What the hell is going on with food prices and how do I track this over time? This is the question that many consumers are now facing. We all know that the prices of goods and services has risen handily in this new era of high inflation. So what about personalizing an inflation reading. This is a “myflation” considering that the official measurement of inflation is based on the Labor Department’s release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than what prices are actually doing for you and me!

After looking through digital receipts, the real problem is over a longer period of time — say two years, which also lines up with more of the peak-COVID timeframe. The first category is food and the food at Home is typically what you are paying for groceries. The May 2022 “food at home” segment was up 10.1% versus May 2021. What consumers need to really understand is that inflation began marching higher in 2021 (see chart) and what has taken place in the last two years is that many grocery store items I have purchased are now up over 20% and up over 30% over a two year period.

After pulling a curbside pickup report from July 22, 2020 at H-E-B and comparing the prices to the most recent date (online prices for in-store) of July 1, 2022 the gains are stark. Packaged goods, cheese, meat, have all seen incredible gains. Other items like bananas and eggs have seen little or no change in comparison. When taking a snapshot within certain items where the weight may not be fixed, the notation of “Actual Weight?” was added because it’s obvious that not every piece of meat weighs the same and the digital receipts and online prices do not account for the price difference on individual packages. That said, this is still a “myflation” because most people do not grab a package based on an exact number of ounces and/or pounds unless that’s how they are packaged.

This was written with an understanding that your grocery list may be quite different, and the vegetable prices were by and large not included because most individual items will weigh different and picking these up will depend on a visual inspection for freshness that other in-store items simply do not require. And not ever household item such as toilet paper and consumer products are purchased on each trip (nor at the same store in many cases). Many items were also not included on the list below due to brand availability and rotation within the store. Quite simply, these items and their current prices at the store are just no longer available.

So go ahead and read the list and weep. I know I did!