Yes! Everyday items are more expensive. Also, my normal mode for many years was to stock up on whatever was on sale. There are very few good sales anymore.

Yes, I'm glad that it's just the two of us now and that I'm not having to feed our two sons as well.

Compared to other first world nations, food prices in the US have been artificially low for many years. Same for middle-class restaurants. This has been in line with artificially low wages for workers. I hope that higher wages will start to erode the shameful percentages of Americans living in poverty.

Not just food - pet food, cleaning supplies, paper goods - everything is more expensive. As a single person buying primarily for myself and pets, I am acutely aware of rising costs. I do stock up on regularly used items when they go on sale and focus on seasonal specials. One local store has clearance items....products they may be discontinuing but still on the shelves with a special red marker. I do take advantage of those if it is something I need (but not my regular brand) or if it looks interesting. And they also have a discount meat area where they sell the stuff that is perfectly fine but at its sell-by date. At 30-50% off, I get some great deals - wagu beef, steaks and roasts, chicken parts, etc. - to use immediately or freeze for later.

My local store has weekly sales or specials on a wide range of products and I always check the ads before I shop. I am a big sale or discount shopper for just about anything! I rarely pay full retail price for most everyday stuff.

Yes - definitely seeing rising prices on a number of staple items like chicken and other meats. Most of the time, it's less than a dollar difference. It seems the total amounts on grocery purchases have gone up, even though I'm not buying more food than usual.

And hopefully we'll be seeing a rise in wages to go along with rising costs...

Yes, food prices, along with the prices everything else, are going up. I also shop sales as much as I can.

But don't get me started on wages. When wages go up, the price of the commodity the 'wage payer' (for lack of a better word, my brain is not fully awake yet) produces also goes up. It's a never ending circle.

Rusty

Meats and seafood are the main jump ups here. Crabs are over $1 each and scallops jumped up to $24/lb. Our local produce is low for right now, like Hanover tomatoes are only .99/lb but that won't last long. The price of bacon is making me aching.

I'm not really that price conscious, and so I cannot remember what I used to pay for things. I do notice that the price for fresh fish goes up and down seasonally, and so I adjust my buying choices accordingly. Fish is somewhat expensive, and so that is the only thing I notice for pricing. The rest of the food we buy is not expensive.

I do notice price differences from one store to the next, but that does not stop me from shopping at the expensive stores in order to get better quality or have a more pleasant shopping experience.

Food is a large part of our budget, however, but we have not yet chosen to try to save money there, although we might in the near future.

It is not only food prices, but housing and rent prices, and transportation (Uber and Lyft) all seem to be up as well.

Wouldn't it be great if rising costs helped people cut calories? That would be a real savings.

I honestly have not noticed. I just buy for me, and I don't eat much. Might be because I usually just buy stuff when it's on sale.

Now used cars - that is crazy! My car that I have had for almost 2 years, is selling for more than I paid for it.

"Compared to other first world nations, food prices in the US have been artificially low for many years. ...... This has been in line with artificially low wages for workers. I hope that higher wages will start to erode the shameful percentages of Americans living in poverty."

This is very, very true. In other industrialized countries, higher prices are the result of reasonable minimum wage levels for skilled jobs and the added costs of various types of taxation. People pay the prices because they want the living conditions and modern societies that the higher prices provide for their fellow citizens.

Something I've always found puzzling, and it's perhaps due to a difference in circumstances and opportunities between me and them, is why and how so many young people enter adult life without goals, without a plan. Working minimum wage, unskilled jobs isn't a successful lifetime job strategy. The unskilled part could be successful for some years back in places where unions controlled factory employment but those days are gone. I understand not everyone has a flair for academics and that shouldn't be the issue, the same distribution of people and their inclinations is present in most other countries. Both educational programs pointed toward occupational qualifications and vocational training for those with such interests and potentials should be more prevalent and available.

In the end, it takes a motivated individual wanting to better themselves to find and successfully complete such programs, and then to take advantage of their training with appropriate jobs. Getting them to the starting point is the job of parents and of our society in general and I think that's where some of the causes of our systemic under- and unemployment problems are to be found.

I am like Lars. I don’t track prices. I do particpate in my supermarket’ s coupons and gas program.

Each week I online. Lately there is a coupon for $6 off when you spend $120. With every $100 I get 10 cents off gas. Points last for 30 days.

