Thursday, November 17, 2011

Your Grocery Bill Is Getting Higher

Did anyone happen to see this article about how the price of groceries is going up? I don't think this is terribly shocking information to anyone who regularly tracks their grocery spending, but I did find some of the specifics and forecasts interesting.

For example, food is projected to rise 4-5% this year, and another 2-3% next year. . .
Can I just say YIKES to a potential 8% rise in food costs over the next year? Holy smokes - that's a huge dent in any budget. And, it looks like beef (up 10% from last September) & produce have been impacted the most: "Fresh fruits and vegetables costs 7.6 percent more in September than a year earlier, while processed produce prices were up by 4 percent over that same period."

How will you adjust your grocery budget for 2012? Will you cut things out? Bake more snacks/breads at home? Cut down on produce or meat consumption?

I've been working on our 2012 budget, so this question is at the top of my mind. We don't buy too many snacks (Pirates Booty, Zbars for the kids before sports practices, the occasional bag of trail mix from Trader Joes, etc), but I will likely consider baking our own bread (learning how to successfully bake bread is going to be on my 2012 goal list after an utter failure in 2011 :-)). I've also started to cut out Crystal Light, both because I know it's artificial & not good for you, and because it's expensive. We've cut way down on our waste this year, so I need to keep that going & look for other creative ways to shave 10% percent off our bill in order to keep the dollar figure about the same as prices rise. . .

4 comments:

  1. I've noticed that it's gone up. Right now I'm just happy that we cut down on eating out and that we actually buy groceries. I would say that we would eat less meat, but the BF would never let that happen. I could live without though.

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  2. It's crazy insane... a big block of cheese a year ago was $4.99-$5.99, now it's $8.99. Bread for the cheap crappy white stuff is over $3.00/loaf, head of cauliflower is over $4.00 now... :/ It's SOO hard staying on budget & feeding a large family. I try to avoid processed food as much as I can & that helps. But I'll definitely have to raise our grocery budget next year...

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  3. The increases are so scary! I can't imagine how hard it is really hitting some more than others. I am thankful I woke up and am getting debt free. The extra money will help lessen the blow a bit.

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  4. I try and keep it in check by buying the specials. I'm really trying to buy smaller quantities of veggies so they don't go bad and also to have a few more vegetarian meals which saves some money.

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