Plus, look at where you live and what people grow and used to grow, can you have a garden all year? And when you see a special on staples...coffee, sugar, flour, corn meal, dried beans...load up. Sometimes that is all we buy. My wife used to luagh at us coming home with sacks of beans and flour and sugar...said we were like the waltons...she isn't laughing anymore.

All great advice.

Growing up in a large Italian family nothing, and I mean nothing was ever wasted. My mother made a lot of what she called peasant meals... like lentil soup for example. It's wicked cheap, real easy to make and totally healthy. My grandfather used to make dandelion salad and you'd be amazed how many wild mushrooms are edible.

My mother also goes to several stores at a time for sale items. Of course, she has the luxury of time to do that, but she saves a bundle.

I can't garden all year in my area but you bet your arse that I garden all summer and stock up.

I agree, prices at grocery stores are outrages! I've learned to stick to the perimeter of the store and not go up and down the isles. Everything you need for a healthy diet is on the perimeter, once you start heading into the isles you start grabbing all the processed crap. Eating healthy does not have to be expensive. You don't have to shop in the organic section of the store to find organic goods and all stores have the "day old" rack where you can get great veggies for soup for next to nothing.

People complain yet every time I'm in the grocery store I see carts full of things people don't need. "I want, I want, I want" People want variety based on their desires and cravings and they've forgotten that we eat to live, not the other way around. Fast food? the worst! Dining out? How about a little portion control!

And there is nothing wrong with real sugar and real butter... as long as it's all in moderation. Artifical sugar gives me migranes, even if it's just a piece of sugarless gum. It's bad stuff.

I also buy all of my house-hold cleaning items at the dollar store, that saves me a ton of money.

Originally posted by brilab45
Another interesting comment I need to make is that.....women replied to this post almost in whole. Why is that? A very interesting dynamic.

Men have to buy food as well.

Haha... when I send my husband to the grocery store he comes home with meat and snacks!

Everyone is correct. Food prices, as well as just about everything else, has gone up.
The main reason is the government's "QE1", "QE2"......, namely quantitative easing.
In simple terms, the Federal Reserve, is printing money like it is going out of style.
Since the number of dollars has increased so drastically, each dollar is worth less. Thus, suppliers will raise prices to make up for those dollars, to keep from loosing money on the exchange of goods for dollars.
It is unfortunate that many people do not understand that, and simply accept what the Fed is doing, without understanding the consequences. Until Congress, the Administration, and the American people agree to stop this creation of dollars out of thin air, prices will continue to spiral out of control. To make matters worse, employers feel squeezed, so they freeze wages, and thus your dollar buys less.
Of course, if employers raised wages to compensate, inflation would just increase faster, and those on fixed income would not be able to keep up.
We don't ever seem to learn from the lessons of history. One only needs to read what happened to Germany in the 1930's, when people eventually needed a wheelbarrow of marks to buy a loaf of bread.
If we fail to reduce the deficit, and rather quickly at that, things will get much worse.
People want their cake and eat it too, and self-sacrifice is lacking in large part today. Add that to the politicians failure to address this problem, and you have what everyone on this thread complains about.
You can shoot me as the messenger of the facts, but it won't stop the problem.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

People want their cake and eat it too, and self-sacrifice is lacking in large part today

I couldn't agree more! It's what I was trying to suggest in my last comment.

reply to post by brilab45

I know what you mean...trust me. With 2 toddlers, wife and myself I feel the dent in the wallet every month.

1) Ger rid of the Dog(s). Maybe keep 1 for safety/deterrance/alarm etc.
2) Check out other stores which are lot cheaper than some of the popular chains including wholesale outlets.
Ensure to use the coupons if possible as it does help a lot (something I never used to believe in but now I do).
3) If you're living in a warmer region, see if you can build a vegetable garden to avoid paying a lot of money
for things like Tomatoes, Herbs, Eggplant etc etc which generally is expensive at the supermarket.
You can consider several alternative vegetables rich in nutrients which can be easily grown in the backyard.
4) You can probably build a chicken house for it to provide you with some fresh eggs instead of the crap they
sell in the market. This should give you adequate protein in addition to some of the beans in your intake.
You really don't have to consume the expensive meats every day. Once a week should be healthy.
5) Cut back a bit on the quantity of food intake. It will be healthy and good. It will not kill you but we do not
require all the calories that we consume most of the time in US unless your profession involves heavy
physical labor.

Just few things that comes to my mind...

reply to post by brilab45


Yeah I got a box of granola cereal, one carton of milk and two packages of cookies...It was 15.00$

I could have gone without the cookies but 10 dollars for two items seems like a lot to me. I'm wondering how companies get away with it. 8 ounce packages are now 6 ounces...16 ounce packages are now becoming 12 ounces...And the corporations are still making tons of money on the product.