I stay within an overall budget each week.

I understand not everyone has a flair for academics and that shouldn't be the issue, the same distribution of people and their inclinations is present in most other countries.

Elmer, I think poverty in other countries equals a much more dire circumstance, one which is to be avoided at all costs. We have made poverty tolerable for some people. In fact we have given some people the idea that it is society's fault whether they are successful or not. Mind you, I am cognizant of the fact that some people start out with more advantages than others, that racism is real and that some people are born broken due to their parents' horrible choices, but these factors alone do not explain the number of people who refuse to do the work to help themselves in a country where people risk their lives to come to and manage to move up the ladder coming from absolutely nothing.

Prices are higher on everything, then the sales bring the prices back down. If I just run out and buy something....I pay the new...higher prices. I'm buying, for instance, 10lb chubs of hamburger, $24, $2.40 a lb. But, if I just buy one pound....$3.99- $6.99. If I buy 5lbs of grated cheese, it's a deal...but one pound is much higher. A dozen eggs last week, on sale for .77 cents. But cage free = $3.99.

I noticed it too but last week was astonished that there was not a single paper product on the shelf of the gigantic superstore I go to. Then this week there was Charmin which I bought but didn't need. so I guess I'm now a hoarder.

I hope that higher wages will start to erode the shameful percentages of Americans living in poverty.

it won't. their higher wages will be eaten up by the higher prices they have to pay for food, clothing, housing, gas, medical care, etc.

What ideas do you have concerning these problems, desertsteph?

The cost of everything has risen where I live, and you don't have to be an economic genius to understand why. There are varied reasons why, but one of the big reasons is the cost of fuel to transport items from the grower/manufacturer to the distributor and then the retailer. When the cost of producing and transporting items goes up, that cost is passed on to the consumer. Add to that the fact that with the pandemic many are still ordering online and that adds more fuel costs for delivery. Transportation is just one use of fossil fuels; add in all of the other things it's needed for, and you can see how much it affects our daily lives and the price we pay for everything.

The people most affected by rising costs is always the individuals who are low income. Raising the minimum wage sharply will only increase costs and make it even harder on those who are elderly and/or disabled.

"Raising the minimum wage sharply will only increase costs and make it even harder on those who are elderly and/or disabled."

Impoverished elderly and disabled, only a small percentage of these groups, are themselves a small percentage of those in our society having trouble getting by. What do you suggest needs to be done?

If you want more cheap everything, open the borders. There are people desperate to take jobs Americans won't do...for minimum wages, from which are deducted taxes that will never benefit them.

I went shopping yesterday and the prices were up at least 20 cents per item, and that was on canned goods. Everything is way too high. What are we to do? I thrifty shop as it is and always have.

Oh my, chisue, I hope that's not an indication about how you feel.

For the many of us who have ancestors that came to the US a while ago, you understand that when the masses came, there were no immigration restrictions (other than passing a cursory medical exam for a few barred conditions). And, most of those pitiful souls spent their lives working hard for peanuts and were unable to escape poverty. But they were here and better off for it. You know all that.

We need to have reasonable immigration rules, we need to protect our borders and be a bit more stringent to minimize exceptions, but don't criticize the desperate souls who, just like so many of our ancestors, want to escape poverty. But for some luck and the passage of years, they are us. If you need a refresher, reread the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, written in the 1880s.

Cat food has increased almost 5% in the past three weeks. I don't care about human food, most of the large groceries around here are 'featuring' Buy One Get One. You stock up whether you want/need something or not. That includes produce, meat, canned goods, etc.

Here in Australia, food prices are higher than in the US at the best of times (smaller local market, big distances between some of the growing areas and the major cities, significantly higher minimum wages, etc). That said, prices have gone up for many food items, in part because Covid has disrupted the supply chains by forcing temporary closures of meat packing plants and supermarket chain distribution centers. The other issue is that, with the borders pretty much closed, farmers are struggling to find fruit and vegetable pickers. The industry traditionally relies heavily on backpackers from North America, Europe and elsewhere to pick crops (it's all legal - the backpackers come here on working holiday visas which allow them to take short term jobs - the hospitality and agricultural sectors are both dependent on them). The government is scrambling to replace the missing packpackers with agricultural workers brought in from the Pacific Islands (again, it's a legal, managed program) but it's been slow to recruit the numbers needed. So, the mangos and bananas are there but there aren't enough people to pick them.

