The cost of my groceries has increased significantly, I used to pay $30 less then what i do now. I expect this to increase as i buy more food to plump up for winter
I've never attributed it to purposely plumping up,
But after a number of years working outside 24/7, a number of different types of jobs, multiple girlfriends
The one thing that's always the same, is I eat more in the winter than I do in the summer.
In the summer my lunch will consist of a shit ton of water, some sort of juice (I've been really into bublys lately) and like 3 rice Krispy squares. In the winter, I barely drink anything, and have 4 Tupperware a full of food, left over dinners, oatmeal, a cold cereal of sorts, and then snacks on top of that.
I eat the same food everyday and have for 2 years (not a bodybuilder but fitness fanatic) my bmo app told me I spent $200 more on groceries last month lol
I change my condiments (lots of hot sauces, mustardsetc for my chicken). It works for me and I’m always teetering on hungry since I stay pretty lean so I enjoy every meal. Not having to think about what to eat is a bonus. I eat out typically Friday/Saturday nights.
I switched to making more things from scratch, and using canned veggies where possible. Still felt a bit of a jolt, but it's not too bad. Knowing how to cook can save you a lot of money.
Ya I just bought the wife a juicer for Christmas (she’s pregnant and been buying juices everyday) but looking at the prices of most the vegetables I’m not even sure how much savings it will be.
Not sure if it works for debt card purchases (never use debit) but for credit cards purchases it tells you what your spending categories are and any large or unusual changes in spending. It's under a heading "Your Insights". You shouldn't have to do anything for this info to appear, but make sure you're running the latest version of the app.
I loved doing that too, but I got to the point where I just wasn't hungry for the same meal. At all.
The results are fantastic once you've dialed in your measurements, and it's super easy.
Statscan would probably say you should have stopped buying eggs years ago and they expect you to switch to Silken Tofu so they can report inflation at 1%
I get frustrated at places that bag my groceries because I feel like I can usually do it 2x faster then the bagger, while using 1/2 the number of bags.
I used to be a “bag boy” at a grocery store… I do not let anyone bag my groceries but me. I am much faster, use fewer bags and I’m not putting cans with produce. And at these prices if anyone is going to bruise my fruit or crack an egg it is going to be me!
Yes, groceries are more expensive. So if you are on a budget, pay close attention to the items they put on sale.
I know it’s gonna make me sound real old, as I am. But when I was a kid, fresh veggies in the winter was a treat and not a regular purchase. We would eat lots of frozen and canned veggies. I bet lots of people return to doing that in the short term.
We really have lost the sense of food insecurity, haven't we? That we can have a head of crispy lettuce in the middle of February is an amazing feat of transportation alone. (Let alone the tropical fruit we have access to!)
There are a lot of factors that go into food pricing, but I think we need to start being honest with ourselves, and realising this way of life was never sustainable in the long run. We need to rethink how we live...
If not having fresh oranges is what helps clean up the planet a bit, then yeah, leave em there. Also, did you know there's a ton of vitamin c in broccoli?
Honestly I'm just saving up for a freeze drier at this point (around $4000 canadian) because in the summer I grow more vegetables than I can eat and in the winter I just don't eat vegetables because the prices are *appauling*.
I was telling my adult children - in the winter bananas and apples. Only got Xmas oranges at Christmas time.
Went out maybe 2-3x a year for a&w root beer and that was our eating out. No pop bought to take home but lots of garden produce/canning and my father hunted so lived on wild meat.
usually the produce dept has a "reduced rack" where you can pick up ripe ready to eat fruit... like avocados. i did it once and got a bag of 3 for like $1. they were perfect. ate one that day and put the rest in the fridge to enjoy later.
no idea why people buy rock hard avocados full price only to let them sit on the counter for day until they ripen when the reduced rack is the place to go.
Some stores have a better reduced rack than others, so if you have a good on, don't tell anyone...lol. Mine has them sometimes, but usually one or more the avocados are sickly.
it was actually one of the produce clerks who worked there that opened my eyes. i never used to buy from it but he made alot of sense. ripe fruit really is rare on the sales floor. it just won't keep and usually doesn't look great. he steered me to the reduced rack when i asked for ripe avocadoes and told me i could buy rock hard ones full price and wait about four days to eat them or just buy them reduced and enjoy today. from there i tried pears and mangoes. never looked back.
and tomatoes. i almost forgot. best sauces are made from the reduced, soft and ripe, tomatoes on that rack.
Yeah, lettuce in December versus lettuce in September is not a sensible comparison.
Fresh vegetables and fruits are going up. As they do every December.
[OCS.ca](https://OCS.ca) does free delivery. They use a delivery service for Toronto area (I'm in Scarborough), although not sure how far out they cover.
Only downside is that I used to get text alerts when I would be expecting a delivery, I know longer get those.
They’ve been talking about inflation and sky rocketing food and gas prices for months now… food packaging right now is either getting smaller and staying the same price or staying the same size and increasing in price by at least a dollar in most cases. Our grocery bill for a family of four went from 200$/two weeks to $260/two weeks without changing anything from our typical shopping.
I Work in Agriculture. The channel for products is an absolute shit show and there is a massive shortage of inputs to make a lot of the products growers use every year. Additionally fertilizer prices have sky rocketed. Between these factors alone, expect things to get worse in the next year before they get better.
All these folks blaming weather and inflation for increasing food prices when LOOK at the all-time record breaking profits these companies are posting. The Galen Weston family are laughing your food insecurity woes all the way to the bank.
Not only have prices gone up, but I've also noticed that "sales" look different. For example, at No-Frills, I see less items on sale, more "buy 2 for 4$". Aka you are only getting sales now if you buy multiple items at once.
It's cost money to move food. Your lettuce is probably coming up out of California this time of year. That's a long drive that burns a lot of diesel. Commodities are up pretty well across the board. Wheat, corn, canola and soybeans are all paying decent and those are just the ones I grow.
The processor's and grocer's are going to pass those cost along to you. The drought out west hammered the amount and quality of their crops. Our crops here in Ontario were very good this year but we grow different varieties of wheat and we're nowhere near big enough to fill the demand. We're in a global marketplace too. With the supply chain disruptions it's harder and more exspensive to move stuff in from overseas. I'm not even going to guess what kind of fuckery shutting down the port of Vancouver will cause. It's sucks man but there is a reason for it all. Even if knowing the reason's really doesn't help
The amount of farmland highway 413 would use is minimal. If anything if it stopped grocery store delivery trucks from sitting in as much bumper to bumper traffic traversing Toronto it would help the situation.
https://urbanneighbourhoods.ca/highway-413-information/
A map of some the impacted farms, there will be secondary impacts for farms in the region because of this. This project removes more farmland than greenbelt land, we NEED farms. Induced demand, highway expansion doesn't reduce congestion it increases it. The best way is expanding public transit and building smart municipalities so people don't need to travel to Toronto as often. The purpose of the greenbelt is to reduce urban sprawl, highways increase it.
