ECON Report food and grocery price increases/shortages here - UPDATE, new runs on the stores

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Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
Rafter, you might try looking for a local brand, something like X Farms (X being your local turkey farm). They are typically about $0.15 - $0.20 cheaper. That said, I don't expect to see too many bargains on turkeys given the pandemic and other factors. In Iowa, pork remains the bargain. I might fix stuffed Iowa chops (a thick cut pork chop) for Thanksgiving and save the money for a nice steak (with a few frozen shrimp) for Christmas dinner.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Barry Natchitoches said:
But this trip was so different. You can leave with a lot of food sometimes, but this time it was just that one box plus the peanut butter. If I had to rely on only that box to feed the two of us, we would be in a world of hurt.
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A lot of these places were getting funds from the USDA as part of the Covid relief budget and are no longer getting $$$ from the fed gov.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
So we went shopping for work boots for him yesterday at two different Boot Barns in Des Moines, both places were very well stocked, and had wool socks galore. We went work shoe shopping for me today at a local Brown Shoe Fit Co., and they had shoes and boots galore, very well stocked up on the wool socks. So, hopefully, we're set for a while, I'll probably pick up a new pair of tennis shoes in December during their annual holiday sale they run. Even though those places were well stocked up, BB and BSF, this can change and quickly so don't wait too long to buy those new boots or shoes.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Meemur said:
Packy, don't forget about adult education through the public schools. I'm sure a lot of the classes have gone online. You don't need an education degree to teach those.
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Excellent point, I have a zoom account now to figure out how to set it up to teach online.
 
annieosage

annieosage

Inactive
Meemur said:
Rafter, you might try looking for a local brand, something like X Farms (X being your local turkey farm). They are typically about $0.15 - $0.20 cheaper. That said, I don't expect to see too many bargains on turkeys given the pandemic and other factors. In Iowa, pork remains the bargain. I might fix stuffed Iowa chops (a thick cut pork chop) for Thanksgiving and save the money for a nice steak (with a few frozen shrimp) for Christmas dinner.
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Since it's just me and DD this year, and she's vegan, I need to find the smallest turkey ever. Last year we were in Boston and I think for Christmas I paid about $24 for a very small turkey! I was thinking of just getting a nice piece of turkey breast but there's nothing like cooking a stuffed turkey and all the trimmings on Thanksgiving Day. We'll see. I am not paying that much for a turkey this year. By the way DD makes a really good roast cauliflower and trimmings vegan style. It's actually quite good. Just not turkey...
 
cyberiot

cyberiot

Rimtas žmogus
Roadgeek said:
So are LED bulbs the next big thing? I haven't shopped for CFL bulbs for a very long time, because CFL's last a very long time, but I am seeing not so many CFL's now and far more LED's. What's the story here?
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CFLs are an environmental nightmare. You're exposed to mercury when you break one, and you (theoretically) can't just throw them in the trash when they die--they (theoretically) require special hazmat disposal.

LEDs used to be beaucoup expensive, but the price has come waaay down. Most of the bulbs I see on the shelves are LEDs, because people like the energy savings. I strongly prefer warm light, so I still buy good old-fashioned incandescents, although I'm starting to see more LEDs in the 2800K range.
 
Jubilee on Earth

Jubilee on Earth

Veteran Member
John Deere Girl said:
Rumor has it that peanut butter and paper products are next shortages.
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I forgot to mention one thing I saw at Meijer. It got me excited at first, but then I realized it wasn’t as exciting as I thought. They had a few jars of peanut butter, but the stock is way down. One thing they did have were these huge 4lb cans of peanut butter. I thought it would be awesome for long term storage but it has one of those pull foil tabs, not a can you have to open with a can opener. If it had a shelf life of 5 years or more, I would have bought it. But it had no longer expiration date than a regular jar. We have plenty of peanut butter and really don’t need anymore. So I left it.

But my spidey senses told me that Meijer had no choice in the matter. That if they wanted stock of Jif peanut butter, thats all they could get. I don’t know for sure, of course. Just my speculation. But those cans seemed like the kind of thing that was scraped up out of some warehouse just to be able to say, “There’s still peanut butter on the shelves.”
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J

joannita

Veteran Member
Meemur said:
What's given out is highly dependent on what the stores give them and what sorts of donations they can raise. Right now, a lot of Iowans that can give cash donations to our food pantries.

This is why I keep a good stash of beans and rice, complementary proteins. From there, I can build a lot of meals based on what's cheap right now. If I were depending on food boxes, I'd consider the box contents "additions."



A lot of colleges have moved to Zoom meetings. If you are hurting for money and have a fast enough ISP and computer, you might want to look into picking up a section or two.
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Also, both FLA and China hire online tutors.
 
