Business Lifestyle & Culture

Making do with high grocery prices

By Cameron Belcher

Walking into her regular supermarket in the East Village, these days, often makes, Jillian Vigon nervous.

“I have to swallow kind of hard at certain items, said Vigon, of what have been some steadily rising prices.

The costs of store-bought food increased by 23.5 percent from February 2020 to May 2023,  according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“A lot of the goods and services that the average person is paying for [have] increased,” said Mark Decambre, editor-in-chief at MarketWatch. “From rent to grocery prices to gas, and those things increasing, in the aggregate, means they’ll have less discretionary income to save–leading people to make hard choices about their money.”

Vigon said she carefully plans what to spend on groceries.“So, if something is close to expiration–considering all the food waste that is so terrible these days–if something is close to its expiration date instead of throwing it away, they mark it down to fifty percent.”