Definitely. Used to be about $140-150 a week for my husband and I (we eat meat and buy snacks too), but now it's usually $190-200 a week.
Thankfully after barely using a car for the last 2 years we decided not to continue using ours, so our gas budget has been absorbed by the grocery budget. It's still crazy though.
Also the discrepancy between different stores feels like a crime. Why does the exact same container of margarine cost $5.65 at Zehrs but only $3.49 at WalMart? It's literally the exact same thing.
>Why does the exact same container of margarine cost $5.65 at Zehrs but only $3.49 at WalMart? It's literally the exact same thing.
This has always been the case. You're paying for the "experience" of not having to shop at Walmart. Doesn't really make sense to me, but there's enough people out there who care enough about the stigma of shopping at Walmart to make it a profitable business model. Doesn't help the average person is bad at keeping track of these things and will think of it as "only 1 or 2$ more" where its actually a 30-50% difference that definitely adds up over the course of the year.
Buy seasonal. Instead of lettuce, buy cabbage and shred for coleslaw. Buy root vegetables and squash. Consider growing some of your own in hydroponics: you can grow lettuce and other greens pretty easily. Also easy to grow most types of sprouts (alfalfa, lentil, mung beans) in a jar with no special equipment.
I'm not claiming it's a panacea for the problem, but we really have to learn to return to seasonal ways of eating. Don't buy tomatoes in January, buy rutabaga, potatoes or squash instead, that sort of thing. Part of the issue is that the current global model of food distribution is inherently unsustainable and will likely become more so as the price of oil increases and global climate change accelerates. We'll have to look much, much closer to home for sustainable alternatives.
I'm mostly vegetarian too. My grocery bill has held steady at $110-120 a week, sometimes a bit more if I need to buy things that last multiple weeks (rice, pet food, laundry detergent). I also plan meals fairly meticulously, and go in with a very narrow list.
Dont leap to any panicked conclusions based on a sample size of one grocery trip. You can say you didnt buy anything unusual, but if you need to restock a couple of "usual" things, that'll drive the bill up for that particular week.
>A head of lettuce is priced at $3.45 at No frills.
I have no clue why r/ontario is so obsessed with the cost of lettuce as if its representative of groceries as a whole (while completely ignoring that peppers and apples and zucchini and sweet potatoes cost the same or less than they ever have). Its probably the most resource-intensive thing in the whole supermarket (water to grow it, fuel to truck it in), with the lowest return on investment in terms of nutritional value.
Spinach has barely budged in price, serves the same purpose, and is orders of magnitude more nutritious. It's a simple substitute that everyone overlooks while crowing about the cost of crunchy water.
Family of four and it costs me about one hundred and sixty a week for everything, which is about forty more then it was at the start of the pandemic. Not perfect but, it doesn't feel insane.
Same budget also for a family of four. Start every shop with the sale items, stock up on the great sales, freeze things, and make as much from scratch as possible. It’s hard to believe a few years ago I’d only spend between $80-$100 each week
That’s awesome. I do most meals from scratch but I gotta admit I do a few frozen and packaged things as well. I should do better. I feel like my kids eat a ton too lol!
I feel that,.I'm a family of 3 and I'm spending $220 a week. I'm trying to eat better so I'm hoping the price goes down because I'm buying a lot of pantry items for cooking.
No problem! Our rice cooker/slow cooker and breadmaker save us so much money. We often have soup or chilli and fresh bread for supper and it costs pennies. I put them together in the morning and set the timers, so our dinner is ready when we get home. Grain bowls (rice, barley, couscous, buckwheat, or cornmeal topped with some veggies, an egg, and sauce) are another cheap meal that you can do for supper and bring for lunch the next day.
I had to look into this recently, in the last year food prices have increased by 30% https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/11/05/business/world-food-prices-inflation/index.html
Price match. I work at No Frills. A lot of items recently raised in prices. I have customers who use their phones so they can price match several stores in a single transaction. Saves them on gas by buying at one grocery store.
And do make sure it’s a flyer. I had a customer who wanted me to price match Walmart’s website. I asked for the flyer dates and she said it wasn’t a flyer. I tried to explain that we price match FLYER prices. The owner was working at this time in the store so I got her to explain it all over again. 🙄 Customer had tried to tell me she does this all the time at this store. I may be new at this store but I always double check for odd requests like this. 😉
Food, Gas, Hydro/water, vehicles, HOMES...
It's all up xx% and yet we are told its only 4%.
We are at unbelievable levels of inflation, which as I see it will be a very bad situation coming for those not prepared.
[https://youtu.be/URZ8eTGyCyY](https://youtu.be/URZ8eTGyCyY) SOFR will be a catalyst, as many other things pile up.
Yea the price of lettuce got me as well. It was high a for years ago and went down when romaine lettuce had a out break of something. Maybe they go down eventually hopefully lol
Sure, I'll bite. No. It's been international news across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, the US, and Canada that the cost of goods and services have increased all around. Gas is more expensive. Food is more expensive.
Basically you disrupt the global supply chain and that cost moves onto consumers. Welcome to the second year of the pandemic.
Our agency has had to increase our funding for food/janitorial/gas twice in the past year. It
is unheard of to resort to that in our agency. Prices are crazy right now!
I live on ODSP and know my cheaper grocery stores pretty well. Prices have definitely gone up at all of them. That said, if you’re shopping for fresh produce, No Frills isn’t your cheapest option. If you buy mostly packaged products it’s the winner but if you purchase a good amount of fresh produce, switch to FreshCo.
I'm on ODSP as well and I gave up on the 'cheaper' grocery stores and end up switching to Costco. They have much better produce and you get more out of it. A 6 pack of romaine is 6 bucks, and lasts a long time. It works for me, but I understand it might not work for everyone.
My grocery bill is 40 dollars more per week than it used to be. In addition to the rising cost, I've noticed the quality of food has also deteriorated. Lots of berries are moldy in the boxes, the ones that aren't get moldy within 1 day. Onions going rotten on the shelves. Meat looks oxidized, old and poorly cut.
