Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

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Bagels
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Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by Bagels »

Over the weekend, I compared pricing at my local Albertsons (Irvine, CA) to what I paid for the same items in November 2019 and July (2022), when I did the same exercise. Pricing was done at the UCI location, which is a high-volume store that's often a testbed in raising prices. Prices that differ from the app are marked with an arrow.

Total basket, Nov 2019: $24.69
Total basket, July 2022: $32.79
Total basket, today: $41.64 -> 43.44

Signature Select Vegetable Oil (was 32oz, now 24oz) - 2.49 / 3.49 / 3.99 (5.32 adjusted to 32 oz.)
Signature Select Breakfast Potatoes (was 32oz, now 28oz) - 1.99 / 2.49 / 2.99 (3.42 adjusted to 32 oz.)
Signature Select Ice Cream Cups (12 ct, 3 oz) - 4.99 / 5.49 / 6.49
Signature Select Potatoes Chips (was 7oz, now 5oz) - 2.49 / 2.99 / 2.99 [4.18 adjusted to 7 oz.]
Lucerne Cheese Slices (sandwich size, 16 ct) - 1.99 / 2.99 / 3.99 -> 4.49
Bob's Big Boy Salad Dressing (16 oz.) - 4.49 / 5.49 / 6.49 -> 7.09
Signature Select canned vegetables (15-16 oz.) - .69 / .99 / 1.29 -> 1.49
Signature Select fruit cocktail (15-16 oz.) - 1.39 / 1.59 / 1.99
100 ct. Value Corner Paper Plates - 1.99 / 2.49 / 3.49 -> 3.99
Snack Sized Hershey Bar, was 6pk now 5pk - 1.49 / 1.99 / 2.49 (2.99 adjusted to 6pk]
Yoplait Yogurt, single cups - .69 / .80 / .99
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by mjhale »

I'm lucky to live in an area that has intense grocery competition. We've had significant price increases but thankfully not the crazy ones described elsewhere. But good olde Safeway continues to push the envelope. Things like $6.99 for a carton of Breyers ice cream. I mean $7, seriously? That makes Breyers now more than all of the specialty 48 oz ice creams that Safeway sells. Breyers was $4.49 a year ago. Maybe they should put Tillamook and Edy's at $8.99 or $9.99 just because they have historically been $2-3 more than Breyers or Turkey Hill. At least Turkey Hill is still at $4.99 and the Safeway brand is $3.50, for now. Some of these price increases are just getting gratuitous. I feel for people who don't have much choice in where they can buy groceries.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by BreakingThrough »

Thanks for sharing the numbers and adjusting the figures in the cases of shrinkflation. This would make a great concept for a news article. If for no other reason than to publicly shame Safeway for their increases. Any reporters monitoring this thread? :D
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by HCal »

My local Albertsons/Vons has Yoplait cups for 80 cents normal price, or 59 cents if you buy 4. I didn't realize there was so much variation within the SoCal division.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by Bagels »

HCal wrote: September 1st, 2022, 12:48 am My local Albertsons/Vons has Yoplait cups for 80 cents normal price, or 59 cents if you buy 4. I didn't realize there was so much variation within the SoCal division.
Select stores, like Avalon (Catalina Island), have higher pricing but it's generally consistent. Albertsons/Vons generally use high-volume stores to test higher pricing, before it's rolled out locally, and as mentioned, the prices came from the UCI location, which is one of their highest volume stores. That said, I cross referenced pricing on the app, although it's not perfect (the app use to have lower pricing than B&M stores, now it should be the same but that's not always true). Another (low-volume) location near me is also at the .99 price point.

Ralphs also uses test stores, FWIW.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by Bagels »

Here's Walmart. With the exception of a couple national brands, most increases are fairly modest. Note I left off meat & produce, which saw some of the largest gains at Walmart.

April 2019 vs. now
Great Value Potato Chips, was 14.5 oz. now 13 oz. -> 2.16 / 2.37 (2.64 adjusted)
Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough -> 2.49 / 3.12
Poise Pads -> 4.68 / 5.46
Parent's Choice Baby Wipes, was 72 ct. now 56 -> .94 / 1.24 (1.59 adjusted)
Equate Cleansing Pads, 90 ct. -> 2.97 / 2.97 (no change)
Handi Snacks, 12 ct. -> 4.68 / 6.48
Handi Snacks, 6 ct -> 2.88 / 4.28
Great Value Potato Chips, 6oz -> 1.23 / 1.66
Bob's Big Boy Salad Dressing -> 3.88 / 4.00
Betty Crocker Cake Mix -> .85 / 1.12
Pepperidge Farms Sausalito Cookies -> 2.29 / 3.72
Great Value Yogurt Cups -> .30 / .58
Duncan Hines Frosting -> 1.68 / 1.92
White Castle Hamburgers, 6ct. -> 3.88 / 5.78
Great Value Pickles -> 1.49 / 1.97
Great Value Canned Veggies (14.5-15oz.) - .50 / .58
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by CalItalian »

Signature Select Vegetable cans are .67 each this week.

