"What's for dinner?"
For many Americans, the nightly question is often as much about taste preferences as it is about economic realities.
My own family's mealtimes invariably require tradeoffs of time, money, and skill that we must navigate every single day.
Now, rising inflation is once again squeezing families' finances across the US.
Food costs have so far held relatively steady this year, with increases and decreases mostly offsetting each other in a basket of goods. But soaring gas prices and other consumer expenses are eating up a larger share of household budgets, according to the latest consumer price index.
For some families, that might mean cutting down on restaurant dining in favor of home-cooked meals. For others, it's swapping out beef for a less expensive protein.
Time-strapped shoppers may find themselves increasingly eyeing their grocery store's prepared foods options as a lower-cost alternative to getting delivery.
At Business Insider, we want to know how our readers are navigating these decisions, and how that has changed in the past year.
In my family of four, for example, my wife and I decided to sharply reduce restaurant and delivery spending. By cooking more meals at home, we have basically stopped ordering delivery, and we eat out at restaurants about once a week. According to our budgeting app, we've cut our spending in that category in half.
How have you been balancing food costs with other expenses over the past year? What changes, big and small, have helped you feed yourself well and save money?
We also want to see the receipts.
What have you stopped buying? What do you now spend more on? What do you splurge on? How have gas prices affected you?
Please get in touch via email or share your info in the survey below:
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Dominick Reuter is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, primarily covering Walmart, Target, and Costco. His stories tend to focus on issues and trends that affect employees and customers.Prior to joining BI in 2019, Dominick worked for more than a decade as an independent photojournalist covering a wide range of stories for global wire services and newspapers, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse.Dominick studied photojournalism at Boston University and later earned a Masters in business and economics journalism from Columbia University.If you're an employee or customer with a story to share, please contact me via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.
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