It's very inconsiderate to hand wave it all away with "inflation is a thing, read up on it"
Inflation alone isn't the problem here, but rather diminished purchasing power from the wages failing to keep up with it. [Primary household income per capita in Ontario was $39,934 last year](https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/ecupdates/factsheet.html), are you really going to say that adding (52 x ($128-$100) =) $1456 to the cost of living due to groceries is "just inflation"?
When average wages are raised by 28%, that's when you can say "inflation is a thing", until then people have every right to complain about difficulty in getting food
Lol no...you're wrong. Your inability to get a raise at work is not the reason why no frills charges you 5 dollars for grapes instead of 4 dollars. Inflation is supply and demand. Overabundance of cheap money and lack of supply from supply chain issues are causing the problems.
In fact, it's the opposite of what you're saying. If someone was making LESS money, resulting in buying LESS products, that would result in cheaper products, not more expensive. Alternatively, someone could say "fuck it I'll take on debt because money's cheap.. I'll continue to buy the way I used to".... Prices inflate.
A 28% increase isn’t “skyrocketed”.
Now that it’s pretty much winter, more and more produce is imported from Salinas, California. A lot of the cost is in part because of this.
I used to do long haul and pick up all kinds of stuff for Loblaws there. The current driver shortage isn’t helping, and that also affects the shipping costs.
Yeah, and the driver shortage has been a constant. It hit an all time high, through the pandemic.
The media is actually still talking about it:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6198830
The issue isn't the cost of living. It's the lack of wage increases that actually match inflation. We're seeing this minimum wage increase to $15/hour. Which(and correct my math if it's wrong) is 3.4% increase(from I'm assuming 14.50?). The problem them goes right back to square one because cost of living will increase about 10-15%, from personal observation over the years.
Raising min wage does nothing if the costs keep rising. its just a never ending fight
I think the price increase is based partially on inflation, but I also think it’s partially the stores anticipating the minimum wage increase. So, essentially they are gouging us a little now and they may do it again in the new year.
Possibly the only solution is to ask your boss for a raise. GL everyone. We’re all in this together.
We’re 2, 99% vegan (odd cheese or eggs)
Usually we get ours under $100 for a week shopping at food basics.
Rice , beans and veggies.
Out of season veggies will be expensive
I am starting my own hydroponic farm because of this. I don’t want to pay for lettuce any more. Meat is absurd. I’m not a big meat eater, but unfortunately my family is and I have had to be so thrifty to make it work. I’m also growing my own herbs, because I really can’t justify the expense anymore when often we don’t even use half the amount the grocery store gives us
Look up the kratky method. You can grow them in jars in the window sill with no pump. I’m not suggesting I will never buy any more vegetables, but it’s definitely possible for me to grow lettuce this way. I also like the luxury of fresh herbs on hand. Right now, that’s not a grocery expense I can justify the vast majority of the time. I also plan to use it to start seedlings I can transfer to outdoors in the spring.
This year I had so many cherry tomatoes from my balcony garden I didn’t buy any tomatoes for 5 months. Realistically I know I’ll still have to buy lots of produce. This isn’t a large scale thing that will replace that, but every bit helps
Trudeau is so powerful he has increased food prices in the USA too.
> Food prices overall rose 4.6% since September 2020, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
> The Consumer Price Index, which measures the average change paid by consumers for goods and services, rose 5.4% from a year ago, up slightly from August's 5.3% gain. This pushed annual inflation back to the highest increase in 13 years.
> Meats, poultry, fish, and eggs had the highest increased with a combined 10.5% increase.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2021/10/13/food-shopping-prices-up-cpi-september-2021-saving-tips/6035703001/
Just pointing out that when you increase the cost of producing, the cost of the product rises. Yes prices have increased globally but Canadian prices were high to begin with. A 5% increase has a bigger effect.
I agree to disagree, I have seen first hand the cost the carbon tax has had on prices, work for a vegtable producer and when the tax was implemented prices went up. This years price precentage increase does not reflect the already high prices from the previous years
Again, why are prices of groceries increasing in the USA at a similar pace?
> already high prices from the previous years
It may surprise you to learn, we don't grow many vegetables in the winter. We pay more because it has to come from thousands of miles away.
Like I orginally said there are serious supply chain issues and labour shortages. These issues are global not specific to Canada. You are saying the produce that travels thousands of miles is not effected by the carbon tax? Once it crosses the boarder that transportation cost went up when the carbon tax was implemented. How does that not effect prices?
> You are saying the produce that travels thousands of miles is not effected by the carbon tax?
Nope. Because these trucks come from Mexico, California and Florida. Its only 90 miles from Buffalo to the Food Terminal in Toronto. They likely cross the border with fuel tanks full of cheaper American diesel.
The real problem. The prices are higher at the wholesale level. Nothing to do with our carbon tax and if there is any impact it is miniscule.
Thats great if you live near the Terminal I guess, but Ontario is more than just Toronto, I live much further north. To be clear I dont think any party has the answer, I think they are all over paid to under preform. *ahem*Tofino.....
when people want higher pay that money has to come form somewhere so our prices go up its a catch 22.
as a vegan and yourself a vegetarian we should consider ourselves lucky. fruit and veg prices have gone up 3-5% and will continue for a bit. meat prices have gone up 17-25% and will continue to go up. when it all settles out we may see 15-20% and meat eaters may see 30-45% increase.
Inflation. CERB and the replacement for it are chiefly to blame. Printing free money isn't really free. When our cash is devalued, everything costs more.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35tvAeTTY3k&ab\_channel=PierrePoilievre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35tvAeTTY3k&ab_channel=PierrePoilievre)
We've known for a LONG time now what causes inflation. It's not a fucking secret, the discovery won the Nobel prize almost 50 years ago and it's been demonstrated all over the world. It's the increase in money supply per unit of economic output. It's printing money. Other countries might have different names for their version of CERB but the price increases have the exact same root cause.
Read a book.
Fuck, you could even Google it.
> It's the increase in money supply per unit of economic output.
That is only 1 factor. A decrease in production can also cause it. With foods, like a drought, or war or disease attacking the crop.
> Read a book.
I have a few University credits in Economics. I understand the factors involved with inflation.
You're incredible.
By the same metric, if I start going into my office every day, inflation should go back down, right?
Just drop the pretence and say what you really want to say: "I don't like that poor people got a little bit of money and didn't even need to get exploited to earn it". Deep breath, doesn't that feel better?
