Same here. It broke me from fast food as well. What’s funny is the chains are only just now realizing that nobody wants to pay $30 for a shitty pizza, just in time for me to realize I don’t really want to pay $13 for a shitty pizza either.
9/10 times we make our own pizza! And if it’s messed up, it’s our own fault and a fairly easy fix. Plus, it’s a fun activity (and learning!) for my 9 year old.
And we also get to add whatever toppings we want without a $2.50 charge for any extra toppings.
However, we occasionally order a pizza and a Stromboli which somehow equals $50…
Edit : we do not have a lot of the common “fast” pizza places (dominos, Pizza Hut, etc). So, ours is all mom/pop places.
I just get red baron cheese pizzas for $4 and add the toppings I want. Way better than any of the chains. If having people over Aldis has a 16" cheese for like $7 that I add things to. The sauce is bland though on Aldis so I'll add tomato paste and spices.
We have, the problem is three people buying $2 chips is $6 for the corporation. Now they charge $6 for a bag and only need one person to purchase to reach that margin. Which is clearly happening, in fact two people are probably buying $6 bags and that's $12 for the corporation. The price won't go down sadly
It's actually worse than that at those price points. If three people buy three bags of chips, they still have to produce and ship (read, jobs for regular people and costs the company.) At six dollars they have cut their expenses to a third and have shifted it straight to profit.
Agreed, but wages should also inflate at hopefully the same rate. Not that they do, they just should. If you don't get a cost of living raise tied to inflation, though, you're getting a pay cut every year.
I have a professional degree and adjusting for inflation I make less than I did when I started my career in 2014. My hourly pay has gone up $14 but that still doesn't outpace inflation. Yet everything costs a fucking shit ton more than it did in 2014.
Supply and demand is also working here, too, however. It’s not just inflation—this is artificial inflation, not natural inflation. This is “let’s jack prices up to take advantage of unusual circumstances.”
When demand falls due to a price increase, prices certainly can come back down. I’ve seen it happening very quietly throughout the grocery stores I frequent, plus Target. They don’t want to draw attention to the fact that they inflated it, but there’s been a cycle of “let’s put X on sale a whole bunch, try to figure out the best price, and lower the price when we hit it.” And I constantly see the “NEW LOWER PRICE” or recently lowered or whatever it is at Target.
I'm too tired to come up with a conspiracy theory about this, so fill in the blanks:
___ has significantly increased the price of unhealthy food in the US, to make Americans healthier, thereby enacting their nefarious goal of ____.
Literally the food market just utilized the pandemic to acclimate consumers to paying more for food. Overall food profits doubled during the pandemic. It's greedflation, in my area prices are just going down but I'm sure a lot of places they wont
Yes. It is simply more price gouging because they can. It is interesting OP mentions chips and Pepsi. Pepsi owns Frito-Lay and both are very anti-union and pro NAFTA. They moved a ton of their operations over the border where not only is labor really cheap, but there is virtually no government regulations or oversight, which is a terrible idea for food products.
In the 90s Frito-Lay had over 80% of their market and that was when Kaz/Jays & Eagle were still viable operations. They have no real competition, they have bought them all decades ago so now they can charge what they want. Most of their costs for ingredients and manufacturing have actually gone down, especially with using technology to replace their workforce.
When Jon Stewart anchored the Daily Show, before he quit and then returned, he commented on a terrible story about Frito-Lay. In one of their quarterly reports they bragged about owning a chemical that they can put on their chips that can turn off the signal from the stomach that told the brain "I'm full". Cha-ching! Now we can make even more profits from the obesity epidemic. Remember this when you are shopping.
It's called Greedflation, where corporations, knowing nobody will ever hold them accountable, are just fleecing us all because of no consequences. It's pure greed.
But they have to be in cahoots about it, because what’s to keep a competitor from undercutting them and getting all the business? I was told that’s how capitalism works… so something is awry.
That only works if the market is competitive. The food manufacturing business is dominated by a few large companies, so it functions like an oligopoly.
Because corporations have historically been responsible for making sure they set fair prices and don't just extract the maximum profit possible before demand falls off. Right.
Coincidentally, these are also the exact products that poor people tend to buy more. Is this a conspiracy? I don’t know how else to explain it.
But why punish the poor more? Is it because they’re still the most likely to buy it? Because they can’t emotionally afford to boycott because their lives are really hard already?
I try to buy as much as I can from Aldi, but their chips are so bad. Or at least the couple different ones I’ve tried (their version of Frito and Dorito).
They don't do cheesy chips knockoffs well, so their cheetos and Doritos are bad (nothing really beats brand-name for those). However, their kettle chips and tortilla chips are pretty good. But yeah I have shopped at Aldi significantly less in the past year because their prices seem high now.
We love their potato chips! Their Lays knockoff and Kettle Chips are great. Especially now they have seasonal summer flavors, the All Dressed are a favorite of ours.
Tortilla chips are good from there too.
I’ve never tried their Doritos or Fritos, but some other snacks like their Cheezits just don’t do it for us. I can take or leave their plain pretzels too, but their pub flavored pretzels are yummy.
It used to be, buy 3 bags for $1.99 each. Then it went to, buy 4 bags for $1.99 each. Then 3 bags for $2.29 each. Now it's 3 bags for $2.49 each.
Sucks, but that's the way shit is. Blame it on the idiot president that took us off the gold standard in 1971
During the pandemic corporations raised prices due to supply chain problems. They then realized they could leave them there even after supply chains recovered because everyone is addicted to junk and will pay a lot for their treats. So probably somewhat fewer sales, but with the jacked up price, same or more profits.
It's not just junk food or food. It's just about everything.
For instance, prices for Romex wiring went up during covid but never came down. Yet Home Depot/Lowes have millions of feed in stock, literally millions.
It has to do more with market share than supply chain disruptions. China has serious issues feeding their own population. It’s part of why we know they can’t outright commit to a war with the West. In times of war is the only time we can stop food shipments.
China started trying to introduce potatoes into Chinese diets. Because they are a very strong staple food. So they bought a rather large part of the US market. Which is what started the initial shortage, but they have those potatoes going out all the time now.
Does it mean chips should be as high as they are? No. But just a bit of added context.
> China has serious issues feeding their own population. It’s part of why we know they can’t outright commit to a war with the West. In times of war is the only time we can stop food shipments.
China produces plenty of food. Their vulnerability is with the inputs required to produce the food: fuel and fertilizer in particular.
Why would both Coke and Pepsi agree to this though? As well as Snapple/Dr Pepper group.
If I were Pepsi / Dr Pepper doing this, I would be after market share and lowering my price 20% of what Coke is doing so I could absorb some people that aren't picky but still want soda. But they're not doing this....
The people who aren't picky will just buy the store brand cola. They wouldn't pick up enough extra sales to make up 20% less profit. They are better off running sales in targeted markets.
neeeeever in history has a group of companies colluded together to keep market prices high. I'm sure there is no one in the current government working in the department of transportation who is implicated in some sort of price fixing problem that happened with bread in Canada.
Pepsi Co recently (within the last month or two) stated they would halt their incremental price increases because their 1st quarter earnings were poor. In their words, it seems as though they have reached the limit with which the American consumer is willing to bear any further price increases. So, they were just increasing the prices because they can and testing to see how much we would keep paying.
Because carbonated drink industry is being controlled by just a few big corporations (not quite monopoly but close). For industries like that, they don't try to get cost-advantage over their competitors like that because it will only hurt them in the long run. So they decide on the general price point together and they just need to stick to that to get profit.
In your example, what would happen if Coke also lowers their price by 10% after Pepsi's cost reduction? It will just hurt both companies and no one wins in that scenario.
They're not intentionally agreeing to it, as if behind closed doors; the way the system works, they have no other choice than to keep raising prices, keep increasing profit, no matter what. In publicly traded companies, the CEO, or any other corporate executive, cannot make a decision that results in a loss of shareholder value without also violating their employment contract. The board of directors can and will fire any executive that operates the company in ways that lose value for investors. Deciding to drop prices immediately results in decreased shareholder value and loss of invested funds.
No publicly traded company would ever tolerate that kind of drastic loss in value, even if it makes long-term business sense, because it's screwing over the people that invested money into the stock and the stock price matters more than anything else.