Quite frankly, none of you know how to use digital coupons to your advantage. Walmart can't hold a candle to the prices I get at Vons. I'm up to 95% or more digital coupon use + apps for cashback or gift cards (such as Ibotta and Fetch Rewards). Rarely use paper coupons - which for food pretty much are non-existent these days. Tear pads in store offer better deals on food.

Last weeks .99 cent produce sale was fantastic and many items were sold out by Tuesday. Using the weekly $1 produce coupon, I got many fresh vegetables for virtually free.

O Organics 16 oz. shoestring potatoes - frozen - are $2.49, BOGO until October. I was able to stack a $1 off frozen coupon with a $1 O Organics coupon plus the BOGO so got 2 16 oz. packages for .49 cents total. O Organics $1 coupon is offered every week. $1 frozen coupon every other week.

Vons had a great sale on Clos du Bois wine last week at $5 each wyb 6 or more. There were two digital rebates directly from the manufacturer website that made them $1 per bottle ($24 back on 12 x 2). Both paid out to PayPal.

That said, today being the first day of the month, I get personalized coupons for monthly use (in addition to the weekly personalized item coupons that are valid Wednesday to Tuesday). Some of them are pretty odd as they are higher than the full shelf price of the item - especially in produce.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by storewanderer »

Those $1 off coupons no longer exist or work for me in NorCal division. They do still seem to work if I am physically in the region that the coupon is actually for... Prices are sky high and borderline outrageous across the board and most weeks the digital offers are little help.

NorCal had a .99 produce sale and it was a joke, weak items. Safeway produce quality has also become quite poor the past couple months, I've had multiple fruits that didn't ripen properly and I had to throw away. This is very poor and is probably an issue with handling at the local store.

That wine is 15.99 regular and 11.99 sale here (9.99 sale and 10.99 regular at Smiths). Complete ripoff. The canned vegetables are 1.25 sale and 1.99 regular (0.58 at WalMart and 0.89 at Smiths). Those potatoes are not sold here but the standard Signature Select frozen shoestring are 28oz for 3.49 sale and 4.49 regular (1.79 at Smiths for the Kroger one and 1.83 at Wal Mart for theirs).

WinCo is the one I am finding to be the best deal lately. Also the best at being in stock. Service is awful but I'm not there for service and I know that going in.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by BillyGr »

CalItalian wrote: September 1st, 2022, 4:09 pm That said, today being the first day of the month, I get personalized coupons for monthly use (in addition to the weekly personalized item coupons that are valid Wednesday to Tuesday). Some of them are pretty odd as they are higher than the full shelf price of the item - especially in produce.
Hannaford over here in the east does that (the personalized coupons), and they have had some occasionally the same where it was more than the item - all it did was come off for the actual price of the item.
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Re: Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

Post by mbz321 »

CalItalian wrote: September 1st, 2022, 4:09 pm Signature Select Vegetable cans are .67 each this week.

Quite frankly, none of you know how to use digital coupons to your advantage. Walmart can't hold a candle to the prices I get at Vons. I'm up to 95% or more digital coupon use + apps for cashback or gift cards (such as Ibotta and Fetch Rewards). Rarely use paper coupons - which for food pretty much are non-existent these days. Tear pads in store offer better deals on food.

Last weeks .99 cent produce sale was fantastic and many items were sold out by Tuesday. Using the weekly $1 produce coupon, I got many fresh vegetables for virtually free.
That's great if you want to mess around with those kind of games (and believe me, I've been doing it on the opposite coast with the generous Amazon Fresh coupons they keep pumping out. I use to semi-extreme coupon back in the day too, but there just aren't usually good item-specific coupons these days to make it worth it), but most people don't.

How are you getting 'many fresh vegetables' for free though? Unless you have a dozen different Safeway accounts (ngl, I have two 'Acme' accounts myself and won several $x off $x purchase coupons from their summer game, but besides that, it generally isn't worth my time to bother with Acme).
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