While inflation has cooled since its 2022 peak, food prices are still considerably higher than they were a few years ago, and one set of California parents showed the world just how expensive grocery shopping has been of late.
Galen Callahan, 39, and her husband recently spent $444.38 on a single visit to Trader Joe’s. They posted a video showing the receipt and noting, “Here’s what it takes to feed six kids [for] about a week and a half.” It’s been viewed more than 17 million times.
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But Callahan, who works at a title-services company with her husband, told MarketWatch that the post was not meant to slam, Trader Joe’s pricing. Its prices are some of the most competitive in her area, she said.
“Trader Joe’s is a super cheap option where we live,” the Los Angeles–area resident told MarketWatch. “It’s funny to get a grocery receipt that’s the length of the CVS receipt that everybody jokes about. It’s just the amount of items that we thought was so funny.”
Callahan mentioned that she does a lot of mental math when grocery shopping, and thinks about her family’s food budget on a per-meal basis.
“A $444 grocery bill that lasts us about 10 days — that’s three meals a day for eight people, that’s $1.85 per meal per person,” she said. “Where are you going to eat for $1.85?”
Like many parents, Callahan stressed the importance of shopping around at grocery stores because it’s typical for one store to have better prices for fruit, another to have better prices for meat, others to be better for bulk shopping.
“We’ll do Vons, we’ll also do Costco COST maybe once a month,” she said. “Trader Joe’s has really inexpensive kids’ snacks, their organic fruit is way cheaper, too.”
Representatives for Trader Joe’s did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.
See: Home buyers who could barely afford their homes are a hit with TikTok viewers
U.S. consumers are spending roughly 26% more on food than they did prior to the pandemic in 2020, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Food costs have outpaced overall consumer-price growth, at an aggregate 19%, over that period.
Here are a few examples of food items that have increased in price in recent years:
See also: How much Arizona’s 99-cent Iced Tea would cost if it kept up with inflation
Trader Joe’s is one of the least expensive grocery stores in the United States, but it’s not the least expensive, according to one recent customer survey. Of course prices at grocery stores vary based on location, and high-cost-of-living areas tend to have higher food prices.
Consumer-experience consultancy MarketForce Information took responses from 6,555 people about a variety of grocery-store topics, including which stores offered the best value for your money.
Some grocery stores are more prevalent in certain areas of the country. For example, H-E-B has many locations in Texas, Food Lion tends to be located in southeastern states and Woodman’s Markets are mainly located in the Midwest.
Respondents said Aldi — with which Trader Joe’s shares a corporate lineage — offered the best value for their money, followed by Woodman’s Markets, WinCo Foods, Lidl and Market Basket.
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