MrsMac and I were at the grocery store today. She shops - AKA spends money - I wonder around and do a weekly survey on prices and stock levels.
First, prices were ridiculous. How did they climb in just one week I wondered? Some examples that stood out to me were,
> Store brand butter was $4.79 a pound,
> Chicken thighs were $2.29 a pound vs. last week on sale $.99 a pound.
> Canned cat food has gone from .59 cents same time last year to .89 cents at the store Sunday. In my home
town store .99 cents a can. That is if you can get it.
> Store brand flour regular price was $2.99 for 5-pounds, on sale for $2.29. An increase of $1.00 vs. last year at
this time. Oh by the way, the store has been out for 3-weeks as of this writing.
Our cost today for one paper bag of groceries was $52.
While wandering the aisles and comparing prices, I ran into one of the stores assistant managers who we are on a first name bases with. I asked her what is going on with lack of product and prices. Here are some examples I gave her,
> They had no 'caked' or bread machine yeast.
> Pasta shelves was 1/3 full and very little breath in assortment.
> Canned soups, gravies, broth etcetera were lite in breath and depth.
> Etcetera.
She looked at me and said, "John, it is hit or miss with our warehouse. We order and order and order and they do not send." She went on to say, "shipments come in 25 to 33% lite of what we order".
She went on to explain that flour at this rate will be very expensive and tough to find later this year. Dry active yeast is available but will not be around by October as they are down to their last box and it is not being replenished no matter how many times they reorder.
She shared with me a story that she was in Walmart last week and they had no rice but uncle Ben's. I chuckled at the Walmart story and asked her why did she shop at Walmart. Her answer was prices. She buys at the store she works at things on sale and then goes to Walmart, a one hour drive away I might add, to buy the rest of the things on her grocery list.
We chatted about a few non food items and I wished her a great week and started to walk away. She stopped me and said, "if you see something on sale today buy it. It will either be twice the price by the end of the year or not available at all".
Now this was from a totally non political, 55-year old-ish women.
http://navigatorbiz.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cat-food.jpgJust FYI, I followed MrsMac and put things back on the shelves that we didn't need when she wasn't looking. Pretty sneaky of me huh?