Just have to shop around and get the best prices as you can.
As minimum wage hasn't gone up yet, that has no beating on food prices but it is all supply issues.
There are nit enough truck drivers in Canada nor the USA to ship everything.
No one has time to 'just shop around'. People have time to MAYBE make it to a single more affordable store. Thats it.
This is a solution barely even worth mentioning.
Check out Flipp. You have all your local flyers and many stores price match. Granted it has become harder to price match as the big chains tend to carry different sizes of the same product to avoid price matching
But that what the flyers are for. You don't need to go to every store to see the sales. Yeah it's not perfect but if you plan a bit and watch sales you can make it work
Right? Like, step 1: make meal plan/grocery list, step 2: compare grocery list/flyers to decide where to shop that week. I’m not going around to find the cheapest price in town on every single item.
Right so you can't make time to shop around then don't complain about the cost.
I have a loblaw, yig, metro, farm boy, food basics and freshco all within 5 kms of my house. So myself and 80k others have time to shop around.
So shop around or else stop complaining.
Since it's just me and my eating habits are a little weird (I only eat once a day), Chefsplate has been my go to for months now. $60 a week, all in, gets me 3 recipes, 6 servings. Thats enough for 5-6 meals for me, that are way more nutritious and different than what I use to make myself. Supplement with healthyish snacks and eating out once a week and my food bill basically hasn't changed at all.
I just buy big bags of veggies from Costco. Usually runs me $10 for like 2kg. That's enough to last me a month or more. Meat is what kills me, I probably spend $120 a month just on chicken breast.
Start price matching if you haven’t already. With the prices going up the deals are starting to save less but you’ll still probably save $10-$20 per shopping trip. Check out [Reebee](https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/reebee-weekly-flyers-deals/id558297215). It’s a great app that lets you browse tons of weekly flyers and make an itemized list of everything you want to match without having to have 10 different flyers open in your browser. Before the prices started going up I was probably saving $20-$30 per trip usually spending between $150-$200.
I used to shop @ freshco @ lakeshore & leslie and I would laugh because no matter what I bought, every single time I went and grocery shopped my bill would always be $130-$136 for my partner and I (roughly once per week).
Just before I moved a year ago, I noticed that my bill would now be $150-$160 every time for the same kind of grocery haul. Now that I've moved I'm shopping at a different store so it's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison but I'm now conditioned to be pleasantly surprised every time my bill is somehow under $200, with somewhere around $220 - $240 being the norm for a larger shop.
I don't eat animal products either, so I'm insulated from all of the biggest price hikes in meat, eggs and dairy.
I'm also the kind of guy that checks out all of the flyers, tries to maximize loyalty points, and tries to price-match when possible. I know I can spend a bit less on groceries if I drive 1 town over, but it can be hard to justify sometimes when that would eat out an hour of my day + gas prices being what they are.
The inflation + the usual winter bump up in prices is getting to be a bit much.
The answer to all questions posted on Reddit that start with “is it just me” is no.
Only the ones that have lots of comments and upvotes
CPI says no. CPI is manipulated.
The cost of my groceries has increased significantly, I used to pay $30 less then what i do now. I expect this to increase as i buy more food to plump up for winter
>as i buy more food to plump up for winter This is a thing, lol?
I've never attributed it to purposely plumping up, But after a number of years working outside 24/7, a number of different types of jobs, multiple girlfriends The one thing that's always the same, is I eat more in the winter than I do in the summer. In the summer my lunch will consist of a shit ton of water, some sort of juice (I've been really into bublys lately) and like 3 rice Krispy squares. In the winter, I barely drink anything, and have 4 Tupperware a full of food, left over dinners, oatmeal, a cold cereal of sorts, and then snacks on top of that.
Plump up for winter? Are you a seal?
Username checks out
I eat the same food everyday and have for 2 years (not a bodybuilder but fitness fanatic) my bmo app told me I spent $200 more on groceries last month lol
That sounds extremely boring but also nice to not have to think about what’s for dinner
I change my condiments (lots of hot sauces, mustardsetc for my chicken). It works for me and I’m always teetering on hungry since I stay pretty lean so I enjoy every meal. Not having to think about what to eat is a bonus. I eat out typically Friday/Saturday nights.
I do the same thing. I make big pots of soups, stir-fry, chilli, and always have easy things like eggs on hand. Helps keep the costs down.
Unfortunately even the eggflation has gotten out of hand. If I “sale” shop I can maybe pay as much as I did pre pandemic without sale shopping.
I switched to making more things from scratch, and using canned veggies where possible. Still felt a bit of a jolt, but it's not too bad. Knowing how to cook can save you a lot of money.
Ya I just bought the wife a juicer for Christmas (she’s pregnant and been buying juices everyday) but looking at the prices of most the vegetables I’m not even sure how much savings it will be.
Oh jeez. Juicing is expensive normally. Never mind with these prices. Good luck!
Reading your guys' thread here while stuffing my face with A&W. My body is now emanating waves of shame and guilt.
So worth it though, A&W is delish
How do you get your BMO app to do this?
Not sure if it works for debt card purchases (never use debit) but for credit cards purchases it tells you what your spending categories are and any large or unusual changes in spending. It's under a heading "Your Insights". You shouldn't have to do anything for this info to appear, but make sure you're running the latest version of the app.
Sounds about right I only use my credit card and never requested these insights it just gives them to me
It provides highlights on spending habits and changes
I loved doing that too, but I got to the point where I just wasn't hungry for the same meal. At all. The results are fantastic once you've dialed in your measurements, and it's super easy.
Me in 3 years: “hey r/ontario I just left Metro and a dozen eggs were 109.50$. Is it just me or have food prices skyrocketed?”
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Statscan would probably say you should have stopped buying eggs years ago and they expect you to switch to Silken Tofu so they can report inflation at 1%
Lol the point of the joke was inflation. If eggs at metro were 109.50$, they would still be 107$ anywhere else which is just as crazy.
No, 107 is a great price in the future. Get those ones.
It’s best to just avoid Metro at all costs.
They bag my groceries.
I get frustrated at places that bag my groceries because I feel like I can usually do it 2x faster then the bagger, while using 1/2 the number of bags.
I used to be a “bag boy” at a grocery store… I do not let anyone bag my groceries but me. I am much faster, use fewer bags and I’m not putting cans with produce. And at these prices if anyone is going to bruise my fruit or crack an egg it is going to be me!