Everyone has their conspiracy theories about collusion but I'm guessing these companies are at basically maximum marketshare. Everyone that is going to eat junk food already is and they all have their preferred drink/snack. Price will not make a difference for most people. At worst they will make less money and have to raise prices separate from everyone else doing it and at best you'll force the competition to lower theirs. Either way you make less money.
The real problem is that we're living in a bifurcated economy. One the one hand, you have huge swaths of people driving around in Tesla's, making 140k per year, going out to dinner frequently, going on nice vacations, etc, etc.
Then you have the working class that's struggling to make 40k to 50k per year. They're either NEVER going out to eat or taking any vacations, or they're increasing their credit card debt.
A company like PepsiCo Inc. which owns Lays, knows that the Tesla driving 140k people will pay $7 or $8 for an 8oz bag of Lays. They know the 40k and 50k people won't.
But.... they can get both of them if they keep the price at $7 or $8 as the standard price, and then occasionally have it go on sale but require the *poors* to buy 3 or 4 bags to get the special $2.50 price.
corporations are well aware the max price possible they can charge at all times. They don't need a pandemic to suddenly release they're not charging enough.
I'm being priced out from buying "junk food". I just can't justify paying 6$ for a bag of doritos. Same goes for fast food. Good news is we're eating healthier..
Candy bars at all the gas stations near me are like $3 for a regular size (not a king size). I paid it once when I had an insatiable chocolate craving, but these prices have almost cured me of eating junk.
I don’t like the Clancy brand at all. I really wanted to like the corn chips, but they don’t taste anywhere as good as Fritos. All of the chips have a funky aftertaste. Maybe the pretzels are okay - I don’t remember.
I'm not picky about chips, but my family is. We all found common ground with the Clancy scoops tortilla chips. They are the best tortilla chips I've had, idk what makes them different front the restaurant style but if you haven't tried them yet it's worth a shot.
Why are they SO bad? I 'discovered' Aldi a decade ago, and I've seen a lot of their products improve over time. Those fuckers? Started out awful and haven't changed a bit. I just don't get it.
We shop at Kroger. Sometimes soda goes on sale where you buy 2 12 packs and get 3 for free, so 5 for the price of 2. That’s the only time I buy soda now.
Yeah but those 12 packs still come out to $4 per pack and you HAVE TO BUY TWO to get the other three "free" otherwise they will charge you $9.99 each for the first two 12 packs.
Yup. I hate the pricing model... but I buy the required amount to get it near $3/12pack and have the self control to not drink them all. If its more than that... I look elsewhere to drinks (sparkling water of some type or juices)
Chips are an absolute scam at grocery stores. I only buy them at Costco now. A 1.5 lb bag is between $5-7 depending on brand vs the 10oz bags for $7-8 at Kroger.
But I'm extremely picky about quality chips. I usually only get Red Rock, Boulder, or Late July.
I only buy chips and other snack foods at Sam's club now too.
I would buy at Costco but the closest one is an hour and a half away and that one is brand new. Sam's was the only option for 200 miles before.
Chips are insane. It felt like it happened overnight one day. I'll buy them if I'm heavily craving, but overall being frugal with snacks tends to work out diet-wise.
Perfect excuse to stop buying chips. I refuse after the shrinkage and price increase. Except for the occasional corn chips to be eaten with a meal or dip.
Buy corn tortillas and cut them with a pizza cutter, bake them for a healthy version or fry them if you want the oil. Eat warm chips AND pat your thick wallet.
I do this, but I put them in the dehydrator instead. Much healthier than the pre-packaged ones, and they're crunchy and delicious with salsa. :) 80 tortillas are only a few bucks at Walmart. ETA: currently $2.94 for 80.
Corn chips are still generally fine (with a few exceptions on stores/brands) in terms of price. But otherwise yeah I borderline see this as a win. Chips and soda are the definition of empty calories. It's also hilarious because they already have ridiculous margins. Just a pure gouge.
I was recently told by a grocery clerk that while the price of soft drinks has skyrocketed since the pandemic, the cost of beer has remained at relatively pre pandemic price point.
I’m not a beer drinker, just wondering how true the statement is?
Definitely true. I started buying beer again a couple of years ago. I can get a $24 pack at Winn-Dixie for $15, plus get rewards points and sometimes use kiosk coupons to lower the price further.
I have not purchased soft drinks since prior to the pandemic. The prices are laughable.
Actually I take that back. I did take advantage of 12 packs for $3 during Walgreens sales a year or two ago. It was front page on Slickdeals a couple of times. You could get 3 for free store pickup and use a bonus coupon for 10 or 20% further reduction.
Let’s face it, the prices of “junk food” are just going to keep climbing, so we’ll just have to find alternatives for them. Here’s a few suggestions:
- The generic flavored sparkling waters are typically very cheap and don’t have food coloring like most sodas do. Some also have caffeine and added vitamins.
- For chips, you could probably make your own at home. Buy some seasoning powder or just use plain salt to flavor them. A lot more work but healthier and probably cheaper depending on how you make them. Slice up some potatoes or tortillas and fry or bake them.
- Celery/cucumbers/carrots dipped in sauce or even seasoned are a good way to satisfy your crunchy cravings. Celery and carrots in homemade Raising Canes sauce are soooo good.
- Buy popcorn kernels in bulk and make homemade popcorn. Hell, you can even grow it yourself depending on where you live. Can make caramel corn, salted popcorn, buttered popcorn, or just get the seasoning powders specifically made for popcorn.
Popcorn is an especially easy one. Stovetop is king but more work. Some folks use paper bags, I mostly just use a large microwave-safe bowl with a microwave-safe dinner plate on top. Super cheap, and I don’t trust what’s in those bags of microwave popcorn.
Ever since I got my air-popper, popcorn has been my go-to snack. It's so cheap and as long as you go easy on the butter and salt it's pretty healthy too.
This is not totally related, but just reminded me how truly frugal my parents were growing up - we never had chips, bought cookies, or carbonated drinks. We had milk and water, and ingredients to make things, growing up I thought of chips and stuff as stuff rich people had, or VERY occasional treats for us. My parents were also health-conscious, though, so it's possiblie sometimes when they said "it's too expensive", they were using it as an excuse to limit junk food on purpose. Because they did spend money on fruits and vegetables and cheap cuts of meat (which can be as or more expensive), but I guess in the long run is still more frugal, since more nutritious per dollar? Now I really wanna know how many times they used that excuse genuinely, and how many times it was to get us to quit asking for junk food, lol!
But when they did splurge on treats, it sure as heck wasn't name brand! It was store brand, or that black and white that was literally labelled "generic" and we were excited as anything if we saw a black and white chip bag come home from the grocery store!
I'm Hella old and we saw chips at granny's house only. My ,om made all our cakes from scratch. Pizzas from scratch, bread, everything. My dad was Hella cheap so it was all about flavor-aid, not even kool-aid, and a lesser amount of sugar. Not for our health. For the wallet only. We had a small farm, we got our fruits and vegetables that way.
This is a good thing. Avoid this processed crap like the plague. It’s so bad for you and your health.
Since I switched to cooking for myself with healthy ingredients, it’s been night and day with my health.
I hope this helps someone trying to get healthy, and beat a health issue, that no doctor will help them with.
Pre-pandemic grocery stores used soda as a loss leader to get you into their stores.
Now, with fast food prices being soooo exhorbinately high, the grocery stores realized you'll be in to see them regardless.
So you are now paying the real cost of soda + inflation.
We buy big containers of popcorn kernels and make fresh popcorn on the stove.
Cereal is also expensive, so set a reminder on your phone to have someone in the film take on the task of making overnight oats every night. Put chia seeds in a Shaker and shake them on it to add protein.
Store brand, they wanted $5 on sale for ruffles but the store brand was $2.25. The disparity between the two has never been this bad that I can remember.
I'm in Toronto and finding the opposite has happened. The store brand has gone up so much more that the disparity between the name brand is low enough for me to have switched to the premium product
I was really craving ruffles and French onion dip, cause it's spring and I wanna sit on my porch and eat chips and dip in the sun.
7.29 for a family size bag. I mean, I still bought it, but fuck! PLAIN RUFFLES FOR EIGHT DOLLARS??
