Most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck as cost-of-living increases like grocery store prices have been on the rise.
Last quarter, CNBC reported that 63% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Among high-earners (six-figure salaries), around 47% of them are living paycheck to paycheck. The economic pressure has left many wondering when grocery prices will start to decline again.
After all, the prices of staples like eggs have risen dramatically.
It’s unclear when prices will drop on the grocery store shelves, but it’s still possible that shoppers will see more increases before decreases. Axios reported that Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said that prices are either possibly or likely to increase in the coming year. Due to the inflation hit, he says “we’re repairing our gross margin.”
Last month, prices were 11.3% higher than they were in January 2022. According to USA Today, prices of oils have been hit hard with prices up 21%. It’s no secret that eggs are expensive — like other foods, they’ve risen with inflation. But other factors like avian flu and increased cost of supplies are also responsible for higher prices.
Inflation is slowing, per USA Today, but it’ll take a while for prices to decrease. The Washington Post reported that prices in grocery stores might peak soon and then eventually reach more stability.
How to save money on groceries
With inflation and other factors contributing to high prices at the grocery store, money-saving tips mean quite a bit right now.
To help you save money, here are some tips.
Design your meals around sales
This is an important tip. If you can look ahead at the sales (those grocery store coupon pages are good for this) and then plan your meals around that, that’ll likely help you save money. It’s possible that a particular type of meat could be on sale that would help you dramatically lower the cost of your meal. Thinking in those terms will be helpful.
Meal plan
We’ve all been there. We’ve run out of already prepared meals and the thought of cooking something new just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Instead of reaching for the delivery app or stopping by a fast-food restaurant, try to think ahead by meal prepping. Meal prepping is one of those things that has an up-front time and money cost. It might take a couple hours to meal prep everything, but it’ll be worth it. Think about meals in terms of components and chop up fruits and vegetables that can be tossed into salads, stir-fry, on a homemade pizza, with rice or pasta or eaten on their own.
Make some meals and then freeze them
The thing about meal prepping is that you often eat the same meal multiple times a week. For some, that’s not a good time. One of the ways that you can mitigate that is to make the meal and then freeze part of it. Soups, chilis and casseroles can freeze really well and are easy to reheat. Make sure that you store them properly in your fridge or freezer.
Shop your pantry
Take stock of what you have in your pantry and build meals around that. Say that you have a couple boxes of rice pilaf and a bag of frozen vegetables. Well then, get some chicken and condensed soup and make a casserole out of it. If you have extra pasta laying around, consider making a couple of different pasta dishes throughout the week. Shopping your pantry is an easy way to reduce food waste, but also to make sure that when you do go to the store, you aren’t overspending.