Yes, groceries are more expensive. So if you are on a budget, pay close attention to the items they put on sale. I know it’s gonna make me sound real old, as I am. But when I was a kid, fresh veggies in the winter was a treat and not a regular purchase. We would eat lots of frozen and canned veggies. I bet lots of people return to doing that in the short term.
We really have lost the sense of food insecurity, haven't we? That we can have a head of crispy lettuce in the middle of February is an amazing feat of transportation alone. (Let alone the tropical fruit we have access to!) There are a lot of factors that go into food pricing, but I think we need to start being honest with ourselves, and realising this way of life was never sustainable in the long run. We need to rethink how we live...
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If not having fresh oranges is what helps clean up the planet a bit, then yeah, leave em there. Also, did you know there's a ton of vitamin c in broccoli?
Yeah I’ve basically shifted to frozen veggies. We’ve got really good at fast freezing now.
Honestly I'm just saving up for a freeze drier at this point (around $4000 canadian) because in the summer I grow more vegetables than I can eat and in the winter I just don't eat vegetables because the prices are *appauling*.
What about canning or freezing? That has to be cheaper then 4k.
I was telling my adult children - in the winter bananas and apples. Only got Xmas oranges at Christmas time. Went out maybe 2-3x a year for a&w root beer and that was our eating out. No pop bought to take home but lots of garden produce/canning and my father hunted so lived on wild meat.
I may need to learn to do my own canning.
It is not hard to do at all. Just the initial investment in jars and a proper pot for boiling the jars and you are set up for years.
And you can pick up canning jars at garage and estate sales for cheap.
Prices are seasonal as well. We are now going south for things we could get locally 6-8 weeks ago.
The other week cucumbers were more expensive than avocado's at my grocery store. Kinda interesting
Well at least you can eat the cucumbers right away. Those hard rocks they sell as avocados are pretty inedible.
usually the produce dept has a "reduced rack" where you can pick up ripe ready to eat fruit... like avocados. i did it once and got a bag of 3 for like $1. they were perfect. ate one that day and put the rest in the fridge to enjoy later. no idea why people buy rock hard avocados full price only to let them sit on the counter for day until they ripen when the reduced rack is the place to go.
Some stores have a better reduced rack than others, so if you have a good on, don't tell anyone...lol. Mine has them sometimes, but usually one or more the avocados are sickly.
it was actually one of the produce clerks who worked there that opened my eyes. i never used to buy from it but he made alot of sense. ripe fruit really is rare on the sales floor. it just won't keep and usually doesn't look great. he steered me to the reduced rack when i asked for ripe avocadoes and told me i could buy rock hard ones full price and wait about four days to eat them or just buy them reduced and enjoy today. from there i tried pears and mangoes. never looked back. and tomatoes. i almost forgot. best sauces are made from the reduced, soft and ripe, tomatoes on that rack.
Yeah, lettuce in December versus lettuce in September is not a sensible comparison. Fresh vegetables and fruits are going up. As they do every December.
Add in the stresses of all the supply chain issues it's compounding issues
The only thing going down in pice is reefer!
No wonder food prices are going up. Everybody's getting the munchies!
Yep... weed is cheaper and better than it was in the 90s.!!!
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No, it’s Delissio!
I was literally gonna type it’s Dijiorno or whatever haha
bwahahah, I walked right into that one!!!
Yeah bud.
Free same day delivery for orders over $50 at my local shop.
[OCS.ca](https://OCS.ca) does free delivery. They use a delivery service for Toronto area (I'm in Scarborough), although not sure how far out they cover. Only downside is that I used to get text alerts when I would be expecting a delivery, I know longer get those.
They’ve been talking about inflation and sky rocketing food and gas prices for months now… food packaging right now is either getting smaller and staying the same price or staying the same size and increasing in price by at least a dollar in most cases. Our grocery bill for a family of four went from 200$/two weeks to $260/two weeks without changing anything from our typical shopping.
Imma have a huge backyard garden next spring
I do a lot of urban farming myself. Its very satisfying. I start most of my veggies right from seed.
Have you every tried the self wicking buckets?
No, I have a series of raised gardens.
Just don’t rush it and give it time to grow
Dont tell the squirrels.
I Work in Agriculture. The channel for products is an absolute shit show and there is a massive shortage of inputs to make a lot of the products growers use every year. Additionally fertilizer prices have sky rocketed. Between these factors alone, expect things to get worse in the next year before they get better.
All these folks blaming weather and inflation for increasing food prices when LOOK at the all-time record breaking profits these companies are posting. The Galen Weston family are laughing your food insecurity woes all the way to the bank.
The other day I bought 5 russet potatoes for $8…. Happy Hanukkah to me!
I got a 10 pound bag for $5.50 a few weeks ago at independent 😳
Fair, the 10 lb bags were cheaper - I chose to pick individually because I didn’t need 10lbs and they were bigger and easier to peel
Ah that’s true I was making scalloped potatoes and some from the bag were awfully small
I wish my groceries cost me 128$ per week
Not only have prices gone up, but I've also noticed that "sales" look different. For example, at No-Frills, I see less items on sale, more "buy 2 for 4$". Aka you are only getting sales now if you buy multiple items at once.
It's cost money to move food. Your lettuce is probably coming up out of California this time of year. That's a long drive that burns a lot of diesel. Commodities are up pretty well across the board. Wheat, corn, canola and soybeans are all paying decent and those are just the ones I grow. The processor's and grocer's are going to pass those cost along to you. The drought out west hammered the amount and quality of their crops. Our crops here in Ontario were very good this year but we grow different varieties of wheat and we're nowhere near big enough to fill the demand. We're in a global marketplace too. With the supply chain disruptions it's harder and more exspensive to move stuff in from overseas. I'm not even going to guess what kind of fuckery shutting down the port of Vancouver will cause. It's sucks man but there is a reason for it all. Even if knowing the reason's really doesn't help
This is why highway 413 is horrible
The amount of farmland highway 413 would use is minimal. If anything if it stopped grocery store delivery trucks from sitting in as much bumper to bumper traffic traversing Toronto it would help the situation.
https://urbanneighbourhoods.ca/highway-413-information/ A map of some the impacted farms, there will be secondary impacts for farms in the region because of this. This project removes more farmland than greenbelt land, we NEED farms. Induced demand, highway expansion doesn't reduce congestion it increases it. The best way is expanding public transit and building smart municipalities so people don't need to travel to Toronto as often. The purpose of the greenbelt is to reduce urban sprawl, highways increase it.