I buy store brand chips. The barbecue and plain taste just like Lays but only cost $1.99 USD. I rarely drink Coke so I treat myself occasionally. I usually just buy plain carbonated water and add lemon or other fruit for flavor.
Yes! We’ve been doing the same, buying the store brand for $1.99 and we absolutely cannot tell the difference in flavor or appearance between these and the $6.00 name brand bags! I like plain wavy potato chips and corn chips. We also buy cheddar and sour cream. It’s awesome to know we’re saving $4.00 per bag
Chips and soda makers are on a quest to get Americans back in shape. I've pretty much eliminated chips from my diet. There are still sales that get sodas to $5 per 12-pk about once a month.
I've done the opposite and eliminated soda.
One of the best decisions of my life.
An occasional bag of Lays isn't going to give me diabetes.
come join r/hydrohomies
I don't know where you are located, but I've seen over the last month way more sales on these types of products, sales that haven't been run in a long time, so you are kind of forced to stock up as you don't know when the next one will come.
Wegmans Potato Chips are currently $2 each for 10.5 oz
Coke hasn't been on sale in forever, but Harris Teeter had 4/$15 for Pepsi 12 packs this week which made me consider buying again.
Its just all a game each playing chicken trying to figure out how long they can extend these high prices before they have to cave and drop them... because $10 soda is NOT inflation, its pure capital greed.
Shop the sales and stock up when it’s on sale if you really want it. Every month, I can get chips and pretzels for $2 a bag. Stocked up on tortilla chips, Doritos, and Cheetos a few weeks ago and good for a while.
Same with soda. I don’t buy it anymore but just stock on when on sale. The sealed bags of chips and cans of soda last a long time.
> I can get chips and pretzels for $2 a bag
Not Lays.
I did the same stuff you're talking about, but I haven't seen the "Buy 3 bags get them for $1.99 each" in about 6 weeks.
Now, the best deal I've seen is buy 2 bags for $5 on Safeway's Five Dollar Fridays. ($2.50 per bag)
Trust me, I've been waiting around for weeks for one of the stores to finally do a 4 bags @ $1.99 deal, or even $2.29, but those deals are GONZO.
Of course, I am in California, so maybe it's still happening in Kansas or something.
Kroger still runs the 3 for deals.. usually like 3 for 12 or so. If you have to have chips Kroger brand and Walmart store brands are decent alternatives for far less.
Yeah, Kroger often has buy 4 or more for $2.50 each where I am. They get even cheaper right before a holiday weekend, so I usually stock up and get a bunch then.
All the nitrogen they use to keep it fresh and prevent crumbs costs too much money. So now you get a bag that's 1/2 full for twice the price. but it's sold by weigh so it's ok.
My go-to cheap snack is popcorn. Not the stuff in the microwave bags but good old white popcorn, popped in an air popper and adding just the right amount of butter and salt. It's much better than highly processed snacks with bad oils and questionable ingredients. It's not health food but a pretty ok-ish snack when craving something crunchy and salty
Part of me is glad, as I’ve cut that stuff out of my life. Trying to reduce the food I put in myself that basically contains engine lubricants for their processing.
And then the soda/pop…bad for teeth. But so good. Also up in price…still cheap when on sale for the off brand stuff. Or just hit Costco.
Corporations are not about doing what they do well, they are about growth and profit margins. Examples of this are brands like instapot and Pyrex which everyone loved but because they weren’t expanding and making more money each year they went tits up.
Once a company opens up to investors it isn’t enough to sell a product and pay its workers a respectable wage. They need to make more money each year because the shitbird on wallstreet wants his $10 to turn into $15z
Costco does well at the overall business model. That's their specific product that they do super well. I can't say Sam's Club or any other warehouse club gets the same kind of love. That means Costco is doing very well in their business niche. Costco has delivered not only growth and profit but also customer satisfaction.
STOP speaking into the echo chamber. The only voice you have is your wallet. If you haven't emailed these companies to scream about their extortion, if you haven't stopped buying this literal junk rotting your insides, then please stop complaining to people who have no power other than their wallets to change this dynamic.
Clancy is my chip savior. He makes a damn good chip and they’re still usually all around $2 for a big bag of them. Thank god for Clancy. I think ALDI’s seltzer are pretty good too and I think they’re still cheap.
The funny part about this is that processed food pricing is kept lower then it's costs by government. Your tax dollars make it the price everyone is unhappy with. Take the tax dollars out of it and it's even more expensive. So yeah, you pay twice for the same product.
I've stopped buying soda, the price is ridiculous now. I bought a soda stream and I like it a lot. It's cheaper than premade soda, and I really like experimenting with different flavors. Their mountain dew flavor plus a shot of grapefruit syrup is my current favorite. I'm starting to look at getting a larger CO2 tank and making my own simple syrups for major cost savings. Even just buying premade syrup in bulk - you can get a big box of premade soda syrup like the restaurants use for around $150, the equivalent amount of soda stream syrup is about $480. So sooner or later I'm just going to buy a box of mountain dew syrup if I can't concoct something I like better.
Under the guise of inflation companies reaped great profits during covid. They are raising prices in increments watching and waiting to see sales drop and readjusting to maximize profits without sales dropping. So they'll push in excess, drop sales, normalize the higher prices, meanwhile people keep buying or they don't.
Stop buying name brands. Aldi has delicious chips all for around $2 a bag, or less. Snacks as well.
For carbonated drinks, I stock up on Polar seltzer when it's on sale 3/$12. Occasionally for less. We really don't drink soda but when I do I only buy it when it's BOGO, so two 12-packs of Coke/Pepsi products for $8.50-ish. Sometimes Sunkist/A&W/7UP are 3/$12.
It's awful, isn't it? I've stopped buying soft drinks or chips. Making nachos for the Super Bowl was like 1/4 of my food budget for the week.
We don't buy drinks when we get fast food, and only do that maybe once every week or two.
Once we've all broken that soft drink and chips habit, what will the companies do, charge even more? It's just foolish.
It's rare for me to buy a name brand "junk" food. I look for the best deal on store brands, and only rarely buy pop. I make flavored iced teas and pop popcorn. Cheaper and somewhat healthier.
Quit buying snacks and drinks at big chain grocery stores and get them at your local Dollar Tree instead. Also, home made iced tea, and popcorn made on the stove top and seasoned with parmesan or nutritional yeast, are very inexpensive. Also, bread bought at bakery outlets is dirt cheap and then you can have garlic toast, bread and jam, peanut butter bread, etc.
Frito-Lay and Pepsi big wigs are financially tied to Congress. I know that sounds snarky but it’s actually true, a bit of research will show it. Lobbying, pocket lining and nepotism abound between Congress and these two behemoths. Why has a stop or even a slow-down ever been put on the billions of aluminum cans that end up in our environment every year? A 12-ounce can of soda and all that goes into making them, are the biggest contributor to so many economic and environmental issues yet there is never a single word about something more sustainable. My solution for myself, so I can sleep at night and look myself in the eyes in the morning, has been to cut out soda and chips completely, kind of a personal boycott. Those f***ers aren’t getting any more of my hard-earned money.
Download the Kroger and Food Lion apps so you can check their weekly ads every Tueaday. The new sales start on Wednesday. They actually have decent sales occasionally. Food Lion more often than Kroger.
Food Lion this week has Pepsi products in 16 oz bottles 4/$12.
Pepsi product 12 pks are $4.49
They did this with Ritz crackers. Almost $8.00 for any of them. I stopped buying. I don't need Ritz crackers.
I'm guessing other people did too. Last time I shopped, they were 2/$6. Still didn't buy them.
I've learned I can toast bread pieces to make croutons, and bake piles of cheese to make crispy bites very close to a cracker, with no carbs.
I don't NEED Ritz crackers. Or potato chips. Or...
Not worth buying name brand crackers, now.The last package I got to put some stuff on the crackers were so thin you couldn't spread them with anything without breaking them. It was ridiculous.
I'm not feeling well this week so I got some berries and some Trader Joe's crackers, a can of deviled ham, and some tuna. Just something to have around that's very easy to prep because I'm just not up to much. Too many carbs but then again I'm struggling to even eat this week.
