Things have calmed down mostly. The cost of shipping a container across the ocean is back to normal, so imported items should stop going up and possibly go down. The low wage earners have gone up and that will stay, so eating out will stay higher than before. Price of gas is mainly determined by the worldwide market and we should see it go down some now that Summer is almost over.
I think many companies have pushed the limit on how much they raised their prices and people are changing behavior.
Grocery and gas prices are ticking-up again. I found a way to help. We got an Amazon Prime Visa card and started buying our groceries on Amazon Fresh. 5% cash back for that. Use it for everything, and apply the points every month to your grocery bill. It will bring your food cost to lower than Wal-Mart. We were doing the same thing with our Apple Card. We used the Apple Cash for Costco, but the wife hates using Apple Pay. Kroger, WalMart, and HEB have similar cards. Sure we can afford more expensive groceries…but if it saves money, I’ll take it.
I reviewed the prices on things I buy on Amazon Fresh. I am not impressed. Every item I buy that is sold on Amazon Fresh seems to cost more than I pay now, often far more. Some examples are below:
Fruits – Average price on Fresh is ~double what I pay now. For example, this weekend I purchased bananas and a mini watermelon. Both are sold on Amazon Fresh for at least double what I paid.
Frozen Vegetables – After adjusting for package size (12 vs 16 oz), Amazon’s brand is roughly double Walmart’s.
Cereal – The two cereals I buy most often were sold at more than double the price I typically pay (sometimes buy on sale) on Amazon Fresh.
Bagged Rice and Beans – 30% more for rice and ~double for beans
Milk – 70% more than Walmart
Bottled Water – Would be only 25% more, if I didn’t buy with award points. However, I get 2 128 oz bottles for a single $1 grocery reward point, making it equivalent of more than triple.
Rotisserie Chicken – Not available on Fresh?
In previous years before the recent inflation, I used to buy most items at my local supermarket. With the rapidly increased prices during inflation, I became more aware of price changes and started buying items at the grocer that charges the lowest price between Walmart, Costco, and my local supermarket. I go to my Walmart/Costco each ~3 weeks and stock up on specific grocery items during those visits. I go to my local supermarket each week, when I happen to be in the nearby plaza.,
For most grocery items, either Walmart or Costco is lowest. However, when my local supermarket has a good sale, they sometimes are lower. For example, my local Vons has a sale this week during which many prices are substantially reduced to $1 such as $1 for Shredded Wheat cereal, $1 for 1lb bags of frozen vegetables, $1 for tissue boxes, etc. I stocked up on several items during this event that I do not normally purchase at Vons.
I think I would apply for Citibank Custom Cash. By choosing 5% for grocery, I think we can save a lot. We also use Citi Double Cash that I use to pay for everything but grocery and gas (literally everything - all bills). We used PenFed 5% back for gas. I do not believe that Amazon Fresh is the cheapest option for groceries. I used shop a lot at Trader, but they became too pricey. I find myself quite a lot at Aldi these days and at Costco for everything bulky and on sale…
It depends how you define “a lot.” Citibank Custom Cash gives 5% cash back for up to $500 spent After $500, it goes down to 1% cash back. So if you spend exactly $500, then switch to a different card without hitting the 1% cash back. You could save a maximum of $500 * (5% - 2%) = $15 over a standard 2% on everything card. I am single and don’t spend $500/month on groceries, so for me the savings would be closer to $9 .
In contrast, choosing the lowest price of 3 groceries as described above saves me approximately $170/month over choosing my nearest supermarket, like I did in previous years… a completely different order of magnitude. For groceries, my experience is that comparing prices, taking advantage of sales, and similar saves far more than possible with differences in cashback on cards. I was just at Walmart today. They had a lot of frozen items I buy at “clearance”, with some discounted as much as 80% below their usual prices.
Totally agree. We spend a lot on food and we do not shop in luxury places. With one shared account for me and kids in college (not on meal plans) and one for DH (he gets to stores more often), we can have $1000 a month for food. $1000 a month would give $200 per person a month for family of 5 and about $50 a week. This is like minimum with current prices for survival :).I will happily take $600 back a year out of 12K.
BTW - comparing prices is great (and we do it), but I do not have time to drive all around town for a sale (used to do it when was younger). The nearest Walmart is 13 miles away. Gas is expensive, so sometimes Amazon Prime wins (due to my laziness :)) I actually thinking to drop Prime. It became very expensive and hard to justify…
One thing I do(and I’m a little nerdy this way), is put my grocery list on 3 different apps to compare. Sometimes the best price is Kroger, sometimes it’s Target, etc. Wal-Mart tends to be the cheapest…but you get what you pay for. Amazon tends to be the most expensive, but they have superb quality, and the 5% cash back card, can lower costs by a fairly significant amount. What we might do is use the Best Buy Visa card for all our purchases and use the points for electronics instead. I might be able to buy that cool stereo I always wanted. I should have enough for it by the year 2065.