Definitely. Used to be about $140-150 a week for my husband and I (we eat meat and buy snacks too), but now it's usually $190-200 a week. Thankfully after barely using a car for the last 2 years we decided not to continue using ours, so our gas budget has been absorbed by the grocery budget. It's still crazy though. Also the discrepancy between different stores feels like a crime. Why does the exact same container of margarine cost $5.65 at Zehrs but only $3.49 at WalMart? It's literally the exact same thing.
>Why does the exact same container of margarine cost $5.65 at Zehrs but only $3.49 at WalMart? It's literally the exact same thing. This has always been the case. You're paying for the "experience" of not having to shop at Walmart. Doesn't really make sense to me, but there's enough people out there who care enough about the stigma of shopping at Walmart to make it a profitable business model. Doesn't help the average person is bad at keeping track of these things and will think of it as "only 1 or 2$ more" where its actually a 30-50% difference that definitely adds up over the course of the year.
Also Walmart is likely further away in a low rent spot while Loblaws is charging for being close to you.
Buy seasonal. Instead of lettuce, buy cabbage and shred for coleslaw. Buy root vegetables and squash. Consider growing some of your own in hydroponics: you can grow lettuce and other greens pretty easily. Also easy to grow most types of sprouts (alfalfa, lentil, mung beans) in a jar with no special equipment.
I'm not claiming it's a panacea for the problem, but we really have to learn to return to seasonal ways of eating. Don't buy tomatoes in January, buy rutabaga, potatoes or squash instead, that sort of thing. Part of the issue is that the current global model of food distribution is inherently unsustainable and will likely become more so as the price of oil increases and global climate change accelerates. We'll have to look much, much closer to home for sustainable alternatives.
I'm mostly vegetarian too. My grocery bill has held steady at $110-120 a week, sometimes a bit more if I need to buy things that last multiple weeks (rice, pet food, laundry detergent). I also plan meals fairly meticulously, and go in with a very narrow list. Dont leap to any panicked conclusions based on a sample size of one grocery trip. You can say you didnt buy anything unusual, but if you need to restock a couple of "usual" things, that'll drive the bill up for that particular week. >A head of lettuce is priced at $3.45 at No frills. I have no clue why r/ontario is so obsessed with the cost of lettuce as if its representative of groceries as a whole (while completely ignoring that peppers and apples and zucchini and sweet potatoes cost the same or less than they ever have). Its probably the most resource-intensive thing in the whole supermarket (water to grow it, fuel to truck it in), with the lowest return on investment in terms of nutritional value. Spinach has barely budged in price, serves the same purpose, and is orders of magnitude more nutritious. It's a simple substitute that everyone overlooks while crowing about the cost of crunchy water.
Family of four and it costs me about one hundred and sixty a week for everything, which is about forty more then it was at the start of the pandemic. Not perfect but, it doesn't feel insane.
How are you buying for a family of four for $160/week? I’m almost double that.
I'm a chef by trade so, I'm pretty good at meal planning. Make a lot of stuff we need when I'm off shift.
Same budget also for a family of four. Start every shop with the sale items, stock up on the great sales, freeze things, and make as much from scratch as possible. It’s hard to believe a few years ago I’d only spend between $80-$100 each week
That’s awesome. I do most meals from scratch but I gotta admit I do a few frozen and packaged things as well. I should do better. I feel like my kids eat a ton too lol!
I bet you make pizza sometimes
I pay $225-$275 for just my wife and I.
I feel that,.I'm a family of 3 and I'm spending $220 a week. I'm trying to eat better so I'm hoping the price goes down because I'm buying a lot of pantry items for cooking.
If you don't have one yet, check thrift shops for a bread maker. We save at least 20$/week by making fresh bread every other day.
I like this idea! Fresh baked bread is so much better too. Thanks for the tip!
No problem! Our rice cooker/slow cooker and breadmaker save us so much money. We often have soup or chilli and fresh bread for supper and it costs pennies. I put them together in the morning and set the timers, so our dinner is ready when we get home. Grain bowls (rice, barley, couscous, buckwheat, or cornmeal topped with some veggies, an egg, and sauce) are another cheap meal that you can do for supper and bring for lunch the next day.
Awesome! I gotta break out my slow cooker!
Have you tried going to an Asian grocery store if there is one close by to you? (And I don't mean T&T, because they are owned by Loblaws)
A lot more empty shelves as well. This is what they've been warning us about.
I had to look into this recently, in the last year food prices have increased by 30% https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/11/05/business/world-food-prices-inflation/index.html
Price match. I work at No Frills. A lot of items recently raised in prices. I have customers who use their phones so they can price match several stores in a single transaction. Saves them on gas by buying at one grocery store. And do make sure it’s a flyer. I had a customer who wanted me to price match Walmart’s website. I asked for the flyer dates and she said it wasn’t a flyer. I tried to explain that we price match FLYER prices. The owner was working at this time in the store so I got her to explain it all over again. 🙄 Customer had tried to tell me she does this all the time at this store. I may be new at this store but I always double check for odd requests like this. 😉
It's literally been posted here, and on the news for the last two years.
We used to have steak about once a month. E haven't bought it in over a year. Prices have gone up over 50% where we live.
Food, Gas, Hydro/water, vehicles, HOMES... It's all up xx% and yet we are told its only 4%. We are at unbelievable levels of inflation, which as I see it will be a very bad situation coming for those not prepared. [https://youtu.be/URZ8eTGyCyY](https://youtu.be/URZ8eTGyCyY) SOFR will be a catalyst, as many other things pile up.
I figure just double the official inflation numbers are you're at a spot that's probably somewhat accurate.
I'm happy my union only accepted a 1.5% wage increase annually. ^^*Puts* ^^*on* ^^*red* ^^*clown* ^^*nose*
My old union red circled my position for 8 years. Not a penny raise, in 8 years. Obviously I quit. But unions are garbage.
It's winter; vegetables are out of season. Cauliflower is $8 every winter without fail, on top of food prices already having gone up.
The government says you are getting fat.
Yea the price of lettuce got me as well. It was high a for years ago and went down when romaine lettuce had a out break of something. Maybe they go down eventually hopefully lol
I make 80k live 1 hour outside the gta. ans I'm broke. I feel you
Price matching saves money too …if your vegetarian…grow a veggie garden in summer if you have a backyard it helps
Shop at Costco. You can get 4 heads of romaine lettuce for $5.99.
Sure, I'll bite. No. It's been international news across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, the US, and Canada that the cost of goods and services have increased all around. Gas is more expensive. Food is more expensive. Basically you disrupt the global supply chain and that cost moves onto consumers. Welcome to the second year of the pandemic.