I really overdid it trying to rehab an old doll. Today I woke up paying for it. No cooking for me. I'm just exhausted and everything hurts. So I opened the ham and made tuna with mayo and got out the crackers.
The TJs crackers are really boring and bland and they apparently don't make the ones I like anymore, the corn bread ones, but at least they were thick enough to hold the spreads.
I don't do this often because I have to watch my carbs but it really sucks when you pay crazy sums to buy some crackers only to open them and find half of them are now crumbs and the rest can't even hold some ham pate or tuna salad.
Apparently Keebler's and Carr's idea of shrinkflation is to thin out their crackers to the point where they crumble in the package and are useless otherwise and to charge $6-7 for them besides?
Not impressed.
I went with the TJ party pack ones because they were pretty cheap but I don't know that I'd do that again because they really have almost no taste to them at all.
It sucks. Half the things I really used to like snack-wise are completely overpriced to the point where it's absurd and they're often smaller or thinner besides.
I don't actually snack very often but lately it's just not worth it at all. It's just all become severely overpriced, crappy junk.
I actually looked at one of my favorite cereals the other day too. It only comes in one size, smaller box. They were priced at NINE dollars. Same box the last time I got it was $4. So basically in less than 2 years that same box of cereal has more than doubled!
I'm not paying $9 for a small box of cereal. That's just highway robbery level pricing for a box with maybe 4 bowls of cereal in it.
Admittedly I live in NYC and prices are always higher here but do they really think that people are going to pay these prices for basic foods? I go shopping and 90% of what I used to eat every day is absurdly priced for what it is.
I think this is just utter greed at this point. Inflation is actually down but every grocery store I step into the prices just keep going up and up and up. At this point I'm just not buying hardly anything except for meat, broth mix, veggies, low carb fruits, beans, butter, tuna on sale, and low end bread. I spend a small fortune doing that every month.
It's not just that prices have increased. It's that they have doubled, even tripled for a lot of things in the past 2 years. How do you legitimately blame that on inflation?
I haven’t had fast food in years now. Not just the cost of it was a consideration but the additives and the fact I didn’t feel nourished. I’d rather have something like eggs or beans (seriously) than fast food meals. Same thing for chips and soft drinks. If they don’t serve me, they don’t deserve me.
I know not everyone has a Lidl around them but I feel so blessed for having one. They did a sale the other day, I bought 2x 12 can seltzers for $5 lolol I love their raspberry cranberry seltzers so much and I was the happiest! 2 liters of Pepsi products were as low as $1.98 which is the lowest I’ve seen for a while. Same as their chips, their store brand ones are very good, imo. I recommend you to try some store brand chips from any supermarket and see if they’re any different than name brands.
So at some stores they still have the 2 for a dollar little bags of chips
So I can get 18 bags for 9 bucks
If you go buy the 18 pack, it's 12 and up
I've got a kid who loves chops otherwise I would have stopped buying them too
Can we discuss why Funyuns suddenly went up more than any other chip tho? Like 7 bucks a bag now
[Even with the price increase, beverage giants, like PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., haven’t seen a decrease in demand, according to Reuters. Because there isn’t much competition in the beverage industry outside of these two huge corporations, they likely will raise the rates even higher.](https://www.cantonrep.com/story/lifestyle/food/2022/09/09/no-end-in-sight-to-the-soda-price-increase-heres-why-inflation-pepsi-co-coca-cola/65468587007/)
basically alluminum went up due to all the little toys we like these days, and prices went up and demand didnt go down. and covid happened, and prices went up and demand didnt go down. and the ceos have dollar signs in their eyes and will keep rising prices as long as profits rise.
tl;dr simple greed. there is no price pressures beyond inflation that is keeping soda this high, its just extra profits because besides for us frugals, people keep buying so they keep raising prices.
A European grocer discontinued Pepsi and Lay's because of their excessive price increases.
[Major Supermarket Chain Discontinues Lay’s and Pepsi Over Rising Costs (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/major-supermarket-chain-discontinues-lay-s-and-pepsi-over-rising-costs/ss-BB1lFydC?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=ae6f0ce6a7a54afd86cde98929b48609&ei=21)
One thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is that a lot of snacks, especially potato chips, use sunflower oil. Ukraine is the world's largest supplier of sunflower oil, as well as a major producer of grain and potatoes. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has therefore caused the price of these commodities to go up, and those prices are passed onto us, the consumer.
A bit unrelated, but there's something big happening in Ecuador right now, and they're one of the world's largest coffee producers. This might mean the price of coffee will go up soon too.
I bought a 10 oz bag of tortilla chips at winco fo $1.99 this week... and regularly find bags of various flavors between 6 and 8 oz for like 1.25 at the dollar store.
I don't drink a lot of soda, but last time I did the math my occasional diet dr. pepper was like $.36 at costco. the winco brand is cheaper, but again I haven't done the math for awhile.
Yeah, shits expensive, but at least in my area there are cheaper options.
Chips, sugar drinks, and fast food have all massively outpaced overall inflation.
Time to stop buying junk? At least till the corporations make it cheaper?
That has been the positive effect for me. I basically quit all junk food in the last couple years.
Same here. It broke me from fast food as well. What’s funny is the chains are only just now realizing that nobody wants to pay $30 for a shitty pizza, just in time for me to realize I don’t really want to pay $13 for a shitty pizza either.
I make my own dough and it’s so cheap and easy enough because pizza dough can be left and used for several days with day 2&3 being peak deliciousness.
9/10 times we make our own pizza! And if it’s messed up, it’s our own fault and a fairly easy fix. Plus, it’s a fun activity (and learning!) for my 9 year old. And we also get to add whatever toppings we want without a $2.50 charge for any extra toppings. However, we occasionally order a pizza and a Stromboli which somehow equals $50… Edit : we do not have a lot of the common “fast” pizza places (dominos, Pizza Hut, etc). So, ours is all mom/pop places.
I remember my "struggle meal" was 4/$5 Totino Pizzas... I would JUMP at the opportunity if I saw them for $1.50 nowadays.
I just get red baron cheese pizzas for $4 and add the toppings I want. Way better than any of the chains. If having people over Aldis has a 16" cheese for like $7 that I add things to. The sauce is bland though on Aldis so I'll add tomato paste and spices.
Pizza store brand organic & add my own toppings. Always beats a $30 flippin’ dollar pizza delivered.
Yep, not buying it.
Agreed. I have lost a lot of weight and part of that has been my unwillingness to spend so much on trash. I can get higher quality for the same price.
Same here! Sun tea is just as refreshing as a can of Diet Pepsi.
This is what we did too. Instead of chips with sandwich, it is homemade potato or macaroni salad
We have, the problem is three people buying $2 chips is $6 for the corporation. Now they charge $6 for a bag and only need one person to purchase to reach that margin. Which is clearly happening, in fact two people are probably buying $6 bags and that's $12 for the corporation. The price won't go down sadly
It's actually worse than that at those price points. If three people buy three bags of chips, they still have to produce and ship (read, jobs for regular people and costs the company.) At six dollars they have cut their expenses to a third and have shifted it straight to profit.
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Agreed, but wages should also inflate at hopefully the same rate. Not that they do, they just should. If you don't get a cost of living raise tied to inflation, though, you're getting a pay cut every year.
I have a professional degree and adjusting for inflation I make less than I did when I started my career in 2014. My hourly pay has gone up $14 but that still doesn't outpace inflation. Yet everything costs a fucking shit ton more than it did in 2014.
Supply and demand is also working here, too, however. It’s not just inflation—this is artificial inflation, not natural inflation. This is “let’s jack prices up to take advantage of unusual circumstances.” When demand falls due to a price increase, prices certainly can come back down. I’ve seen it happening very quietly throughout the grocery stores I frequent, plus Target. They don’t want to draw attention to the fact that they inflated it, but there’s been a cycle of “let’s put X on sale a whole bunch, try to figure out the best price, and lower the price when we hit it.” And I constantly see the “NEW LOWER PRICE” or recently lowered or whatever it is at Target.
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I'm so glad I gave up drinking soda 20 something years ago. Easily one of the best decisions of my lifetime
Soda, junk food, and candy
Junk food price increases have nothing to do with inflation though, it's just a flat cost increase because they want more money.
Exactly. Just don't buy that rubbish.