W

waterdog

Senior Member
packyderms_wife said:
Topped off in August. As for green beans I've been saying here in this thread and the other shortage thread the GB and pea shortage was due to the late freeze back in May, it destroyed most of those crops in north america.
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Last time we were at store we found dried green peas, I haven't seen them here in years. .99 a lb. sack bought several bags. Grandma used to fix em loved &still do.
 
D

Digger

Veteran Member
Something else we have noticed about peanut butter; they have changed the oil in regular peanut butter. I try to avoid soy because of thyroid issues. I had been buying the natural peanutbutter because it used palm oil instead of soy. During the pandemic, peanut butter got scarce. We brought regular because that was all that was available. Hubby loves peanut butter. After he finished one jar, he opened one bought during the shortages. He could not eat it. He said it taste bad. It wasn't out of date. Opened a second jar, same thing. I looked at the ingredients. No soy oil. Now they contain rape and cotton seed oil. That has to be the reason for the off flavor. I can eat it ok, but not as many jars as were in our preps. So each of the kids got some and I am finishing the open ones. We can find the natural peanutbutter again, but only in small jars. Hubby goes through them in no time when he is on a peanut butter kick. But we have lots of good peanutbutter again.
 
tech020

tech020

Senior Member
Someone please correct me if I am mistaken. Beet sugar is primarily GMO, and uses Roundup for weed control. They grow it in the Red River valley in Minnesota and N. Dakota. Cane sugar is not GMO and grows in areas of southern states as well as Mexico and Central America. It used to be big in Hawaii but like pineapples is not anymore. Aldi sells Organic cane from Mexico which is quite good but is not bleached white. I use it in my coffee and prefer it over the white stuff.
 
J

joannita

Veteran Member
Digger said:
Something else we have noticed about peanut butter; they have changed the oil in regular peanut butter. I try to avoid soy because of thyroid issues. I had been buying the natural peanutbutter because it used palm oil instead of soy. During the pandemic, peanut butter got scarce. We brought regular because that was all that was available. Hubby loves peanut butter. After he finished one jar, he opened one bought during the shortages. He could not eat it. He said it taste bad. It wasn't out of date. Opened a second jar, same thing. I looked at the ingredients. No soy oil. Now they contain rape and cotton seed oil. That has to be the reason for the off flavor. I can eat it ok, but not as many jars as were in our preps. So each of the kids got some and I am finishing the open ones. We can find the natural peanutbutter again, but only in small jars. Hubby goes through them in no time when he is on a peanut butter kick. But we have lots of good peanutbutter again.
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You can order all sorts of nut butters from Once Again Nut Butter in Nunda, NY.
 
Roadgeek

Roadgeek

Contributing Member
Digger said:
Something else we have noticed about peanut butter; they have changed the oil in regular peanut butter. I try to avoid soy because of thyroid issues. I had been buying the natural peanutbutter because it used palm oil instead of soy. During the pandemic, peanut butter got scarce. We brought regular because that was all that was available. Hubby loves peanut butter. After he finished one jar, he opened one bought during the shortages. He could not eat it. He said it taste bad. It wasn't out of date. Opened a second jar, same thing. I looked at the ingredients. No soy oil. Now they contain rape and cotton seed oil. That has to be the reason for the off flavor. I can eat it ok, but not as many jars as were in our preps. So each of the kids got some and I am finishing the open ones. We can find the natural peanutbutter again, but only in small jars. Hubby goes through them in no time when he is on a peanut butter kick. But we have lots of good peanutbutter again.
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We eat the natural peanut butter. We buy Justin's. We used to buy Laura Scudders and liked it, but we tried Justins, and Laura Scudder is much saltier than Justins. Also, regular peanut butter is much sweeter than natural; they add quite a but of HF corn syrup to regular peanut butter. I miss Peter Pan and Jif, but I don't at all miss being pre-diabetic. NAtural peanut butter has a different taste because no sugar, but it grows on you after a while, and I would never go back to regular. We also eat almond butter. What I do, with either the almond or the peanut butter is mix it with pecans in a small bowl for a snack. I call it "goop", and it's good eats. Sometimes my wife will mix chocolate chips into the bowl; she used Ghiardelli 60% cacao chips. Bitter at first, but it becomes sweeter over time.
 
S

school marm

Veteran Member
A lot of factors come into play with the shelf life of peanut butter, some of which have already been noted.

Peanut butter packaged in glass will last longer than the same product in plastic.

Peanut butter that is only peanuts and salt will last longer than anything else.

If you need sweetened peanut butter, look for something that has sugar or molasses as the sweetener, rather than HFCS.
 
