Rising food prices and you?

[SeaCat]

Yes the price of food is rising. I can see it by comparing prices in my local grocery store. It's not going up quite as fast as the gas prices but it is going up.

In a news report in the local news they were asking people how this is changing the way in which they buy food. The things people are doing is amazing and scary.

On the other hand it really hasn't changed my way of shopping for food that much. I have always been careful buying food. I watch for sales and buy in bulk then. I went out and bought a medium sized chest freezer so I can do this.

Another thing I do is repackage everything before I freeze it, especially meats. Freezing things like meats in their store packaging often leads to it being ruined because of freezer burn. I have a vacuum bagging system and all meats are sealed in these bags. Things like rolls and Bisquits are treated the same way.

Leftovers? The same thing. They are put into special containers and vacuum packed.

Also everything is used. Bones from Chickens or meats? All are packed away and frozen until I have enough to boil for a soup stock. The same for those little scraps of leftover meat. Those small amounts of veggies left over. Not enough to be used the next day? They get tossed in a vacuum tub in the freezer and used in a soup or stew.

Having grown up the way I have food is almost sacred. Nothing is wasted. Because of this the rising food prices don't really bother me.

So my question to you is: How are the rising food prices affecting you? What do you do to minimize the impact?

Cat

 

[DesertPirate]

Time to hit the reloading bench, the range, and get ready for fall!
Deer season, will get all 6 this year

 

[JagFarlane]

Definatly do all my grocery shopping at the commisary now heh. Honestly though, other than changing stores haven't changed too much. Dad had gotten me in the habit of coupon clipping and learning how to shop back when I was a teen so...still able to make out ok

 

[rgraham666]

When food prices change I pretty much have to suck it up.

I'm not mobile enough to comparison shop. I have no place to store bulk buys. Hell I can't even count on finding enough cooking implement, silver and table wear to have a sit down meal.

So I shrug and cut back on other things.

 

[SemiColon]

I am a terrible shopper. I clip coupons and always leave them at home, next to my grocery list. I just suck it up and bitch.

I miss the commisary!

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

http://bp3.blogger.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SCu3bliEs_I/AAAAAAAAEiM/y-IBJ5S7GdM/s1600-h/food.bmp

Source: USDA.


Edit: Oh shoot, the image doesn't appear. It's a chart showing "US food expenditures as a share of disposable personal income," with the number falling from 24 percent to around 10 percent, and the current rise barely visible on that scale.

What's going on still sucks - especially because its mostly a government-created problem (thank you, immoral ethanol rent seekers and shameless politicians exploiting misplaced 'green guilt' to feed them) - but it's worth noting how good we have it compared to all past generations in the history of h. sap.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

One of my few talents is the knack for eating cheaply.

I planted a garden with all the veggies I use lots of...like tomatoes and bell peppers and spinach and lima beans.

 

[R. Richard]

I use coupons, buy store brands, buy in bulk and watch for sales. Still, week by week I see my grocery bill go up.

I have to travel on an unpredictable schedule, frequently with no notice. Thus, I can't grow a garden.

I make enough money to be able to afford the food I need. However, each time I go shopping I see the poor and the elderly trying to cope. It's not a fun thing to have to watch. Sometimes I don't have to watch, because the poor and the elderly go to the downtown food bank and trade their dignity for enough to eat.

When I read the news, I read that idiot politicians are using food to make motor fuel. I can't do anything about the problem. You can't do anything about the problem. Lucrezia could do something useful about the problem. However, the scumbags won't let Lucrezia talk to the idiot politicians about the problem. The last is a racial problem. Lucrezia is not a human being. Lucrezia is my 10 guage shotgun.

 

[Quinn71]

I recently saw a cartoon in the local newspaper. Express line at the grocery store. Instead of reading "10 items or less" it read "$100 or less"

 

[Weird Harold]

http://bp3.blogger.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SCu3bliEs_I/AAAAAAAAEiM/y-IBJ5S7GdM/s1600-h/food.bmp

Source: USDA.


Edit: Oh shoot, the image doesn't appear. It's a chart showing "US food expenditures as a share of disposable personal income," with the number falling from 24 percent to around 10 percent, and the current rise barely visible on that scale.

The attachment is your image downsized a bit and converted to a JPeG.

I'm seriously leery of charts that show percentages against a variable as if only one value changes.

I'm also still puzzled as to how "Food" comes out of "disposable" income. Yes, I know that it's because my conception of what "disposble income" is differs from the USDA definition -- but by their definition, I have nothing BUT "disposable income" while by mine, I have less than $100 a month that I have any discretion about how it is spent.

The questions your chart raises, are:

1) how much did "disposable income" as a percentage of gross income change over that time scale.

2) Adjusted for inflation, what are the absolute numbers for food costs and "disposable income?"