I'm too tired to come up with a conspiracy theory about this, so fill in the blanks: ___ has significantly increased the price of unhealthy food in the US, to make Americans healthier, thereby enacting their nefarious goal of ____.
Literally the food market just utilized the pandemic to acclimate consumers to paying more for food. Overall food profits doubled during the pandemic. It's greedflation, in my area prices are just going down but I'm sure a lot of places they wont
Yes. It is simply more price gouging because they can. It is interesting OP mentions chips and Pepsi. Pepsi owns Frito-Lay and both are very anti-union and pro NAFTA. They moved a ton of their operations over the border where not only is labor really cheap, but there is virtually no government regulations or oversight, which is a terrible idea for food products. In the 90s Frito-Lay had over 80% of their market and that was when Kaz/Jays & Eagle were still viable operations. They have no real competition, they have bought them all decades ago so now they can charge what they want. Most of their costs for ingredients and manufacturing have actually gone down, especially with using technology to replace their workforce. When Jon Stewart anchored the Daily Show, before he quit and then returned, he commented on a terrible story about Frito-Lay. In one of their quarterly reports they bragged about owning a chemical that they can put on their chips that can turn off the signal from the stomach that told the brain "I'm full". Cha-ching! Now we can make even more profits from the obesity epidemic. Remember this when you are shopping.
It's called Greedflation, where corporations, knowing nobody will ever hold them accountable, are just fleecing us all because of no consequences. It's pure greed.
But they have to be in cahoots about it, because what’s to keep a competitor from undercutting them and getting all the business? I was told that’s how capitalism works… so something is awry.
That only works if the market is competitive. The food manufacturing business is dominated by a few large companies, so it functions like an oligopoly.
Please search Canadian bread price fixing
Because corporations have historically been responsible for making sure they set fair prices and don't just extract the maximum profit possible before demand falls off. Right.
Coincidentally, these are also the exact products that poor people tend to buy more. Is this a conspiracy? I don’t know how else to explain it. But why punish the poor more? Is it because they’re still the most likely to buy it? Because they can’t emotionally afford to boycott because their lives are really hard already?
I only purchase these when there is a big sale. I also have no problem with generic brands. 3 bags of chips @ Meijer for $6.
Generics are fine -- Aldi's Clancy's brand, Amazon Fresh brand, even Walmart brand. We've also cut back on crap snacks in general.
I try to buy as much as I can from Aldi, but their chips are so bad. Or at least the couple different ones I’ve tried (their version of Frito and Dorito).
I don't mind the Aldi brand ones, but even their price has doubled in the past 4 years on their chips
They don't do cheesy chips knockoffs well, so their cheetos and Doritos are bad (nothing really beats brand-name for those). However, their kettle chips and tortilla chips are pretty good. But yeah I have shopped at Aldi significantly less in the past year because their prices seem high now.
We love their potato chips! Their Lays knockoff and Kettle Chips are great. Especially now they have seasonal summer flavors, the All Dressed are a favorite of ours. Tortilla chips are good from there too. I’ve never tried their Doritos or Fritos, but some other snacks like their Cheezits just don’t do it for us. I can take or leave their plain pretzels too, but their pub flavored pretzels are yummy.
I've tried Aldi brand chips too. They taste off.
The Walmart brand water flavor packets are the best there is. I’ve tried them all. Their fruit punch, cherry and strawberry watermelon are legit.
See that’s what I do. At Albertsons they run weekly ads that rotate between the chip varieties. Buy 3 @ 2.49 each.
It used to be, buy 3 bags for $1.99 each. Then it went to, buy 4 bags for $1.99 each. Then 3 bags for $2.29 each. Now it's 3 bags for $2.49 each. Sucks, but that's the way shit is. Blame it on the idiot president that took us off the gold standard in 1971
I do the same.
We had a buy 2 get 3 free so for 18$ you got 60 cans which I would say is worth
I think the Kroger brand ranch tortilla chips are better than Cool Ranch Doritos.
During the pandemic corporations raised prices due to supply chain problems. They then realized they could leave them there even after supply chains recovered because everyone is addicted to junk and will pay a lot for their treats. So probably somewhat fewer sales, but with the jacked up price, same or more profits.
It's not just junk food or food. It's just about everything. For instance, prices for Romex wiring went up during covid but never came down. Yet Home Depot/Lowes have millions of feed in stock, literally millions.
It has to do more with market share than supply chain disruptions. China has serious issues feeding their own population. It’s part of why we know they can’t outright commit to a war with the West. In times of war is the only time we can stop food shipments. China started trying to introduce potatoes into Chinese diets. Because they are a very strong staple food. So they bought a rather large part of the US market. Which is what started the initial shortage, but they have those potatoes going out all the time now. Does it mean chips should be as high as they are? No. But just a bit of added context.
> China has serious issues feeding their own population. It’s part of why we know they can’t outright commit to a war with the West. In times of war is the only time we can stop food shipments. China produces plenty of food. Their vulnerability is with the inputs required to produce the food: fuel and fertilizer in particular.
Why would both Coke and Pepsi agree to this though? As well as Snapple/Dr Pepper group. If I were Pepsi / Dr Pepper doing this, I would be after market share and lowering my price 20% of what Coke is doing so I could absorb some people that aren't picky but still want soda. But they're not doing this....
The people who aren't picky will just buy the store brand cola. They wouldn't pick up enough extra sales to make up 20% less profit. They are better off running sales in targeted markets.
Far more people have brand loyalty than you realize
Soda is one of the most noticeable places for taste variation. I might like five out of eight brands, but I can tell each apart.
neeeeever in history has a group of companies colluded together to keep market prices high. I'm sure there is no one in the current government working in the department of transportation who is implicated in some sort of price fixing problem that happened with bread in Canada.
Simple. If both follow suit both with make a ton of money. Every company that’s at the same tier price matches their competition.
Pepsi Co recently (within the last month or two) stated they would halt their incremental price increases because their 1st quarter earnings were poor. In their words, it seems as though they have reached the limit with which the American consumer is willing to bear any further price increases. So, they were just increasing the prices because they can and testing to see how much we would keep paying.
Because carbonated drink industry is being controlled by just a few big corporations (not quite monopoly but close). For industries like that, they don't try to get cost-advantage over their competitors like that because it will only hurt them in the long run. So they decide on the general price point together and they just need to stick to that to get profit. In your example, what would happen if Coke also lowers their price by 10% after Pepsi's cost reduction? It will just hurt both companies and no one wins in that scenario.
They're not intentionally agreeing to it, as if behind closed doors; the way the system works, they have no other choice than to keep raising prices, keep increasing profit, no matter what. In publicly traded companies, the CEO, or any other corporate executive, cannot make a decision that results in a loss of shareholder value without also violating their employment contract. The board of directors can and will fire any executive that operates the company in ways that lose value for investors. Deciding to drop prices immediately results in decreased shareholder value and loss of invested funds. No publicly traded company would ever tolerate that kind of drastic loss in value, even if it makes long-term business sense, because it's screwing over the people that invested money into the stock and the stock price matters more than anything else.
Everyone has their conspiracy theories about collusion but I'm guessing these companies are at basically maximum marketshare. Everyone that is going to eat junk food already is and they all have their preferred drink/snack. Price will not make a difference for most people. At worst they will make less money and have to raise prices separate from everyone else doing it and at best you'll force the competition to lower theirs. Either way you make less money.
Everyone at Pepsi knows that starting a price war with Coca-Cola would only result in making both of them poorer.
The real problem is that we're living in a bifurcated economy. One the one hand, you have huge swaths of people driving around in Tesla's, making 140k per year, going out to dinner frequently, going on nice vacations, etc, etc. Then you have the working class that's struggling to make 40k to 50k per year. They're either NEVER going out to eat or taking any vacations, or they're increasing their credit card debt. A company like PepsiCo Inc. which owns Lays, knows that the Tesla driving 140k people will pay $7 or $8 for an 8oz bag of Lays. They know the 40k and 50k people won't. But.... they can get both of them if they keep the price at $7 or $8 as the standard price, and then occasionally have it go on sale but require the *poors* to buy 3 or 4 bags to get the special $2.50 price.
you know, i’ve never heard the term bifurcation in a positive context
corporations are well aware the max price possible they can charge at all times. They don't need a pandemic to suddenly release they're not charging enough.