I just came home from Sam"s club. Meats nearly gone, no ground beef and many frozen food bins empty of chicken and beef products. 25 & 50 lb jasmine rice sold out, but 25 lb bags a flour still available at a buck more than two weeks ago.

Soda drinks had a limit of 5 cases but didn't see any limits of other food products, yet. It's coming, and I really believe we'll have food rationing next year.

jmm1837 When you say "Pacific Islanders", which ones specifically do you mean? The Pacific covers a lot of territory, and I think people vary from one island country to another. I believe that New Zealand is a Pacific Island country. Is this a good example of what you mean? I think there are a lot of agricultural workers there.

I noticed when we were in Fiji that there were a lot of workers that had been brought to Fiji from southern India by the British because the Fijian natives refused to work longer than five hour days (which seems reasonable to me), and the Indians would work much longer hours. The native Fijians thought that five hours a day of work was enough to provide them with what they needed for a happy life and that the rest of their time should be spend enjoying themselves. If forced to work longer hours, their quality of life would be diminished, but the British did not seem to care about that.

Anyway, I have limited knowledge of agricultural workers that are Pacific Islanders, other than what I learned in Fiji. I cannot imagine Fijians wanting to work in Australia, unless they were ethnically Indian.

Lars - here in Aus, when we (and the Kiwis)talk about Pacific Islanders we're thinking of Samoans, Tongans, Vanuatuans, Cook Islanders, etc. And yes, Fijians of both ethnicities do come here on the visas. New Zealand is not a source of farm workers: like Australia, it relies on temporary workers from the islands, and in fact has a better-established program, especially for dairy workers, than Australia does.

Here's a recent story about one group: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-24/samoans-sing-farewell-thank-after-covid-19-quarantine/100320664

Farm work is physically demanding and few want to do, especially at the low rates of pay that are offered. Migrant farm workers from poor countries are needed and also ill treated globally.

This article was linked in one of the Aussie pages, showing that the "backpacker" contingent working under the available government programs doesn't necessarily fair better than others. Australia has water borders of separation from poorer countries where the US and European countries have mostly (but not exclusively) land borders but the challenges and the problems from unethical and disreputable farm owners once workers arrive and want to earn money can be similar.

Farm Worker abuse in Australia

Lars.....the story we got, when we were in Fiji: The indians were slaves on Fiji, brought there by the British to work in the sugar cane fields, later freed. The Indians worked hard and ended up owning ALL businesses in Fiji. The Fijans were addicted to Kava, lived off the land, squatted. Fijans that wanted to work, did 6 months in Australia, then came back to their families for 6 months. Indian business owners won't hire Fijans. The Fijans and Indians hate each other. Article about race hatred At one time there was a travel warning from the US govt. for FIji, a pending civil war was eminent.

There is no question that there is abuse within the backpacker system. In theory at least, the Aussie farm workers programs will be much more closely monitored because they involve government to government agreements. And the backpackers do have the advantage of flexible visas not tied to a single employer, so if things don't work out they can head to the next outback town to find work.(The hospitality industry in much of the country is almost as desperate for the return of backpackers to wait on tables, serve drinks and work in the kitchens as the agricultural industry is desperate for farm workers).

Canada and New Zealand have both had considerable success over the years with seasonal farm workers programs, notwithstanding poor behavior by some employers. Australia is undoubtedly learning from both. I seem to recall that Italy was looking at the Canadian system a few years back as well, given their aging farm population.

Italy, as an EU and Schengen Area member, is not wholly free to issue migrant worker visas independent of what can be done in other countries. I understand anyway the rules are being harmonized, EU-speak for being standardized supranationally.

An irony about Italy is that aside from its required internal legislation for EU conforming laws, an annual task as new pronouncements come out, it otherwise has a tradition of having one of the most needlessly complex, bureaucratic, and bulky legal system in Europe. Partially as a result and partially as a result of the independent spirit of its people and the predominance of family owned businesses, you can be sure that Italians and Italian businesses feel neither confined nor limited by what the law may say when obstacles are presented for what they want to do. Italy has a large, undocumented workforce of migrant ag workers and long has. What I've read it's considering is some kind of amnesty and progression to citizenship or other legal status for some of them, that's a sovereign right most EU countries still have.