 

[English Lady]

I've really noticed the price of fresh fruit and veg go up. I used to be able to pick up oranges, bananas and apples for a week's ocnsumption for about £3 but now it's pretty much double that. I find I shop for fruit and veg more often, picking up the very ripe (and cheaper) stuff and using it the same day.

Meat has gone up, too and so I rarely buy a full price piece of meat. I buy it close to it's sell by date and freeze it then find recipes to use up whatever I've bought.

i just don't buy luxury "treat" items as much any more and we hardly ever have a take out, it's just too expensive.

 

[Guest]

I don't buy processed foods so the bill is cheaper than some pay. I do what EL does by buying a little more often.

 

[Liar]

So food prices are rising? Could be in part because we throw away so bloody much of it.

One thing I don't compromise with is food. I buy, cook and eat high quality food. But that doesn't have to be expensive if planned right. The big expense is not the stuff I eat, but the stuff that never gets eaten.

Like EL was aimimng at, smart shopping is the key. Processed pre-packed meals are both expensive and unhealthy (over sweetened for "flavor enhancement" nine times out of ten). Meat with a close expiration date is still top notch, but you cook it the same day or freeze it. Veggies are cheaper (and most of the time fresher) from the stand outside the supermarket. Bread is best in the morning from a bakery and half the price compared to the stuff in plastic bags in the grocery aisles. I need to take a 15 minute stroll to get to my local bread place, but it's not like I don't need the excersise anyway. And most of all, I've gotten into the habit of planning carefully what I need to buy, and how much.

Not really for the economy, but becayse I hate taking out the trash.

 

[shereads]

Just saw a news feature about the practice of "short-sizing" products (reducing the package size by a subtle amount while keeping the price the same). Ticks me off. I'd rather see an honest price rise than be tricked into paying the same amount for a narrower box of cornflakes that takes up the same visible space on the store shelf.

:mad

"Farging bastages!" ~ A Christmas Story

 

[SlickTony]

Just saw a news feature about the practice of "short-sizing" products (reducing the package size by a subtle amount while keeping the price the same). Ticks me off. I'd rather see an honest price rise than be tricked into paying the same amount for a narrower box of cornflakes that takes up the same visible space on the store shelf.

:mad

"Farging bastages!" ~ A Christmas Story

Preach it sister! It makes following recipes harder, and worse still, it insults the buyer's intelligence. Do they honestly think we don't notice?

The problem I have with coupons is that so many of them are for processed food. I'd love it if I saw a coupon for 50 cents off on grapes.

Speaking of, what I've noticed is that fruit that should be coming down in price at this time of the year is NOT. Everything seems to be up. I've taken to buying my milk at Walgreen's half the time--for reasons unclear to me, it seems to be almost a dollar cheaper there than it is at Publix.

I hate buying cereal at the grocery, and avidly look for sales; barring that, I buy the bulk bags of it at Wal-Mart, or I buy it at places like Family Dollar, where the price is more commensurate with what the stuff really costs. I always wonder how much of the price of a box of cereal goes to the corn or wheat farmer, when cereal seems to be made of a little bit of corn, wheat or rice, and the rest of it's high fructose corn syrup, air, and hype.

I don't understand the rationale behind using food-grade corn to make ethanol, except as a favor to corn farmers. It makes no more sense than putting a bottle of Glenlivet into your gas tank.

 

[emap]

Slick you reminded me of a news peice I saw a couple days ago I think, maybe sooner. They were talking to an actual corn farmer, and they were asking about how much better he is doing because the cost of corn is up.

At least this one farmer didn't see an inflation of income because the cost of the gas he buys to do all the farming stuff he does, went up so he breaks even. Honestly, I don't think the ethanol thing does much of anything for anyone besides the politicians who pressured for this and bought up huge amounts of corn. Not to mention the traders who bought up corn either before the ethanol push or just after before prices went much higher.

Heck far as I know, ethanol right now is more expensive than making the same amount of gas so why we are pushing to do switch to that is rather beyond me. They have those neat I don't remember what they are called but they produce water as an exhaust and use water as the fuel. Hopefully someone will come along and know what the heck I'm talking about cause I don't remember what they are called.

 

[Weird Harold]

Heck far as I know, ethanol right now is more expensive than making the same amount of gas so why we are pushing to do switch to that is rather beyond me.

We're pushing to increase the amount of ethanol in motor fuels because people with influnce (money) convinced congress that corn was America's best feedstock for producing ethanol.

Ethanol has been in almost all US gasoline for years as an "oxygenate" to make gasoline burn cleaner, so it was rather easy to sell the idea to our gullible congress-critters that it is a viable route to "energy independence" as well as "reducing our carbon footprint."

Ethanol per se isn't the problem, the problem is congress-critters that are more interested in the appearance of "doing something about the problem" than they are about reality.