A

anna43

Veteran Member
If you are a home canner, buy the turkey and can the remains the day after Thanksgiving. Think of how much you'd save on food and missing Black Friday. I recently opened an 8 year old jar of turkey and mixed it with a box of stuffing mix and it was very good. Made a lot for one person but I enjoyed several meals without having to do more than nuke leftovers.
 
naturallysweet

naturallysweet

Has No Life - Lives on TB
If I can afford it, the plan is to get at least 3 turkeys. They are often cheaper than chicken when bought right before Thanksgiving. One turkey for each major holiday. Who know what Christmas and easter will be like. But I have the Turkey. .
Big turkeys mean lots of leftovers to freeze for many meals. Especially handy with my mom's need for low carb meals to control her blood sugar. . It's just me and my mom, but we have a pack of wolf wannabe's (weiner dogs) and a few cats that like to help eat the meals.
The carcass gets chopped up and pressure cooked into mush. Then fed to the fur babies as well.
 
Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
I'll make a T-Day dinner decision soon. I worry about flu at that time of the year. It seems like my resistance is low (which I'm working on, now).

I've had enough T-Days where I've been ill or too sick to cook much. That's why I usually stash one or two Marie Callender turkey dinners (or a dinner and a chicken pot pie) in the freezer ahead of time. I'm mentioning that because there was a run on frozen pizzas and meals in general before.

While not 5-star, it's not bad when one is either under the weather or recovering.
 
M

moldy

Veteran Member
Update from shopping trip yesterday: I had driven up the mountain for a birthday party - north of Poudre Canyon, there is no active fire and not much damage. I didn't smell smoke badly until I reached Loveland. Driving thru Fort Collins, I was struck by several things - so many homeless people (and we were expecting a storm with lots of snow) and how packed the restaurants were. On the front range, almost everyone seemed to be masked.

Eshs (discount grocery in Loveland): well stocked, but their prices are about the same as King Soopers (Kroger affiliate). I did get some smoked sardines for $5/4 tins.
 
M

moldy

Veteran Member
King soopers in Loveland: Very little soup and beans (maybe because I was shopping on a Saturday evening, maybe due to sale prices or storm incoming). Very few paper towels or cleaning products. Cleaning products that are available are not name brand, there's not even shelf labels for name brand cleaners. Frozen and fresh foods and meats well stocked.
 
M

moldy

Veteran Member
My local Safeway: granted I was there on Saturday night at 9 PM. I got one of the last gallons of milk. Produce and meat was very picked over. No cleaning agents, no toilet paper. Again, no spaces for name brand cleaners. The space for liquid dish soap has been cut at least on half. Several women were talking about fears of new shortages. I also got one of the last packages of all purpose flour.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Roadgeek said:
So are LED bulbs the next big thing? I haven't shopped for CFL bulbs for a very long time, because CFL's last a very long time, but I am seeing not so many CFL's now and far more LED's. What's the story here?
Click to expand...
LED light bulbs have been the increasing standard for about 5 years now. CFLs fell out of favor because of the mercury inside them. If they break, they release mercury vapor into your home. Note that a 60 watt equivalent LED bulb consumes about 1 watt. CFLs consumed about 15 watts. NOTE: There are different “colors” of LED lights. If you like the warm glow of incandescent lights, be sure to get the right color/“temperature.”

Grounded Idealist said:
The white sugar we buy in the store doesn’t come from beets anymore anyway, does it?
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White sugar in stores is 99% cane sugar. Has been for decades. Beet sugar has a distinct flavor.
 
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rob0126

rob0126

Veteran Member
As of yesterday, publix had bogo on sir kensington mayo's. (For those who want to buy it but need it at a good price)
 
annieosage

annieosage

Inactive
Holy smokes- I don't know what is happening but I wanted to get 4 6 packs of the Diet Coke bottles before the sale ends today (4/ $10). I never waste a trip to the store so grabbed a few other things: green beans, sourdough bread, stuff for Thanksgiving, etc. I noticed as soon as I walked in how crowded it was. Wow! It could have been the day before Thanksgiving. I went around and got a few things.

The Coke rep was there stocking shelves. There were no Diet Cokes so I asked her. Will you be stocking those? She said NONE came in on this shipment but let me check the display up front. I had already checked and saw none but she came back with 8 packs. I thanked her profusely and took the 4 I needed. While I was standing there waiting for her I noticed the ridiculously long check out line. Most carts full. Line was at least 10-12 carts deep. I had to get one more thing from the frozen aisle so went there and that line was all the way down the aisle! So I got in line. I didn't even realize until I was almost up front that it was the express lane. Thank God no one complained and I helped bag my stuff to keep things moving.

The store was so crowded it was stressful. I won't be going in person again for a long time. I don't care what I need. I was literally almost about to have a panic attack.

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