"In theory at least, the Aussie farm workers programs will be much more closely monitored because they involve government to government agreements."

If you read the ABC article I linked, it says otherwise insofar as backpackers (not the Islanders) are concerned. It suggests what's said and what's done are two different things. Here's a quote:

"For years, the Government has assured the public it is taking action against the systematic exploitation of young travellers.

But the disturbing stories from backpackers — and data obtained under Freedom of Information laws — show otherwise."

I have no idea what point it is you are trying to make. There are bad apples exploiting migrant labour in every industry and every country. You will get no argument from me on that. I would point out, however, that the article you cited refers to the very loosely monitored Working Holiday-maker Program and not to the more structured (and hopefully better monitored) Seasonal Workers Program.

My own point is straightforward: (a) the backpackers have been very important to agriculture, meat packing and hospitality industries here and their disappearance has caused disruptions to the supply chain; (b) the nascent programs for Pacific Islanders are slowing picking up some of the slack, but (c) continuing labour shortages are causing prices here to rise.

As for Italy, it is one of a number of countries within the EU which has official seasonal temporary worker programs. Each of these countries, notably the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, organizes and manages its own program differently from the others, based on national requirements, with the result that Germany and the UK recruit mainly from Eastern European EU countries while Spain and Italy bring in their migrants primarily from non EU countries. Who they select and how they do it is subject to national, not EU, migration laws. The Schengen visa does not apply to temporary workers. The thing all these countries have in common is an obligation under EU rules to ensure that there is a legal visa process in place and that the migrant workers have the rights of EU citizens for the validity of their visas. The EU is studying the programs of countries like Australia and Canada to improve their own approach to temporary migrant labour. (And I'm talking here purely about the legal temporary worker programs: most of these countries have hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants as well).

our grocery costs are up again. one of our two local statewide chains has stopped advertising in the local papers and has gone to online ads only ... and they are a pain to get to, as the company hasn't learned how to display pdf properly for multiple user platforms ...

Prices sure have gone up. For 3 of us our pooled grocery budget is $400 a month. Myself, I think that is high but that is what we decided. We buy the things we want but once that $400 is spent we have to take it out of our own pockets. Even with an employee discount I am still surprised at how much the shopping costs. I don't do the grocery shopping and the list I make is usually from sale items from the ads plus whatever we usually get. Our seasonal fruits and vegetables are bought at fruits stands until they close and even those have almost doubled in prices from last year but I like to support our local farmers so I don't mind.

It has come to light especially during Covid how some Canadian farmers are treating their farm workers. I live in a County that has many farms and greenhouses that import vegetables globally who use a large compliment of migrant farm workers. Many of them got infected with Covid which they spread among themselves and then into our community which is why we were in lockdown for so long. Many of them died. Because of this we found out how bad their living conditions were, living and sleeping in cramped bunkers. I think the community was shocked by the revelations and I believe the health board and government stepped in to make some changes but I am sure these workers still live in sub standard conditions. These workers should be treated better.

I'm surprised you're able to make it work on that monthly budget. $400 Canadian is just a tad over US$300, for three adults. With higher prices and additionally sales tax (GST) on many grocery store purchases in Canada, you're spending seems quite controlled and modest.

We eat well on that budget, chicken, pork, vegetables, salads, fruits, pasta dinner once or twice a week. I buy ground beef for hamburgers, meat loaf, spaghetti sauce. I don't normally eat breakfast but there is usually 2 types of cereal and oatmeal. We like breakfast for supper so we might have pancakes or eggs with breakfast sausages once a week. Our fridge drawer always has about 3 or 4 different types of cheese and we all like our own bread so there is always 3 loaves on the go. We shop once a month with a fill in shop for when I go get vegetables on my bi-weekly outing to the fruit stands or to buy local fresh fish at the dock. Some of the food like pantry items ( we like tinned albacore tuna or wild sockeye salmon, smoked kippers) or the meat I freeze carries over to the next month. I never freeze steak if I get it but I will freeze chicken and pork. My brother who works at the grocery store often will come home with meat or cheese he gets for a reduced price or if there is a store promotion. Two weeks ago he came home with 8 large rolls of jalapeno cheese. We wouldn't eat one of those rolls in a month so most were given away and a few ended up in the freezer for use in casseroles or enchiladas. And as I said if someone wants something extra that the rest of us don't eat we pay for it ourselves.

