When I first made the transition from being a teenager to a young adult and had to start buying my own groceries, I loved it.
I’ve always enjoyed cooking and baking, so having control of what I bought was a fun and freeing experience. I don’t think I ever felt ignorant about the fact that food costs money, so it wasn’t a shocking experience – other than maybe the cost of meat. Coming from a rural area and growing up in a household where the freezer was always full and ground beef was never an item on our shopping list, may have been the biggest surprise.
As a college student, it was tricky, but it was kind of fun to find good sales, try new things in a big city, and grocery shopping was a pleasant part of life. And there still always seems to be extra change for coffee.
Then, I moved back to the same small town, enjoyed being able to raid my parents’ full freezer again, and had kids.
Slowly, the fun I used to find grocery shopping has been fading. Not that it’s my kids’ fault, but first came the shock of buying diapers. As a young family that had just bought our first home, and had a lot of other first-time costs, such as paying off student loans, those baby items really pushed the budget.
But it also allowed for some creativity and the need to hoard coupons a bit. Except, the coupons would often expire in my wallet, and I was never really good at remembering to use them.
Now, with a teenager in the house and a pre-teen, it sounds like I may have to try some new cost-saving strategies. The most recent Canada’s Food Price Report is estimating food costs to increase five to seven per cent this year – and I’m not looking forward to it.
The estimate is the highest predicted increase in food prices since the report was created 12 years ago.
According to the report, the most significant increases will be for ‘dairy and restaurants’ at six to eight per cent, and ‘bakery and vegetables’ at five to seven per cent.
Personally, I buy at least two 4L jugs of milk a week, along with plenty of cheese and yogourt. I buy at least three cucumbers a week, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, and of course a healthy amount of fruit.
It’s not rare for our family to spend $20 just on apples every week.
Included in the report was an example to show what an “average” family could expect to pay for groceries in the coming year. Amazingly enough, this projection is almost exactly what our household looks like.
“This year’s report predicts that a family of four, including a man (age 31-50), woman (age 31-50), boy (age 14-18), and girl (age 9-13) will pay up to $14,767.36 for food, an increase of up to $966.08 from the total annual cost in 2021.”
If you just switch that younger child to another growing boy, that is exactly what my household looks like. Being told that I will likely spend an extra $1,000 just on groceries is pretty motivating to find alternative ways to feed my family.
Thankfully, I haven’t had to buy carrots, onions, potatoes, green beans, or green peas since early in the summer. I do enjoy having a large garden, and I’m already thinking about what I want to plant, and how we can expand what we already have.
When we built our home five years ago, I never saw the need for 10 acres of land, but now I do, and I’m glad we have it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate in 2022.
