Price increases you've noticed?

Used to be the only time I noticed something getting more expensive was either gasoline or movie tickets. But, just the other day, I was at the grocery store, picking up stuff for the parents, and my poor brain kept stuttering with sticker shock over things it never occurred to me I should keep an eye on.

Butter is twice as expensive as I remember/expect - somewhere around $4/lb now.

Sliced cheese (like Sargento’s) is $7 a pack?! When the fuck did that happen.

BACON IS $8 FOR THE DECENT STUFF?!?!?!

Yet, eggs remain about the same, unless I splurge on the large brown eggs that were massaged and cuddled before being trucked out. Chocolate and soda pretend to be expensive, but it’s just a ploy to slap a sale on them and make you feel like you’re saving money. Oatmeal, if you skip the instant flavored stuff, is probably cheaper than dirt. Ice cream continues to be completely reasonable.

Am I missing something? Are the cows and pigs unionizing while the chickens are too . . . erm, chicken?

I’ve noticed a steady increase in food prices over all. Hell, 8 O’ Clock coffee is up from $11 a pound maybe a year ago to just under $14 now!

But what gets me more than anything else is how often you’re getting less of the item for the same (or a little more) price.

Packs of cookies that used to have 3 rows in the package now have 2. Ice cream used to be a half gallon, now it’s .75, things like that. I bought what I thought was a case (25 cans) of soda, and realized later that it contained only 20!

The more I pay attention, the more I notice it.

It was all over the news 6 or 7 months ago about how food prices were going to skyrocket within a few months, which would be about now. I guess you missed that. Everything’s going up, up, up. Except our paychecks, of course.

I haven’t noticed $7 a pack cheese, but pork and beef have gone up noticeably in price over the last year, which chicken has actually stayed the same or gotten cheaper. I used to be able to get pork shoulder at $1.29/lb last year (and $0.79-$0.99 a pound the year before), but now, the average price is around $2.29/lb. Occasionally, I’ll see sales for it at $1.79/lb.

Stewing cuts of beef (like chuck) are edging towards $4/lb at the store I normally shop at, where last year they were in the $1.99-$2.49/lb range.

Meanwhile, chicken has apparently gotten real cheap. I regularly find boneless chicken breasts (not my favorite cut, but one I use as a barometer for chicken prices) at $0.99-$1.29/lb on sale, or $1.99 regular, where they used to be more in the $2-$3 per pound range.

Half gallon of half and half was 1.99, now 3.18
Whipped butter up 40 to 50%
Now go to Aldi’s for milk at 2.39/gal, big supermarkets are at 4 a gallon.

Running a store I’ve seen milk prices sky rocket (as The Vorlon mentioned) over the past few years. We now make almost nothing on it (less then a dime) just to keep up with the mega mart, gas stations and Walgreen’s near by us.

Taco Bell’s prices seem to go up markedly faster than any other fast food chain’s. Compared to where they were about 5 years ago, it’s 50-60% more expensive. Last year they had to create a new crop of value menu items because they’d priced the old value menu items up to the point where they weren’t a value anymore.

I remember when you could feed your whole family for less than $10, and that was back in the Truman administration. Oh, wait, no, that was only a couple of years ago. They’ve gone up so much that I don’t even go there anymore- I can get better Mexican food- hello I live in Tucson- for about the same price now, so why go to TB? Plus, they have Pepsi products and not Coke. Bastards.

Hershey’s syrup also when up a few months back. Oddly though at the local mega mart the price on the 24oz bottles hovers around $1.99-$2.19 and the 48oz bottles are always $4.49. Hooray for idiot taxes and double hooray for those of us that can divide or multiply by two in our heads (or always keep the calculator app up on our phone when we’re in the grocery store).

I’ve definitely noticed prices go up on seemingly everything! Milk, eggs, cheese, butter, meats - it’s all higher. I particularly notice price changes on things I only buy once or twice a year. The other day, I added Crisco to my grocery list, but came home without it. Last time I bought a can, it was about $4.00. Last week it was $7.00. Guess I’ll wait for a sale and/or coupon, since that’s one item I don’t use off brands of. (Along with flour, corn meal, tea bags, and vanilla wafers. I’ll go generic on practically anything else… except maybe toilet tissue.)

I’m getting back into couponing, and I watch for the sales. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to feed five people and three dogs on my budget.

No joke. I was in a dollar store today that had a sign up saying everything now cost $1.25.

Doritos I started the thread about it.

That’s been happening for years, but it seems to be happening more often and on more products. My husband proudly showed me a package of bacon, for instance, and bragged about the low price. I pointed out that the other price was for a POUND of bacon, while his package was 12 ounces, so that if he added 33% to the price, he’d get a true comparison.

McChicken is banned from the Dollar Menu. $1.19 now!

That’s one thing that has definitely gone up the last few years, the price of fast food. It used to be that fast food was crappy but at least it was cheap, and that was the draw. Nowadays all the “value” meals are at least 6 or 7 dollars, and I feel like I can get a decent healthy take-out lunch at around that price elsewhere. The only thing that makes fast food worthwhile anymore is if they have a dollar menu, but even those are starting to disappear.

I remember thinking how bad it was getting because my college diet was .97 party pizzas and .33 burritos. Now the party pizzas are $1.20 and the burritos are fifty cents to a buck. I don’t like to eat that crap, but when I was unemployed it was definitely an emergency food.

Also - candy bars. I’m rather young for this board, I think (26), but I remember when fifty cents got you a candy bar. Now it’s $1-$2.

Can I just say EVERYTHING??

One noticible thing for me… Braunsweiger. I don’t eat it, but I have a dog that gets a pill twice a day and that stuff is the easiest way to get a dog to take a pill, so I buy a lb package every other week or so.

When she first went on the heart medication a little over a year ago, I was paying 99 cents for a lb. Now, it’s $2.29 a lb!! That’s a HUGE jump!

Inflation is out of control, and no, my paycheck is not going up at the same rate.

This article suggest that a good option for cheap nutritious food is bean and brown rice. She calls it grad student food.

http://www.benchfly.com/blog/poverty-nutrition-ii-beans-rice-and-their-infinite-variety/

I saw the other day where 20-ounce sodas are $1.77. That makes me go :eek:. It wasn’t that long ago that they were 99 cents.

I remember when candy was a lot cheaper too. They also went up really fast. I remember about a year or so ago I got a candy bar at it was $1.10. I said to myself that’s the last time I’ll buy one here. I figured I was getting a bargain at $0.90 other places. Then 7-11 started charging $1.15 or 2 for $2. Now around here they are $1.20 give or take. They’ve gone up 30 or 40 cents in the last two years.

I’ve also noticed pasta going up too. Now it’s on sale for over a buck when a couple of years ago you could get it for under a buck.

ETA: I forgot tea. I remember when it was under a buck for the stuff, now it’s closing in on $2 for 16 oz. There’s no way I’m paying that much for so little.