Rising prices are pushing Dallin Hatch away from his favorite grocery store in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hatch and his wife, who have a 7-month-old child, used to regard grocery shopping as a break from the stresses of everyday life. Not anymore.
Now, the couple hesitates to buy certain items and has turned to cheaper grocers to cut down on costs. They used to buy fun drinks, and items such as specialty cheese and pastas. Now they skip the drinks and mostly buy rice, pasta and bread. “When we do buy meat, it’s definitely frozen,” said Hatch, 36, who works as director of communications at the data-insight company Patterns. Not everything in the frozen aisle makes it into their basket: The “really healthy, super tasty frozen meals” that Hatch used to eat all the time cost $7 or $8 per package, he said, “and that ended up becoming too much as well.” “You can start to hesitate on that kind of stuff,” he said. The Hatch household spends approximately $200 per week on groceries. That bill has increased with their new addition to the family. “That’s an extra $2,600 this year … it really adds up,” he told …