While many continue to ridicule the Biden administration for claiming 0% inflation last month, one inconvenient point everyone can agree they conveniently glossed over was the fact that food prices continued to rise unabated.
While a sudden drop in gasoline and energy costs in the month of July balanced out increases in virtually every other area of spending to reach a 0% increase month-over-month (importantly not year-over-year), food prices continued their incredible upward climb that we’ve all seen on our grocery bills.
In July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that food costs increased by 1% from June and a whopping 10.9% year-over-year from last July.
This only underscores the importance of searching out source data for yourself. The spin you see and hear on television and online is your starting point to find out where you need to look to find the truth, not your ending point determining what opinion you should hold.
The truth is that while the drop in gasoline and energy costs is a welcome respite, even though those costs are still historically high, there is still no relief to be found on your grocery bill.
Which continues to prove the point that the best time to prepare your household with an emergency food supply was yesterday.
While prices continue to inflate, the lowest cost that can be found is being found today.
With prices continuing to rise, even more food production facilities going up in flames, the now reported potato production declines in Idaho of all places, wheat exports from India being removed from the market, as well as the obviously supply chain shocks coming out of Russia and Ukraine, it might be wise to figure that prices and availability are not yet on the trajectory to getting better right now.
Be sure to take a look at your situation and see if you are comfortably prepared should prices increase to more unsustainable levels. At the rate things have been going, it wouldn’t take too much of a supply chain shock to push prices beyond affordability, if they haven’t been pushed there already.