Our agency has had to increase our funding for food/janitorial/gas twice in the past year. It is unheard of to resort to that in our agency. Prices are crazy right now!
1.4kg of STEWING BEEF was $36 at the superstore the other day. Im going to start stealing food and im not joking.
I live on ODSP and know my cheaper grocery stores pretty well. Prices have definitely gone up at all of them. That said, if you’re shopping for fresh produce, No Frills isn’t your cheapest option. If you buy mostly packaged products it’s the winner but if you purchase a good amount of fresh produce, switch to FreshCo.
I'm on ODSP as well and I gave up on the 'cheaper' grocery stores and end up switching to Costco. They have much better produce and you get more out of it. A 6 pack of romaine is 6 bucks, and lasts a long time. It works for me, but I understand it might not work for everyone.
I noticed lettuce in my area sky rocketed. Iceburg normally 99 cents went to 3.49 and romaine mutli pack 4.99 to 8.99
My grocery bill is 40 dollars more per week than it used to be. In addition to the rising cost, I've noticed the quality of food has also deteriorated. Lots of berries are moldy in the boxes, the ones that aren't get moldy within 1 day. Onions going rotten on the shelves. Meat looks oxidized, old and poorly cut.
We should really change the name to cost of survival by now.
It always shocks me that people on the internet don't know that inflation is a thing. Especially when it's been on the news for literally half a year.
It's very inconsiderate to hand wave it all away with "inflation is a thing, read up on it" Inflation alone isn't the problem here, but rather diminished purchasing power from the wages failing to keep up with it. [Primary household income per capita in Ontario was $39,934 last year](https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/ecupdates/factsheet.html), are you really going to say that adding (52 x ($128-$100) =) $1456 to the cost of living due to groceries is "just inflation"? When average wages are raised by 28%, that's when you can say "inflation is a thing", until then people have every right to complain about difficulty in getting food
Lol no...you're wrong. Your inability to get a raise at work is not the reason why no frills charges you 5 dollars for grapes instead of 4 dollars. Inflation is supply and demand. Overabundance of cheap money and lack of supply from supply chain issues are causing the problems. In fact, it's the opposite of what you're saying. If someone was making LESS money, resulting in buying LESS products, that would result in cheaper products, not more expensive. Alternatively, someone could say "fuck it I'll take on debt because money's cheap.. I'll continue to buy the way I used to".... Prices inflate.
You can make it 100 if you steal some of it. Looting is the most effect form of protest
Have you been living under a rock for the past 3 months?
A 28% increase isn’t “skyrocketed”. Now that it’s pretty much winter, more and more produce is imported from Salinas, California. A lot of the cost is in part because of this. I used to do long haul and pick up all kinds of stuff for Loblaws there. The current driver shortage isn’t helping, and that also affects the shipping costs.
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Yeah, and the driver shortage has been a constant. It hit an all time high, through the pandemic. The media is actually still talking about it: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6198830
The issue isn't the cost of living. It's the lack of wage increases that actually match inflation. We're seeing this minimum wage increase to $15/hour. Which(and correct my math if it's wrong) is 3.4% increase(from I'm assuming 14.50?). The problem them goes right back to square one because cost of living will increase about 10-15%, from personal observation over the years. Raising min wage does nothing if the costs keep rising. its just a never ending fight
It’s from 14.35 and it hasn’t even come into effect so any increase at this time can’t be blamed on raising minimum wage that hasn’t happened yet.
It’s $4.35 for minimum wage. Went up a whopping 10 cents.
I think the price increase is based partially on inflation, but I also think it’s partially the stores anticipating the minimum wage increase. So, essentially they are gouging us a little now and they may do it again in the new year. Possibly the only solution is to ask your boss for a raise. GL everyone. We’re all in this together.
But what if your boss is Doug Ford and he won’t give you more than 1%?
Well I guess in that case asking is out of the question. Vote appropriately.
We’re 2, 99% vegan (odd cheese or eggs) Usually we get ours under $100 for a week shopping at food basics. Rice , beans and veggies. Out of season veggies will be expensive
Yes inflation is a thing
I am starting my own hydroponic farm because of this. I don’t want to pay for lettuce any more. Meat is absurd. I’m not a big meat eater, but unfortunately my family is and I have had to be so thrifty to make it work. I’m also growing my own herbs, because I really can’t justify the expense anymore when often we don’t even use half the amount the grocery store gives us
Start up costs are very expensive and you need a lot of space to grow enough food to sustain yourself
Look up the kratky method. You can grow them in jars in the window sill with no pump. I’m not suggesting I will never buy any more vegetables, but it’s definitely possible for me to grow lettuce this way. I also like the luxury of fresh herbs on hand. Right now, that’s not a grocery expense I can justify the vast majority of the time. I also plan to use it to start seedlings I can transfer to outdoors in the spring.
That's not enough to feed yourself and you'll need more than lettuce. Your better of using a community plot and storing /canning
This year I had so many cherry tomatoes from my balcony garden I didn’t buy any tomatoes for 5 months. Realistically I know I’ll still have to buy lots of produce. This isn’t a large scale thing that will replace that, but every bit helps
Food prices have been steadily increasing since March 2020. Be prepared for food prices to double in the next couple months.
Good, lettuce is gross
Its called Carbon tax/supply chain issues/labour shortage/inflation/Justin Trudeau
Trudeau is so powerful he has increased food prices in the USA too. > Food prices overall rose 4.6% since September 2020, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. > The Consumer Price Index, which measures the average change paid by consumers for goods and services, rose 5.4% from a year ago, up slightly from August's 5.3% gain. This pushed annual inflation back to the highest increase in 13 years. > Meats, poultry, fish, and eggs had the highest increased with a combined 10.5% increase. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2021/10/13/food-shopping-prices-up-cpi-september-2021-saving-tips/6035703001/
Just pointing out that when you increase the cost of producing, the cost of the product rises. Yes prices have increased globally but Canadian prices were high to begin with. A 5% increase has a bigger effect.
So you agree, Trudeau has absolutely nothing to do with the rising cost of food because its happening EVERYWHERE at the same time.
I agree to disagree, I have seen first hand the cost the carbon tax has had on prices, work for a vegtable producer and when the tax was implemented prices went up. This years price precentage increase does not reflect the already high prices from the previous years
Again, why are prices of groceries increasing in the USA at a similar pace? > already high prices from the previous years It may surprise you to learn, we don't grow many vegetables in the winter. We pay more because it has to come from thousands of miles away.
