Kvetching about grocery prices

The short version of this post is that prices are really high and I don't like it. If you don't want the number crunching I'm about to do, you can now move along and feel as though you have the main point.

Can you tell I went grocery shopping today? I have to say that I found one of the bright spots of my children getting older and moving out on their own to be the idea of lower food costs because I was feeding fewer people. If only... 

When I was routinely feeding at least twelve people every meal, I was able to keep my weekly shopping trip to around $150 dollars. This was not my total food budget because I stocked up twice a year with a bulk order of staples, I have been buying a side of beef for a very long time, and paper products I bought at a big box store. A larger than average bill was heading past $175 and a huge stock up trip or major holiday was a bit over $200. I'll remind everyone again, this was for at least twelve people for every meal. It was also not that very long ago; definitely within the past ten years. 

For the past several months my Aldi bill has hovered around $200. Aldi, people. You know, the cheap store? I shudder to imagine what it would be at a major chain. This often did not include fruit and specialty items I don't buy at Aldi. I'm probably averaging around $220 a week at this point. But the worst part is this is for only eight people. In theory, my grocery bill should have gone down, but it very much has not. I figured if I was still feeding twelve, it would probably be at least $250 a week. 

Today my grocery cart was hardly full, comparatively. We are having a lot of salads this week and I'm using some things I have on hand. Plus, Aldi was experiencing some supply issues today and the shelves were empty, so there were several things I couldn't buy. Still, the bill was $170. (I'd already spent $40 at another store for fruit and such.) It got me to wondering what the average cost per item was, so I counted. 

I had 74 items in my cart which meant the average cost was $2.30/item. As I mentioned, this was a lot fewer items than I typically buy, and certainly fewer than when I was shopping for twelve. I did more math. Figuring I probably bought around a hundred items when I was feeding the most people and using $160 as an average bill, the cost per item would have been $1.60. This kind of feels like an astronomical increase. 

So the types of items bought does make a difference. In general I buy ingredients and not premade food. Today's premade food included crackers, French bread and bagels, and frozen dumplings. The French bread I would probably have made myself, but that's hardly a high ticket item. Everything else would have been typical with more people as well. 

Meat can also be a big ticket item. Today I bought chicken (which I usually buy with every single shopping trip), one pound of shrimp at Aldi (so less than the chicken, actually), and two packages of bacon. That is considered a splurge, both then and now. That's it. We're doing a lot of meatless salads or using beef from the freezer this week. 

Cheese... This can also add up, but I actually bought less cheese than I typically do. 

Other splurges... I always buy a treat for teatime on grocery day, and then that's it unless someone bakes. I also bought a half gallon of ice cream because it will be a good dessert on a super hot day. We don't always have dessert; usually only when someone bakes.

The rest of my cart was vegetables, staples such as milk, and other basic ingredients. It just seemed like an inordinate amount of money for what I bought, most of which is not ready to eat and requires cooking. 

It's just depressing. At this rate I'll be spending even more when it's just four of us.