We have all suffered so many price increases in the past couple of years. When do we say enough is enough? I know I have had enough when it comes to a lot of food items. I just won’t buy them anymore.
For example, eggs were getting ridiculously high. The last time I purchased them, I had decided I would not buy them again until the price came down. I have a small stockpile of powered eggs that really taste pretty good. So once the 60 count of eggs that I bought were gone, we were going to dig into them. I also had many eggs frozen that we could use.
However I am noticing that all of a sudden, the prices are going down on a dozen. They are still 3 times higher here than they were in 2020 but if they continue to come down, I will consider purchasing them again. Someone asked me why they are coming down? I have two thoughts on that. One is that people weren’t buying them because the prices were too high. So supply and demand kicked in. The large stores starting lowering them because they weren’t selling them. The smaller stores followed them. The second is that they aren’t killing as many chickens as they were because of the “bird flu”. Who knows the truth?
But I am going with the stores weren’t selling them because the prices were too high. These large companies like Walmart, Kroger( who is about to become huge with the addition of Albertson’s), Trader Joe’s, Amazon, etc. are all about their profits. If they have to throw away eggs because they aren’t selling, they lose money.
I realize that these companies costs have gone up because of the oil pipelines being shut down, shipping costs going up, etc. But I don’t see the little wholesale guys profits rising as fast as these large corporations profits are. I really do have to wonder if we aren’t being price gouged on a lot of items. I also have to wonder if the Clinton administration hadn’t sent all of our manufacturing to China, would we be having these problems?
If supply and demand is kicking in on the eggs, shouldn’t that also work on other items? It always has before this. So perhaps we should just say no to items that we feel are too high to purchase anymore. If we stop buying them, perhaps they will lower those prices.
I am sure that all of you recently have said no to some food that has just become way too costly to buy. Perhaps we should do this more often.
We have given up junk food and soda(colored and flavored water). They have no nutritional value and the prices are outrageous.
I rarely buy red meat even though we love it. If a roast that I can slow cook is $4.99 a lb., I will buy it but it is much higher in price most of the time. We are eating more cost friendly chicken like breasts at $1.99 a lb. and drumsticks, thighs, and whole chickens at $.99 a lb. When they go that low, I stock my freezer. I also can chicken when I get a great deal! Pork is sometimes on sale so we will buy a little but not much. We are not big pork eaters with the exception of bacon. Bacon has come down a little bit from it’s high so I stock when I see a decent price. But it still needs to come down more. We are eating more rolls of pork cut into sausage patties. I got those on clearance for $ 1.49 a lb. at Aldi’s months ago. I bought 20 rolls. That helps with the cost of our Sunday breakfasts. I also canned a lot of ground beef when it was on sale for $2.99 a lb. over a year ago.
We no longer buy salmon or other fish that has risen too high in price. We have some in the freezer and will eat that.
I don’t buy canned soup. We still have some cream of chicken that I purchased over 2 years ago for casseroles. But most soups are cheap to make from scratch and that is what we do.
We buy the cheapest veggies and fruits on sale and in season. We can our own tomatoes from our garden.
There are so many more items that we don’t buy. Heavy whipping cream is no longer on our list because of the price. Half and Half is about to be gone too. We will use powered milk, Nestle Crema, evaporated milk and powdered creamer instead. If I needed butter, I would not be paying over $5. to $6. a lb. for it. Fortunately, I stocked up at Thanksgiving for $ 2.69 a lb. If we didn’t have the cheap butter, we would substitute our shelf stable coconut oil or ghee that we already have.
We also no longer buy paper napkins, paper towels, cleaning products, makeup or liquid soap. We have converted our soap at the sinks in the house to bar soap. We are using up what we already have.
I see so many people in my stores go to the meat counters, look at the prices, and then walk away. So I can’t be the only one doing this.
Most importantly, we are eating the proper portions of our food which is a huge savings by itself.
Please comment and let us know what you are no longer buying because of the prices. Are you going without or substituting something else?