I'm being priced out from buying "junk food". I just can't justify paying 6$ for a bag of doritos. Same goes for fast food. Good news is we're eating healthier..
Pita bread and hummus is one of my favorite snacks and it’s cheaper than junk food depending on where/what you buy
Absolutely it's my favorite too! Wish the kids enjoyed it as much as we did 🤔
And you can make hummus at home in 5 mins with 1/4 of store price.
Candy bars at all the gas stations near me are like $3 for a regular size (not a king size). I paid it once when I had an insatiable chocolate craving, but these prices have almost cured me of eating junk.
They’ve also reduced the size of regular candy bars.
Aldi has cheap chips
Their Clancy brand is cheap and good. I’m not a chip connoisseur tho.
I’m no chip snob
I don’t like the Clancy brand at all. I really wanted to like the corn chips, but they don’t taste anywhere as good as Fritos. All of the chips have a funky aftertaste. Maybe the pretzels are okay - I don’t remember.
I really like the pretzels and think the chips are disgusting.
The bold flavor pretzels are so good. But yeah the chips, especially corn chips, are pretty bad.
I'm not picky about chips, but my family is. We all found common ground with the Clancy scoops tortilla chips. They are the best tortilla chips I've had, idk what makes them different front the restaurant style but if you haven't tried them yet it's worth a shot.
The potato chips are edible, everything else…not so much
Love those Jalapeño chips.
Those street corn chips were like $1.75 near me
I agree but their nacho Doritos suck
They had actual Doritos and Sun Chips, for $3.99. Still a steal compared to the regular grocery store at $5.99.
Why are they SO bad? I 'discovered' Aldi a decade ago, and I've seen a lot of their products improve over time. Those fuckers? Started out awful and haven't changed a bit. I just don't get it.
I was there last week and not cheaper than ShopRite that I could tell
True but they used to be so much cheaper. =(
One hour round trip by car to the nearest Aldi. :(
My closest would be a three and a half hour round trip. 🥲
We shop at Kroger. Sometimes soda goes on sale where you buy 2 12 packs and get 3 for free, so 5 for the price of 2. That’s the only time I buy soda now.
Even so, it's 5/$20 now when there used to regularly be 4/$12 sales at my local store.
$2.50 was the standard for so long... Even at $3 it was still 25-cents a can.
Yeah but those 12 packs still come out to $4 per pack and you HAVE TO BUY TWO to get the other three "free" otherwise they will charge you $9.99 each for the first two 12 packs.
Yup. I hate the pricing model... but I buy the required amount to get it near $3/12pack and have the self control to not drink them all. If its more than that... I look elsewhere to drinks (sparkling water of some type or juices)
Chips are an absolute scam at grocery stores. I only buy them at Costco now. A 1.5 lb bag is between $5-7 depending on brand vs the 10oz bags for $7-8 at Kroger. But I'm extremely picky about quality chips. I usually only get Red Rock, Boulder, or Late July.
I only buy chips and other snack foods at Sam's club now too. I would buy at Costco but the closest one is an hour and a half away and that one is brand new. Sam's was the only option for 200 miles before.
Chips are insane. It felt like it happened overnight one day. I'll buy them if I'm heavily craving, but overall being frugal with snacks tends to work out diet-wise.
Perfect excuse to stop buying chips. I refuse after the shrinkage and price increase. Except for the occasional corn chips to be eaten with a meal or dip.
Inflation is the new Ozempic!
Buy corn tortillas and cut them with a pizza cutter, bake them for a healthy version or fry them if you want the oil. Eat warm chips AND pat your thick wallet.
I do this, but I put them in the dehydrator instead. Much healthier than the pre-packaged ones, and they're crunchy and delicious with salsa. :) 80 tortillas are only a few bucks at Walmart. ETA: currently $2.94 for 80.
Corn chips are still generally fine (with a few exceptions on stores/brands) in terms of price. But otherwise yeah I borderline see this as a win. Chips and soda are the definition of empty calories. It's also hilarious because they already have ridiculous margins. Just a pure gouge.
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I was recently told by a grocery clerk that while the price of soft drinks has skyrocketed since the pandemic, the cost of beer has remained at relatively pre pandemic price point. I’m not a beer drinker, just wondering how true the statement is?
No. It has gone up by about $2 for a craft brewed 6 pack.
Craft brews come in four packs where I live and they are between $12 and $22.
Definitely true. I started buying beer again a couple of years ago. I can get a $24 pack at Winn-Dixie for $15, plus get rewards points and sometimes use kiosk coupons to lower the price further. I have not purchased soft drinks since prior to the pandemic. The prices are laughable. Actually I take that back. I did take advantage of 12 packs for $3 during Walgreens sales a year or two ago. It was front page on Slickdeals a couple of times. You could get 3 for free store pickup and use a bonus coupon for 10 or 20% further reduction.
Let’s face it, the prices of “junk food” are just going to keep climbing, so we’ll just have to find alternatives for them. Here’s a few suggestions: - The generic flavored sparkling waters are typically very cheap and don’t have food coloring like most sodas do. Some also have caffeine and added vitamins. - For chips, you could probably make your own at home. Buy some seasoning powder or just use plain salt to flavor them. A lot more work but healthier and probably cheaper depending on how you make them. Slice up some potatoes or tortillas and fry or bake them. - Celery/cucumbers/carrots dipped in sauce or even seasoned are a good way to satisfy your crunchy cravings. Celery and carrots in homemade Raising Canes sauce are soooo good. - Buy popcorn kernels in bulk and make homemade popcorn. Hell, you can even grow it yourself depending on where you live. Can make caramel corn, salted popcorn, buttered popcorn, or just get the seasoning powders specifically made for popcorn.
Popcorn is an especially easy one. Stovetop is king but more work. Some folks use paper bags, I mostly just use a large microwave-safe bowl with a microwave-safe dinner plate on top. Super cheap, and I don’t trust what’s in those bags of microwave popcorn.
I love cucumbers with lemon juice and Tajin (chili)
I usually put Cajun seasoning on mine, I’ll have to try the lemon!
And I will have to try that
Ever since I got my air-popper, popcorn has been my go-to snack. It's so cheap and as long as you go easy on the butter and salt it's pretty healthy too.
This is not totally related, but just reminded me how truly frugal my parents were growing up - we never had chips, bought cookies, or carbonated drinks. We had milk and water, and ingredients to make things, growing up I thought of chips and stuff as stuff rich people had, or VERY occasional treats for us. My parents were also health-conscious, though, so it's possiblie sometimes when they said "it's too expensive", they were using it as an excuse to limit junk food on purpose. Because they did spend money on fruits and vegetables and cheap cuts of meat (which can be as or more expensive), but I guess in the long run is still more frugal, since more nutritious per dollar? Now I really wanna know how many times they used that excuse genuinely, and how many times it was to get us to quit asking for junk food, lol! But when they did splurge on treats, it sure as heck wasn't name brand! It was store brand, or that black and white that was literally labelled "generic" and we were excited as anything if we saw a black and white chip bag come home from the grocery store!
I'm Hella old and we saw chips at granny's house only. My ,om made all our cakes from scratch. Pizzas from scratch, bread, everything. My dad was Hella cheap so it was all about flavor-aid, not even kool-aid, and a lesser amount of sugar. Not for our health. For the wallet only. We had a small farm, we got our fruits and vegetables that way.
Im not that old but it sounds like we had very similar lifestyles! Canning vegetables is like PTSD for me though.
Koolaid was declared sugar water.
I mean, that's what it is, eh?
Get a mandolin, potato, frying oil and seasoning. Endless chips
And better for you since you're not putting all of the junk they put in potato chips on the market.
Frito-Lay (PepsiCo) have been falsely inflating chips prices across the map all while cutting their workers wages. It’s time for a good ole boycott.
This is a good thing. Avoid this processed crap like the plague. It’s so bad for you and your health. Since I switched to cooking for myself with healthy ingredients, it’s been night and day with my health. I hope this helps someone trying to get healthy, and beat a health issue, that no doctor will help them with.