In my area, food prices have risen about 10% and restaurant cost 10 to 15%. Both my wife and I have increased tips at restaurants of all price ranges since the servers have not seen a raise comparable to inflation. They depend on tips to survive.

My favorite wine is usually posted with a sale price. The ”regular” price hasn’t changed, but the lowest sale price at one store just went up by a $1, and their ”buy 6” price went up by almost as much! A girl’s gotta have her wine.

I haven't been in a restaurant in a very long time so can't speak to those prices. Grocery store prices have risen for sure. During the summer I always buy as much produce as possible from local farmers, and those are also higher but not by a large margin. It's definitely a challenge. I don't plan future meals as cooking for one is hard enough, and many things don't freeze well (texture changes bother me). I try to keep it to $50 a week, but every couple of months there's a "big" trip which costs double as I'm restocking.

Aldi seems to be raising some of their prices on meat and frozen things about 5-10% but many of their products have remained unchanged. I expect their produce prices to increase as we move into fall (as they usually do) mostly due to the droughts in produce growing areas out west.

Beer prices have increased a bit as well.

At least with my Aldi, I have to be selective about what I buy there. No longer is it a given that Aldi will have the best price as I'm finding that WalMart is beating Aldi prices on items that I used to always get at Aldi.

Also, I have found that the Aldi in the next town has better prices on some of what I buy than the one here.

Not so long ago, sweet potatoes at Aldi were always 68 cents a pound. Yesterday, they were 98 cents a pound. Price increase could be seasonal; probably a bit early for the new crop.

The price of wild caught shrimp (NC) has dropped quite a bit here this week, got some at Sam's for $9/lb yesterday, large/jumbo size. But the price of scallops are holding steady at $25/lb of which I'll take a pass.

vgkg - Shrimp are one of the few proteins that haven't gone up in price around here either.

Check out Aldi for dry sea scallops if you have one nearby. Here they are $11.99 for 12 oz. ( $16/lb.). Less than a year ago they sold them for $9.99 for the same package. We went from having them every couple weeks to once a month or so.

We've been eating more Aldi Ahi tuna (yellow fin) lately which is $5.89 for 12 oz. ($7.36 lb.). Their mussels in garlic sauce are also very good and inexpensive.

I am out of steaks from the last beef we had processed in April 2020 and so far I have refused to pay the price being asked at the groceries. I still have about 50 lbs. of hamburger, a brisket, and a 10.5 lb. rib roast. Might have to cut up the rib roast into bone-in ribeye! We are taking two more steer in to have processed in mid October. We've just started to feed them out.

ETA: Aldi bacon is also reasonable at $3.99/lb. here. I like their thick cut bacon better because their regular cut is just too thin.

Just wait until California has the predicted 100-200 year flood I just read about on Wired. The last one was 150 years ago. The entire Central Valley was under twenty feet of water for over a month. It was a mammouth disaster then, when the land was lightly populated -- before the valley accounted for a fifth of the nation's farm produce and a lot of dairy and cattle production. Think of the filthy stew of waste and pesticides! This is also predicted to happen more frequently due to the rise in Earth's temperature. Who knew? We were busy thinking about *earthquakes* while a pattern of floods and droughts looms.

^^^ that's a big lake!

Yes, the article said it was the size of Lake Superior. Only the native Indians knew what was happening and had decamped up in the hills when the rain started to get serious. The flood was a disaster, but the long drought that followed was equally hard, ruining many ranchers who'd had their original land grants from Spain, causing grandees to sell out for pennies on the dollar and become common laborers.

chisue, I looked over that article and didn't find it to be well informed. Yes, there has been flooding in the Delta area (near Sacramento) from time to time. Unlike 150 years ago, there's infrastructure to deal with the water. Many parts of the city itself are below water level, with water higher than land flowing through channels controlled by levees (like the Mississippi near New Orleans). It's certainly prone to flooding, especially if a levee breaks. The Delta itself drains into SF Bay, overflow gets there quickly, it's not far away. A tale that talks about a month's worth of 20 foot depths belongs in a science fiction book.

The major water source in the Delta is snowmelt from the Sierra, not rain. Absent dam failures, I can't imagine the likelihood or possibility of so much widespread water at once.