When some things get more expensive, you can choose cheaper alternatives or skip them completely. Unfortunately, food is not one of those things! Eating has gotten more expensive along with everything else over the last couple of years, whether you’re eating out or cooking in. For lack of a better phrase, it’s taking a bigger bite out of our monthly budgets! Let’s take a look at what’s driving the price of food through the roof.
Here are Five Fast Facts on skyrocketing food prices:
- 💲🍲 Historic Proportions - Back in 1991, Americans spent 11.4% of their income on food as the country recovered from high inflation in the 1970s. In 2022, we were back up to 11.3%. Not exactly the historic achievement we want to see, there.
- 🍽️ Restaurants Under Pressure - In addition to the massive inflation, restaurants are also juggling higher minimum wage rates in 22 states. All of this combined has forced a price increase of over 5% in January 2023 compared to the year before. If you want a piece of cheese on your burger, you’d better really want it!
- 🍟 Food Companies Aren’t Immune - Non-restaurant food companies are also feeling the pinch. They’ve also got rising labor costs, along with sharply higher costs for some ingredients like cocoa. Some things have come back down in recent months – like corn, wheat, coffee beans, and chicken – but others have kept surging upward, like sugar, beef, or french fries. OBVIOUSLY, we can’t be expected to eat out without french fries.
- 📉 Eating Out - The result of all this is that people aren’t eating out as much. Several restaurant chains – including Denny’s and Wendy’s – stated recently that their customer levels were lower than even two years ago! Things like appetizers and large drinks are also being ordered less often. This is leading to lower profits and further price increases to compensate. #sadspiral
- 🏠 Home Cooking - If you’re cooking for yourself, you can swap more expensive ingredients for store brands, buy in bulk (hello Costco and Sam’s Club!), or use coupons to help trim off a bit here and there. Of course, with more Americans working multiple jobs than ever before, it can be tough to find the time (and energy) to cook a good meal at home! 💤
🔥Bottom line: This is a pickle, no doubt! Unfortunately, there’s really no end in sight, as you can’t point to any particular time in recent history where food prices have gone down significantly (cumulative inflation is really nasty). We just have to do our best to cut costs where we can to ease the pressure on our budgets as much as possible. Oh, and elect leaders who will be more responsible with local, state, and federal policies. That might help, too!
What are your best money saving tips around food?
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