I am lucky enough to get farm direct goods at the farm store...But it's a 15 minute drive. The amazing thing is that I can get all organic produce for 2.00$ a pound...Anything at the store is 2.00$ a pound. 10LBS of organic food for 20$ is a deal in my book.

back in the late 90's (as far as my memory will take me) 100$ of food was a cart fully packed. now 100$ is enough for a week

reply to post by PISMO


Geebus...the milk here REGULAR white whole milk is almost 5 bucks a gallon. The orangic milk is like 8 bucks a gallon. I remember a few years ago the local milk store sold the gallon for 1.98. How the hell in a few years the milk has more than doubled is beyond me..

We are a family of four and we spend around 6-800 bucks a month on food. I can remember when we moved to Illinois in 96' we would go to walmart and do the shopping..if the bill was 120 bucks we were as shocked as he!!..now that gets me a few bags of groceries. With same size shopping cart filled to the brim in 96' we would spend 120 bucks now, same cart same stuff..we pay around 400 bucks. It's getting crazy. We have almost stopped eating meat entirely..just cannot afford it anymore. We purchased some fresh bacon the other day from a local guy and got 2lbs for 3.00..we are still alive and the bacon tasted better than the stuff we were getting from Kroger/Walmart. I guess bacon will be some of the only meat we get...for a while.

Why don't you get rid of your pets if you are having a hard time making ends meet? Yeah, it's harsh, but having a pet isn't as necessary as some would believe. You argue that they are for protection or w/e, but still.

Edit: I believe ramen noodles are still 20 cents each. If that goes up then i know something is really wrong.

I wish my food costs were what I 'm reading about on this thread. For six people some say only $600 - $1000.
I'm live in the U.S. Virgin Islands our cost for 4 with a few pets is at least $1600 - $2000 per month. That is just food.

The cost is so high because all of it has to shipped from far off places. We have some local produce but it is also high cost because they can get it. I'm trying to figure out ways to have a farm but the infrastructure would cost a ton especially water storage.

reply to post by JibbyJedi



Whats disgusting is they throw all the spent laying hens into wood chippers and make pellet animal feed out of them to keep the prices of young fryers up.

Part of the problem has been the packaging on dry goods like cereal and snacks.
money.cnn.com...

They downsized the WEIGHT, but not the SIZE of the box for years.

We knew it and saw it, but ignored it.

Now it can't be ignored with the costs of dairy,canned goods and peanut butter going up.

Get ready for pasta prices to go up because of the flooding of wheat fields in North Dakato last spring. They missed half the planting season.

www.nytimes.com...
Thank the ethonal corn tax havens for rising corn prices.
www.card.iastate.edu...

Don't forget the shortage of hay in texas from last summers drought. They had to bring in hay from out of the area to feed livestock. Costs more dough.

Which politition is going to jump on the "lower food costs" if elected campaign first?

double post

reply to post by niceguybob


If you look at the cost of raw materials vs the output prices, prepared food manufacturers have been holding on to around a 5-6% deficit that is beginning to be passed on to the public now. Stock holders in those corps are going to want dividends and they will trade out if nothing comes over and over again. So the boxes are getting smaller and the shelf price is increasing.

reply to post by Shadowalker


So, at what point do we compromise stock dividends for shareholders and feeding our citizens?

Especially when the largest share exchangers keep getting caught robbing BILLIONS from the funds?

This is real trickle down economics. Hedge Funders and our elected officials get a free card to BET for or against our commodities and that's tough crap for us commonors huh?

Free market my ass.

I want my Medical benefits,Retirement benefits,and Pension to be as good as my elected officials.

Is that asking too much?

Then? I can see them at the 99cent store once a week making sure my medical policy isn't cancelled so I can pay the premium.

Let's see..pay my Medical Premium, or eat less? Hmmmm Tough call.

reply to post by MeesterB


Agreed and it's something i never understood. It's also something you always see in those stupid 'reality documentaries': Families with a big load of kids and a bigger loads of animals and than they complain they don't have enough money.

Instead of complaining on a message board, get rid of the animals and your problems are solved. Simple, easy, everybody should understand it.

You guys are stupid with your money. I pay 15$ a month for my Siberian Husky Dog's dog food. There is NO OTHER expenses that I pay for him. Also Ramen is like 1 dollar for 3 days worth of food. Spoiled we are. But I agree the prices are way out of tune but there are ALTERNATIVES. Just sayin.

reply to post by hp1229


Your number 5 solution is something most of us should be doing. I've got a few pounds to lose. I'm sure I would save more if I put down the BAG OF $4.50 POTATO CHIPS.

Speaking of potato chips, why are they so darn expensive? They are one of our cheapest starches/vegetable on the market.