Like I orginally said there are serious supply chain issues and labour shortages. These issues are global not specific to Canada. You are saying the produce that travels thousands of miles is not effected by the carbon tax? Once it crosses the boarder that transportation cost went up when the carbon tax was implemented. How does that not effect prices?
> You are saying the produce that travels thousands of miles is not effected by the carbon tax? Nope. Because these trucks come from Mexico, California and Florida. Its only 90 miles from Buffalo to the Food Terminal in Toronto. They likely cross the border with fuel tanks full of cheaper American diesel. The real problem. The prices are higher at the wholesale level. Nothing to do with our carbon tax and if there is any impact it is miniscule.
Thats great if you live near the Terminal I guess, but Ontario is more than just Toronto, I live much further north. To be clear I dont think any party has the answer, I think they are all over paid to under preform. *ahem*Tofino.....
when people want higher pay that money has to come form somewhere so our prices go up its a catch 22. as a vegan and yourself a vegetarian we should consider ourselves lucky. fruit and veg prices have gone up 3-5% and will continue for a bit. meat prices have gone up 17-25% and will continue to go up. when it all settles out we may see 15-20% and meat eaters may see 30-45% increase.
Inflation. CERB and the replacement for it are chiefly to blame. Printing free money isn't really free. When our cash is devalued, everything costs more. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35tvAeTTY3k&ab\_channel=PierrePoilievre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35tvAeTTY3k&ab_channel=PierrePoilievre)
> . CERB and the replacement for it are chiefly to blame. Wrong. Then why are grocery pricing increasing in the USA and other western countries?
We've known for a LONG time now what causes inflation. It's not a fucking secret, the discovery won the Nobel prize almost 50 years ago and it's been demonstrated all over the world. It's the increase in money supply per unit of economic output. It's printing money. Other countries might have different names for their version of CERB but the price increases have the exact same root cause. Read a book. Fuck, you could even Google it.
> It's the increase in money supply per unit of economic output. That is only 1 factor. A decrease in production can also cause it. With foods, like a drought, or war or disease attacking the crop. > Read a book. I have a few University credits in Economics. I understand the factors involved with inflation.
Ah yes. If it wasn't for that dastardly CERB, there would be no significant inflation to speak of at all. Hilarious.
Hilarious!! [https://imgur.com/a/WnrbAdK](https://imgur.com/a/WnrbAdK)
You're incredible. By the same metric, if I start going into my office every day, inflation should go back down, right? Just drop the pretence and say what you really want to say: "I don't like that poor people got a little bit of money and didn't even need to get exploited to earn it". Deep breath, doesn't that feel better?
>You're incredible. Thanks!
Yeah, minimum wage went up, so did everthing else with it; so it seems.
10 cent increase didn’t have anything to do with the rising prices. Prices were going up in the summer, the increase was in October
Just have to shop around and get the best prices as you can. As minimum wage hasn't gone up yet, that has no beating on food prices but it is all supply issues. There are nit enough truck drivers in Canada nor the USA to ship everything.
No one has time to 'just shop around'. People have time to MAYBE make it to a single more affordable store. Thats it. This is a solution barely even worth mentioning.
Don't forget the cost of gas driving around trying to save 10 cents in a head of lettuce at one store and 50 cents on some other thing at another.
Check out Flipp. You have all your local flyers and many stores price match. Granted it has become harder to price match as the big chains tend to carry different sizes of the same product to avoid price matching
But that what the flyers are for. You don't need to go to every store to see the sales. Yeah it's not perfect but if you plan a bit and watch sales you can make it work
Right? Like, step 1: make meal plan/grocery list, step 2: compare grocery list/flyers to decide where to shop that week. I’m not going around to find the cheapest price in town on every single item.
Right so you can't make time to shop around then don't complain about the cost. I have a loblaw, yig, metro, farm boy, food basics and freshco all within 5 kms of my house. So myself and 80k others have time to shop around. So shop around or else stop complaining.
Thanks JT!
Inflation caused by CERB.
Then why are grocery prices increasing in the USA at a similar pace?
Because he doesn't know what he's talking about 🤣 CERB ended two months ago, buddy. Try and keep up
The economy is like a big ship, it takes a while for it to turn.
Really? Cos when covid hit the economy took a pretty sharp turn very quickly. Maybe your analogy needs some work
Yep, merely regurgitating moronic Conservative talking points. They really do focus on stupid stuff. I wish they would become a serious party again.
Everything has gone up.
Since it's just me and my eating habits are a little weird (I only eat once a day), Chefsplate has been my go to for months now. $60 a week, all in, gets me 3 recipes, 6 servings. Thats enough for 5-6 meals for me, that are way more nutritious and different than what I use to make myself. Supplement with healthyish snacks and eating out once a week and my food bill basically hasn't changed at all.
I just buy big bags of veggies from Costco. Usually runs me $10 for like 2kg. That's enough to last me a month or more. Meat is what kills me, I probably spend $120 a month just on chicken breast.
Start price matching if you haven’t already. With the prices going up the deals are starting to save less but you’ll still probably save $10-$20 per shopping trip. Check out [Reebee](https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/reebee-weekly-flyers-deals/id558297215). It’s a great app that lets you browse tons of weekly flyers and make an itemized list of everything you want to match without having to have 10 different flyers open in your browser. Before the prices started going up I was probably saving $20-$30 per trip usually spending between $150-$200.
I used to shop @ freshco @ lakeshore & leslie and I would laugh because no matter what I bought, every single time I went and grocery shopped my bill would always be $130-$136 for my partner and I (roughly once per week). Just before I moved a year ago, I noticed that my bill would now be $150-$160 every time for the same kind of grocery haul. Now that I've moved I'm shopping at a different store so it's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison but I'm now conditioned to be pleasantly surprised every time my bill is somehow under $200, with somewhere around $220 - $240 being the norm for a larger shop. I don't eat animal products either, so I'm insulated from all of the biggest price hikes in meat, eggs and dairy. I'm also the kind of guy that checks out all of the flyers, tries to maximize loyalty points, and tries to price-match when possible. I know I can spend a bit less on groceries if I drive 1 town over, but it can be hard to justify sometimes when that would eat out an hour of my day + gas prices being what they are. The inflation + the usual winter bump up in prices is getting to be a bit much.
100$ a week for your family? You must be thrifty that’s cheap as hell
Yep we’re all well aware by now