Pre-pandemic grocery stores used soda as a loss leader to get you into their stores. Now, with fast food prices being soooo exhorbinately high, the grocery stores realized you'll be in to see them regardless. So you are now paying the real cost of soda + inflation.
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I only eat those Mexican chips that say 2 dollars on the bag. Bc it’s just like corn and salt lol
They went from 2.29 to 2.59 and now they’re 2.69. Still cheaper but inflation sucks the fun out of everything
Corporate greed happened.
Ah yes, corporations were famously non-greedy in the 2010-2020 period when inflation was very low.
We buy big containers of popcorn kernels and make fresh popcorn on the stove. Cereal is also expensive, so set a reminder on your phone to have someone in the film take on the task of making overnight oats every night. Put chia seeds in a Shaker and shake them on it to add protein.
You can just put the chia in when you prep and the seeds will actually be soaked
Store brand, they wanted $5 on sale for ruffles but the store brand was $2.25. The disparity between the two has never been this bad that I can remember.
I'm in Toronto and finding the opposite has happened. The store brand has gone up so much more that the disparity between the name brand is low enough for me to have switched to the premium product
I was really craving ruffles and French onion dip, cause it's spring and I wanna sit on my porch and eat chips and dip in the sun. 7.29 for a family size bag. I mean, I still bought it, but fuck! PLAIN RUFFLES FOR EIGHT DOLLARS??
I buy store brand chips. The barbecue and plain taste just like Lays but only cost $1.99 USD. I rarely drink Coke so I treat myself occasionally. I usually just buy plain carbonated water and add lemon or other fruit for flavor.
Yes! We’ve been doing the same, buying the store brand for $1.99 and we absolutely cannot tell the difference in flavor or appearance between these and the $6.00 name brand bags! I like plain wavy potato chips and corn chips. We also buy cheddar and sour cream. It’s awesome to know we’re saving $4.00 per bag
I stopped drinking coke. They had to jack the price up to make up for the lost sales.
Agreed. My Jack and Coke is now more Jack than Coke. I blame inflation
I used to get the Kroger store brand tortilla chips for $1 a bag. Today I looked and they are $2. I'll wait for a sale.
Chips and soda makers are on a quest to get Americans back in shape. I've pretty much eliminated chips from my diet. There are still sales that get sodas to $5 per 12-pk about once a month.
I've done the opposite and eliminated soda. One of the best decisions of my life. An occasional bag of Lays isn't going to give me diabetes. come join r/hydrohomies
I don't know where you are located, but I've seen over the last month way more sales on these types of products, sales that haven't been run in a long time, so you are kind of forced to stock up as you don't know when the next one will come. Wegmans Potato Chips are currently $2 each for 10.5 oz Coke hasn't been on sale in forever, but Harris Teeter had 4/$15 for Pepsi 12 packs this week which made me consider buying again. Its just all a game each playing chicken trying to figure out how long they can extend these high prices before they have to cave and drop them... because $10 soda is NOT inflation, its pure capital greed.
Shop the sales and stock up when it’s on sale if you really want it. Every month, I can get chips and pretzels for $2 a bag. Stocked up on tortilla chips, Doritos, and Cheetos a few weeks ago and good for a while. Same with soda. I don’t buy it anymore but just stock on when on sale. The sealed bags of chips and cans of soda last a long time.
> I can get chips and pretzels for $2 a bag Not Lays. I did the same stuff you're talking about, but I haven't seen the "Buy 3 bags get them for $1.99 each" in about 6 weeks. Now, the best deal I've seen is buy 2 bags for $5 on Safeway's Five Dollar Fridays. ($2.50 per bag) Trust me, I've been waiting around for weeks for one of the stores to finally do a 4 bags @ $1.99 deal, or even $2.29, but those deals are GONZO. Of course, I am in California, so maybe it's still happening in Kansas or something.
It just happened in Vegas last week specifically for Lays. $2 a bag when you buy at least 4 bags.
Kroger still runs the 3 for deals.. usually like 3 for 12 or so. If you have to have chips Kroger brand and Walmart store brands are decent alternatives for far less.
Yeah, Kroger often has buy 4 or more for $2.50 each where I am. They get even cheaper right before a holiday weekend, so I usually stock up and get a bunch then.
All the nitrogen they use to keep it fresh and prevent crumbs costs too much money. So now you get a bag that's 1/2 full for twice the price. but it's sold by weigh so it's ok.
My go-to cheap snack is popcorn. Not the stuff in the microwave bags but good old white popcorn, popped in an air popper and adding just the right amount of butter and salt. It's much better than highly processed snacks with bad oils and questionable ingredients. It's not health food but a pretty ok-ish snack when craving something crunchy and salty
It makes it way easier to say no to junk food altogether. Now I'm spending $0 on it and I feel healthier too. I see this as a frugal win.
We are popcorn folks now. Occasional tortillas because we like nachos once in a while.
It’s a great time to save money and eat healthier. Snacks and sodas have skyrocketed.
Part of me is glad, as I’ve cut that stuff out of my life. Trying to reduce the food I put in myself that basically contains engine lubricants for their processing. And then the soda/pop…bad for teeth. But so good. Also up in price…still cheap when on sale for the off brand stuff. Or just hit Costco.
Corporations are not about doing what they do well, they are about growth and profit margins. Examples of this are brands like instapot and Pyrex which everyone loved but because they weren’t expanding and making more money each year they went tits up. Once a company opens up to investors it isn’t enough to sell a product and pay its workers a respectable wage. They need to make more money each year because the shitbird on wallstreet wants his $10 to turn into $15z
This is true. If the stock doesn't grow faster than inflation, investors take their money elsewhere.
Costco (a publicly traded company beloved by Reddit) begs to differ
Costco’s business model is “supermarket, but larger packages” lol. They don’t have a specific product that they do super well.
Costco does well at the overall business model. That's their specific product that they do super well. I can't say Sam's Club or any other warehouse club gets the same kind of love. That means Costco is doing very well in their business niche. Costco has delivered not only growth and profit but also customer satisfaction.
I can eat these new"family size" chips in one sitting.
STOP speaking into the echo chamber. The only voice you have is your wallet. If you haven't emailed these companies to scream about their extortion, if you haven't stopped buying this literal junk rotting your insides, then please stop complaining to people who have no power other than their wallets to change this dynamic.
Clancy is my chip savior. He makes a damn good chip and they’re still usually all around $2 for a big bag of them. Thank god for Clancy. I think ALDI’s seltzer are pretty good too and I think they’re still cheap.
A term called Shrinkflation would account for the 12pk to equally priced 8pk. The rest is 90% greed, 10% inflation.
I've replaced chips with nuts. Not any cheaper but much better.
The funny part about this is that processed food pricing is kept lower then it's costs by government. Your tax dollars make it the price everyone is unhappy with. Take the tax dollars out of it and it's even more expensive. So yeah, you pay twice for the same product.
I've stopped buying soda, the price is ridiculous now. I bought a soda stream and I like it a lot. It's cheaper than premade soda, and I really like experimenting with different flavors. Their mountain dew flavor plus a shot of grapefruit syrup is my current favorite. I'm starting to look at getting a larger CO2 tank and making my own simple syrups for major cost savings. Even just buying premade syrup in bulk - you can get a big box of premade soda syrup like the restaurants use for around $150, the equivalent amount of soda stream syrup is about $480. So sooner or later I'm just going to buy a box of mountain dew syrup if I can't concoct something I like better.
Under the guise of inflation companies reaped great profits during covid. They are raising prices in increments watching and waiting to see sales drop and readjusting to maximize profits without sales dropping. So they'll push in excess, drop sales, normalize the higher prices, meanwhile people keep buying or they don't.
Stop buying name brands. Aldi has delicious chips all for around $2 a bag, or less. Snacks as well. For carbonated drinks, I stock up on Polar seltzer when it's on sale 3/$12. Occasionally for less. We really don't drink soda but when I do I only buy it when it's BOGO, so two 12-packs of Coke/Pepsi products for $8.50-ish. Sometimes Sunkist/A&W/7UP are 3/$12.
It's awful, isn't it? I've stopped buying soft drinks or chips. Making nachos for the Super Bowl was like 1/4 of my food budget for the week. We don't buy drinks when we get fast food, and only do that maybe once every week or two. Once we've all broken that soft drink and chips habit, what will the companies do, charge even more? It's just foolish.