The fact that Brazil has acheived energy independence by using Ethanol for 40% of their motor fuels simply encouraged congress to act without thinking in trying to do the same. Brazil took 30 years to acheive energy dependence through increased use of ethanol, Congress tried to mandate the US do it in ten with an economy ten times the size of Brazil's.

They have those neat I don't remember what they are called but they produce water as an exhaust and use water as the fuel. Hopefully someone will come along and know what the heck I'm talking about cause I don't remember what they are called.

What you describe -- using water as a fuel to create water vapor as exhaust -- is called a perpetual motion machine or a "confidence game." Anyone who tries to sell you something to enable running your car on water is trying to rob you.

I suspect you're thinking of "Fuel Cells" which use hydrogen to generate electricity. They're not a solution for fueling existing vehicles and replacing everything with fuel-cell electrics isn't something that can happen overnight even if production of new internal combustion engines were outlawed completely.

Fuel cells simply can't be built fast enough, in sufficient quantities, to generate enough power to replace internal combustion engines in tranportation -- especially transportation of goods.

 

[ishtat]

Hidden costs

The Farm Bill This bill approved by congress is one can reasonably say the largest subsidy system paid to a single interest group anywhere in the world. It is bigger now by far than the entire EU Common Agricultural policy. It is also bigger per farmer than the absurd subsidies paid in Europe or Japan.

Its existence alone qualifies The USA to be described accurately as a socialist state as it is the means by which vast quantities of money are extracted from relatively poor taxpayers to pay relatively wealthy farmers( About 62% of all Farm bill subsidies go to farmers earning in excess of $200,000 per annum)

How do ordinary Americans feel about paying these immense sums to Agri- business? It seems to me that through this distortion of the market Americans are paying far more for their food than they perhaps realise.

 

[R. Richard]

What you describe -- using water as a fuel to create water vapor as exhaust -- is called a perpetual motion machine or a "confidence game." Anyone who tries to sell you something to enable running your car on water is trying to rob you.

Quite a few years back some wise guys developed a 'pill' that would allow a driver to pull into a filling station, fill the tank of a car with water, drop in the pill, wait for a while and then drive off. It actually worked. However, the pill was far more expensive than the gasoline it replaced.

 

[Liar]

Quite a few years back some wise guys developed a 'pill' that would allow a driver to pull into a filling station, fill the tank of a car with water, drop in the pill, wait for a while and then drive off. It actually worked. However, the pill was far more expensive than the gasoline it replaced.

I hope you don't mean this guy.

 

[Weird Harold]

I hope you don't mean this guy.

As a result of such shenanigans, Guido was hauled into court a couple times, once in 1954 and again in 1979, on charges of fraud. He was acquitted the first time--the prosecution's expert witness admitted it was possible Guido's Mota fuel really worked. But he wasn't as lucky the second time. A witness testified that Guido had once admitted that he'd substituted aviation fuel for the water by sleight-of-hand, and prosecutors showed that he'd taken $20,000 from various parties and given nothing in return. Guido was convicted and given five years probation.

Like I said, "Your car can run on water" == "I'm trying to rob you."

 

[rgraham666]

One thing I've noticed in my local grocery store. The no name brands seem to be disappearing. A lot of them aren't stocked anymore.

Adds yet more to my grocery bill.

 

[Weird Harold]

One thing I've noticed in my local grocery store. The no name brands seem to be disappearing. A lot of them aren't stocked anymore.

Adds yet more to my grocery bill.

aren't stocked, or aren't being made?

I haven't noticed a reduction in "store brand" generics, but I could easily see small independent processing plants being bankrupted by rising costs.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Slick you reminded me of a news peice I saw a couple days ago I think, maybe sooner. They were talking to an actual corn farmer, and they were asking about how much better he is doing because the cost of corn is up.

At least this one farmer didn't see an inflation of income because the cost of the gas he buys to do all the farming stuff he does, went up so he breaks even. Honestly, I don't think the ethanol thing does much of anything for anyone besides the politicians who pressured for this and bought up huge amounts of corn. Not to mention the traders who bought up corn either before the ethanol push or just after before prices went much higher.

Heck far as I know, ethanol right now is more expensive than making the same amount of gas so why we are pushing to do switch to that is rather beyond me. They have those neat I don't remember what they are called but they produce water as an exhaust and use water as the fuel. Hopefully someone will come along and know what the heck I'm talking about cause I don't remember what they are called.

It's called hydrogen, or hydrogen cells, or something like that. When H burns, it produces water, and I think it is made by running an electric charge through water. This is elementary high school chemistry, but that was a long time ago, when we were trying to make gld out of dirt.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I do a large part of my grocery shopping at Costco, and have a freezer and a big pantry. I also watch for specials, but somethimes I just have to suck it up. Yesterday, I bought a fifty pound bag of rice, and paid more than twice what it cost about two months earlier. Rice is about the main staple we have, because my wife wants to eat it at least once every day, and sometimes as often as three times.