These Can’t Be the Same Groceries from a Year Ago

I’d like to consider myself a spontaneous person who wakes up every day with a mind to take life as it comes, but the truth is I’m a creature of habit. Nowhere is that clearer than in my grocery order. 

I’ve been eating the same two breakfasts, the same three or four lunches and the same handful of snacks for the past four years. This isn’t to be frugal. I just like what I like, and if I want to eat eggs and chorizo every morning until the end of time, I feel I’m well within my right to do so.

I’m a big fan of curbside grocery pickup. Not only because it keeps me from tossing the latest “look what we can make a potato chip taste like” potato chips in my cart, but because I find the experience of grocery shopping to be overstimulating and exhausting. 

Because I basically pick up the same basket of groceries week after week, I have a solid idea of what things should cost me. And let me just say, things have not been costing what they should.  

Gouged on Groceries

There’s no better food than the taco. I prefer a soft taco on a corn tortilla with ground beef sauteed onions and all the fixings. You can guarantee that I’ll have the makings of a taco in my grocery haul every week. This fact puts me in a unique position to comment on the rise in the price of ground beef. 

A quick review of my grocery receipts from May 2023 places my average cost of a pound of 85/15 at $3.47. Fast forward to May 2024 and I’m looking at $3.90 for the same brick of vacuum sealed store brand beef. Add in the extras and I’m looking at an almost 16% increase in the cost of my humble taco. It may not sound like much, but with the increase in cost of other staples like gas and utilities, my budget is definitely feeling the squeeze. And I’m not the only one getting pinched. 

According to the latest reporting from Credit Karma, grocery prices have risen 25% since the start of the pandemic. The growth in wages during that same period? 1.7%.

With sharp increases in the cost of living, 1/3rd of the people Credit Karma surveyed are spending over 60% of their income on essentials like food, rent, and utilities. According to the conventional wisdom of the budget gods, people should only spend 50% of their income on essentials. But what’s the point of conventional wisdom when you can’t make the math work in the current economic environment?

I’ll be taking all financial advice with a grain of salt. Here’s to hoping the price of salt stays stable.