Not your imagination, grocery prices have gone up
MIAMI - It's not just in your imagination, the cost of just about everything is indeed more expensive.
CBS News Miami wanted to see what three South Florida families would do with $100 of groceries on us, with no limitation on what they could buy. So, off to the store we went.
Melissa is a mom of five with three kids at home living in Hialeah, Nikki lives in south Broward with her nine-year-old son and Juan and Maria live in West Kendall with her mom and son.
Some background on our families and their habits:
Melissa says on average, "I can spend if I am really grocery shopping, I can spend $200 plus for two weeks."
Nikki says, "I do multiple grocery stores now to get the things that we need whereas I would always go to one store."
Juan and Maria are selective with their purchases. "Yes, I buy chicken more, because the chicken is cheaper and fish is cheaper than red meat."
All three can pinpoint the moment they noticed the steepest increase in grocery costs.
Juan and Maria say, "Looks like and feels like it's gotten doubled compared to previous years, as a matter of fact probably after COVID." Melissa adds, "Especially since COVID, things have gone way up" and Nikki says, "Due to COVID, things of that nature, everything has gone up."
And they are right. Food prices rose 25 percent according to the consumer price index from 2019 to 2023.
Here's what happened when we hit the stores.
The families all bought similar items, some fresh vegetables, snacks for kids, meats here and there and enough food to cover dinner.
All three tell us groceries are the bulk of their monthly bills with each taking multiple trips a week.
Juan and Maria said, "I think it's after mortgage. I think groceries because electrical bill is one flat month but groceries it's every week 100 and 100 something times four. I go twice a week. She goes twice a week."
Melissa looks for savings.
"I'm going into the Bogo items and this is how I normally shop to save money. So, I purchased a lot of buy-one get-one free items. I've come a long way I used to be homeless when I was around 21 years old."
Melissa, now a supervisor with a full time job, has two daughters away in college. She says tough times taught her how to stretch a dollar. "Every Saturday, I'll go through the list or there's a lady on social media that gives you different scenarios on how far you can stretch your money using the coupons."
Nikki does what a lot of us do. "I take several trips because it's just he and I right now. I try not to buy too many items because they'll spoil and things will go bad."
Still, her monthly groceries are a significant part of her monthly budget. "Roughly, in a months' time, I'll say about 300 between he and I. It's a lot more than what I am use to a while back it wouldn't even be $300 because you know, the price of things have gone up."
So, here's how each of them did:
Nikki went over the $100 spending limit the least. Going over by just $10.
Melissa spent $112, but saved almost $70 couponing.
And Juan and Maria spent the most at $128.
A few lessons from the family's grocery habits:
Search social for coupon hacks social media has a ton of weekly coupon tips and hacks on how to save with different stores deals and promotional items.
Shop different stores for different needs if you have time go to different stores for different things.
Groceries at grocery stores and maybe cleaning products from discount stores.
Ask about meal plans. Some butcher stores offer weekly meat plans with deals on different portions families can subscribe to.
Depending on time, family size and some juggling, all these things can add up to some significant savings.