This May Be the Best Suggestion Ever to Beat Inflation

The Wall Street Journal has, I believe, an outstanding suggestion on how to beat inflation and save money in the process.

Scrimping, saving, and cutting corners are how most families get by in these times. But the WSJ suggests that there’s one thing that everyone can do that will ease the pressures on families and put money almost immediately into their pockets.

Skip breakfast.

We could rename breakfast “Bidenfast” and just do without. The reason for missing the most important meal of the day is that it’s become almost the most expensive meal of the day.

Egg prices increased 8.5% in January from a month earlier and are up 70.1% over the past year, the highest annual rate since 1973. The deadliest avian-influenza outbreak on record has devastated poultry flocks across the U.S., leading the price of eggs to rise more than any other grocery item in 2022, according to Information Resources Inc. U.S. egg inventories were 29% lower in the final week of December 2022 than at the beginning of 2022, according to the USDA.

Frozen, noncarbonated juices and drinks—a category that includes frozen orange juice—rose by 1.5% in January from a month earlier, and the 12.4% annual increase is the highest in over a decade. Florida orange growers are harvesting their smallest crop in nearly 90 years, the result of a freeze, two hurricanes and a citrus disease that is laying waste to its groves.

At those prices, any hen can lay a golden egg. And for those Florida orange growers, those orange trees have become money trees overnight just waiting to be shaken.

Breakfast cereal increased more modestly in January from a month earlier—just 0.4%—but prices in the category were up 15% over a year, in part because of elevated global grain prices resulting from disruptions related to the war in Ukraine.

Breakfast lovers might be better off just having a cup of coffee—but go with roasted, not instant. Prices for roasted coffee declined by 0.1% last month, but instant coffee rose by a 3.6% monthly increase for instant coffee.

Yes, thanks to Joe Biden, breakfast has become a meal for the rich. Perhaps there’s a way the government can make Pop-Tarts a major food group like grains and fruit so we can all get our “Recommended Daily Allowance” of good stuff.