Is it just my imagination?

catsareniice1

or have the prices for groceries gone up like crazy over the past 5 years or so?

catsareniice1

Must be Bush's fault lol

vlagrl29

you crack me up!  It's actually the tea-parties fault now.  Those dang terrorists!  Personally I don't think the groceries have gone up that much.  We are averaging about $400-$450/month on groceries for a family of 3.  We buy a lot of off brands and try to catch sales, buy meat in bulk, etc.

catsareniice1

That's not bad. I am finding in my area prices to be much higher than they used to be and packages shrinking bigtime which is another way of doubling prices in a sense.

vlagrl29

When I was single and not really couponing, I would pay $240/month at the grocery store.  That was 6 years ago.  I coupon crazy now, but not to where it takes over my life or anything like that.

LuckyDad

There has been pretty bad inflation in some food prices. It's a mix of factors; increased chinese demand for beef, for example, has driven up both the price of beef and the price of grain to feed those cows. Investment in biofuel technology probably is also taking grain away from our food supply.

The big one is rising energy prices (again, largely thanks to increased demand from countries like China and India) are making food transportation a lot more expensive, which is a big part of customer final price.

Oddly enough, Farmer's Markets by me now look a lot more affordable than they once did, because they have not inflated at the same rate as grocery store prices.

vlagrl29

I LOVE Farmer's Markets.  We started going earlier this fall, but they are closed now for the season.  I did hear something about milk possibly going up to $8/gallon if the Farm bill did not pass.  I can't even imagine paying that much for milk!  Might as well buy a cow. LOL