We have a Walmart, Aldi, Jewel(Chicagoland store) and a smaller grocer in our area. All within 2-4 miles from our house. Back in the day when my wife wasn’t working she would hit three of those places in a week. We cut that down to Walmart(pick-up orders) and Jewel. We have an Jewel app that gives you some good deals.
But alas we are now empty nesters starting on Sunday night. We had cereal for dinner on Monday. Tuesday we had some pub burgers in the freezer and ate just those no extras like fries. Tonight is frozen pizza. Life is good.
Glad you’re enjoying empty nest life. If my daughter chooses to go away to college, we will officially bear that title next year. I need to stock-up on the cereal and pub burgers
The quality varies depending on what you buy. Many grocery foods are packaged and sold by a 3rd party unrelated to the grocer, with same quality. For example if I buy Cheerios cereal at Walmart, its the same as Cheerios cereal from Amazon. However, if I buy Great Value Toasty O’s , it’s not the same cereal as Amazon Toasted Oats. My experience is you often need to try the product and review, rather than make assumptions about quality. Continuing with the cereal example above, I find Walmart Toasted O’s to be superior to Cheerios. If both products were the same price, I’d choose Walmart Toasted O’s over Cheerios. Some specific examples for other products are below:
Oatmeal – All grocery brands I’ve tried are far inferior to Quaker Oats, so always get Quaker. Same quality for Quaker Oats at all grocers.
Milk – Walmart has edge in quality/taste over others (may relate to tending to have longer expiration dates)
Rotisserie chicken – One of the foods with the most stark difference in quality/taste between grocers. First choice is Vons, 2nd is Costco, 3rd is Walmart.
Produce – If I want high quality fruit, don’t choose any of these. Among the 3 groceries listed above, Costco is by far the worst, perhaps because I need to buy in bunches rather than being able to choose individual fruits without damage or being overripe.
Dried rice and beans – I avoid Costco due to large minimum size. I do not note a have a preference in taste between others.
Frozen Items – Most are sold by 3rd party, so same quality with different groceries. For store brand frozen vegetables, Vons has the edge on most items (not all) over Walmart.
I also find notable differences in quality of shopping experience between the different grocers. Among the 3 grocers noted above, Walmart is most likely to be out of stock of items I buy. The store itself is also most likely to have negative quality issues. For example, when I went to today, the windows to the frozen foods were fogged up too much to see without opening door, and an employee doing pickup for online orders was blocking much of isle with a giant cart. Customer service is often more limited.
Costco tends to be larger and more crowded than others, leading to a longer time to do shopping. However, the store is designed well, including with a well thought out checkout plan. My bigger issue is the limited selection of items I buy and often having limited options for non-bulk sizes.
My local supermarket tends to be in stock of items, has a decent selection (not as good as Walmart), and does not require buying in bulk; but non-sale prices are by far the most expensive. Checkout and customer service quality is highly variable. I’ve had some great experience where employees went out of the way to assist. And I’ve also have some bad enough experiences to consider avoiding the store and shopping elsewhere in the future.
I find eating healthy costs the same as getting prepackaged food, but I go to the doctor less often, which saves us a lot more money in the long run. I’ve taken-up running. How far THAT goes is anyone’s guess, but at my age, I don’t have much of a choice, or my wife will take it upon herself to lovingly remind me every 5 minutes.
Or could cost you a lot more money in the long run. Only time will tell.
I’m not suggesting your approach is wrong per-se, just that not going to the Dr. is a financial and lifespan gamble. There’s certainly people that live to 100 having never had a regular check-up though.
People often confuse this point. You’re taxed more on the incremental income, but not on the whole thing. People tend to think that’s what happens though.
Part of the confusion is driven by situations where someone works a lot of overtime or gets a bonus or something and the algorithm for taxing that amount pulls out an amount as though the person will get that amount every pay period so they see taxes jump on that particular pay stub.
All works out at the end of the year when you file taxes though.
Are you referring to the applicable tax rate for special or one-time pay, which I have always thought was some minimal amount set by the IRS? (28% I think?)
I was referring to someone who is an hourly employee. And then in a pay period they work a bunch of overtime and when they review their pay stub they see a higher (proportional) amount of taxes taken out. If someone is normally in the 12% brackets and then they get 22% (I believe one-time is 22%) taken out it may confuse them.
Inflation is still with us. It is still requiring everyone to pay more for just about everything.
Value of $1 from 2020 to 2023
$1 in 2020 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.18 today, an increase of $0.18 over 3 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 5.71% per year between 2020 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 18.11%.
This means that today’s prices are 1.18 times as high as average prices since 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 84.746% of what it could buy back then.
The inflation rate in 2020 was 1.23%. The current inflation rate compared to last year is now 3.18%. If this number holds, $1 today will be equivalent in buying power to $1.03 next year. The current inflation rate page gives more detail on the latest inflation rates.
and at Costco for everything bulky and on sale…