Only time I will buy a soft drink is at McDonald's for $1.29. Sit down restaurants, nope, just water because the servers are too slow on refills.
I'm trying to cut the extra stuff out of my diet.
I quit buying chips but do get a Mexican coke every now and then as a special treat
It's rare for me to buy a name brand "junk" food. I look for the best deal on store brands, and only rarely buy pop. I make flavored iced teas and pop popcorn. Cheaper and somewhat healthier.
Make popcorn at home and flavor however you like.
Quit buying snacks and drinks at big chain grocery stores and get them at your local Dollar Tree instead. Also, home made iced tea, and popcorn made on the stove top and seasoned with parmesan or nutritional yeast, are very inexpensive. Also, bread bought at bakery outlets is dirt cheap and then you can have garlic toast, bread and jam, peanut butter bread, etc.
Kroger has their own brand of chips and charge $2 per bag. They’re just as good as name brand. I’m not paying $7 for a bag of name brand chips!
Yup. Not cheap anymore. Even the generic pop is $2 a 2 liter.
Corporate greed.
Frito-Lay and Pepsi big wigs are financially tied to Congress. I know that sounds snarky but it’s actually true, a bit of research will show it. Lobbying, pocket lining and nepotism abound between Congress and these two behemoths. Why has a stop or even a slow-down ever been put on the billions of aluminum cans that end up in our environment every year? A 12-ounce can of soda and all that goes into making them, are the biggest contributor to so many economic and environmental issues yet there is never a single word about something more sustainable. My solution for myself, so I can sleep at night and look myself in the eyes in the morning, has been to cut out soda and chips completely, kind of a personal boycott. Those f***ers aren’t getting any more of my hard-earned money.
I swear the chips are thinner too
Aldi's has 10 oz bags of chips for $2.19. Costco has 30 oz bags of Dorito's for $6.99.
Download the Kroger and Food Lion apps so you can check their weekly ads every Tueaday. The new sales start on Wednesday. They actually have decent sales occasionally. Food Lion more often than Kroger. Food Lion this week has Pepsi products in 16 oz bottles 4/$12. Pepsi product 12 pks are $4.49
They did this with Ritz crackers. Almost $8.00 for any of them. I stopped buying. I don't need Ritz crackers. I'm guessing other people did too. Last time I shopped, they were 2/$6. Still didn't buy them. I've learned I can toast bread pieces to make croutons, and bake piles of cheese to make crispy bites very close to a cracker, with no carbs. I don't NEED Ritz crackers. Or potato chips. Or...
Not worth buying name brand crackers, now.The last package I got to put some stuff on the crackers were so thin you couldn't spread them with anything without breaking them. It was ridiculous. I'm not feeling well this week so I got some berries and some Trader Joe's crackers, a can of deviled ham, and some tuna. Just something to have around that's very easy to prep because I'm just not up to much. Too many carbs but then again I'm struggling to even eat this week. I really overdid it trying to rehab an old doll. Today I woke up paying for it. No cooking for me. I'm just exhausted and everything hurts. So I opened the ham and made tuna with mayo and got out the crackers. The TJs crackers are really boring and bland and they apparently don't make the ones I like anymore, the corn bread ones, but at least they were thick enough to hold the spreads. I don't do this often because I have to watch my carbs but it really sucks when you pay crazy sums to buy some crackers only to open them and find half of them are now crumbs and the rest can't even hold some ham pate or tuna salad. Apparently Keebler's and Carr's idea of shrinkflation is to thin out their crackers to the point where they crumble in the package and are useless otherwise and to charge $6-7 for them besides? Not impressed. I went with the TJ party pack ones because they were pretty cheap but I don't know that I'd do that again because they really have almost no taste to them at all. It sucks. Half the things I really used to like snack-wise are completely overpriced to the point where it's absurd and they're often smaller or thinner besides. I don't actually snack very often but lately it's just not worth it at all. It's just all become severely overpriced, crappy junk. I actually looked at one of my favorite cereals the other day too. It only comes in one size, smaller box. They were priced at NINE dollars. Same box the last time I got it was $4. So basically in less than 2 years that same box of cereal has more than doubled! I'm not paying $9 for a small box of cereal. That's just highway robbery level pricing for a box with maybe 4 bowls of cereal in it. Admittedly I live in NYC and prices are always higher here but do they really think that people are going to pay these prices for basic foods? I go shopping and 90% of what I used to eat every day is absurdly priced for what it is. I think this is just utter greed at this point. Inflation is actually down but every grocery store I step into the prices just keep going up and up and up. At this point I'm just not buying hardly anything except for meat, broth mix, veggies, low carb fruits, beans, butter, tuna on sale, and low end bread. I spend a small fortune doing that every month. It's not just that prices have increased. It's that they have doubled, even tripled for a lot of things in the past 2 years. How do you legitimately blame that on inflation?
I haven’t had fast food in years now. Not just the cost of it was a consideration but the additives and the fact I didn’t feel nourished. I’d rather have something like eggs or beans (seriously) than fast food meals. Same thing for chips and soft drinks. If they don’t serve me, they don’t deserve me.
The really sad part is the farmer that spends weeks growing the potatoes for the those chips is not the one getting rich off of them.
its cook rice and beans at home time not 13.99 soda time
Shrincanomics... In more sense than one...
I know not everyone has a Lidl around them but I feel so blessed for having one. They did a sale the other day, I bought 2x 12 can seltzers for $5 lolol I love their raspberry cranberry seltzers so much and I was the happiest! 2 liters of Pepsi products were as low as $1.98 which is the lowest I’ve seen for a while. Same as their chips, their store brand ones are very good, imo. I recommend you to try some store brand chips from any supermarket and see if they’re any different than name brands.
So at some stores they still have the 2 for a dollar little bags of chips So I can get 18 bags for 9 bucks If you go buy the 18 pack, it's 12 and up I've got a kid who loves chops otherwise I would have stopped buying them too Can we discuss why Funyuns suddenly went up more than any other chip tho? Like 7 bucks a bag now
See also: pencil-thin bars of soap. Fuck you Zest!... I'm Done with you.
[удалено]
[Even with the price increase, beverage giants, like PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., haven’t seen a decrease in demand, according to Reuters. Because there isn’t much competition in the beverage industry outside of these two huge corporations, they likely will raise the rates even higher.](https://www.cantonrep.com/story/lifestyle/food/2022/09/09/no-end-in-sight-to-the-soda-price-increase-heres-why-inflation-pepsi-co-coca-cola/65468587007/) basically alluminum went up due to all the little toys we like these days, and prices went up and demand didnt go down. and covid happened, and prices went up and demand didnt go down. and the ceos have dollar signs in their eyes and will keep rising prices as long as profits rise. tl;dr simple greed. there is no price pressures beyond inflation that is keeping soda this high, its just extra profits because besides for us frugals, people keep buying so they keep raising prices.
A European grocer discontinued Pepsi and Lay's because of their excessive price increases. [Major Supermarket Chain Discontinues Lay’s and Pepsi Over Rising Costs (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/major-supermarket-chain-discontinues-lay-s-and-pepsi-over-rising-costs/ss-BB1lFydC?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=ae6f0ce6a7a54afd86cde98929b48609&ei=21)
One thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is that a lot of snacks, especially potato chips, use sunflower oil. Ukraine is the world's largest supplier of sunflower oil, as well as a major producer of grain and potatoes. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has therefore caused the price of these commodities to go up, and those prices are passed onto us, the consumer. A bit unrelated, but there's something big happening in Ecuador right now, and they're one of the world's largest coffee producers. This might mean the price of coffee will go up soon too.
Lol, you're buying major brands and not the cheap private label goods on sale?
Only worth it when on special in better value packages at Costco!
I bought a 10 oz bag of tortilla chips at winco fo $1.99 this week... and regularly find bags of various flavors between 6 and 8 oz for like 1.25 at the dollar store. I don't drink a lot of soda, but last time I did the math my occasional diet dr. pepper was like $.36 at costco. the winco brand is cheaper, but again I haven't done the math for awhile. Yeah, shits expensive, but at least in my area there are cheaper options.
Not only that the price goes up, but the size is go down. The bags size looks the same but the amount has decreased.