Groceries are Eating Up Big Chunks of Student Budgets

Emilie Lewis picks at the plant she is growing in her apartment. On her bookshelf are books for beginner gardeners. In her dining room are pots nursing basil, chives and tomatoes. 

The budding herbs and vegetables sit under a violet grow light, a technique she learned from her grandma.  She picks off basil leaves meticulously, preparing to make her own pesto.

Lewis is growing her own groceries to save money and trips to the store. She tries to get creative when it comes to meals, finding ways to incorporate the herbs and vegetables growing in her apartment. When she needs more food, she heads to Aldi.

“Aldi is the cheapest place to get groceries,” Lewis said. “It’s important to me as a college student to find options that will save me the most money.”

With inflation on the rise, more college students are beginning to struggle with food insecurity and have trouble affording groceries. This is especially true for students with dietary restrictions.

Student Cora Terletzky has Ulcerative Colitis, which causes food sensitivity to soy, nuts, seeds, and fiber. 

She has to be mindful of the groceries she buys, and specialty items often cost more to begin with. Because of this, her meals are almost always cooked at home, which requires lots of groceries.

“I do one big trip to the grocery store once a month, and about once a week or so I’m back for fresh produce,” said Terletzsky. “I probably spend about $250 a month on groceries alone.”

The cost of groceries has risen in the past year. According to the most recent Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices went up 11.4% from August 2021 to August 2022. 

An NBC News study tracked the average point-of-sale prices of six common products: orange juice, eggs, chicken breasts, fresh ground beef, bacon and bread, and compared them to last year.

To compare the national average costs to UWM area grocery stores, I tracked the price of eggs from Metro Market, Walmart and Aldi.

A carton of 12 eggs at Metro Market stands at $4.49, which is almost a dollar more than the national average. At Walmart, a carton costs $3.78 – slightly over national average. And a carton at Aldi is $3.29, the cheapest of all. 

Reasons for Price Hikes

The rising cost in food can be attributed to more than inflation. Disruptions from the pandemic and global issues continue to affect grocery prices, according to Forbes. COVID-19 affected all production, processing, and retail aspects of the food supply chain. 

Many food producers catering to restaurants had to shift their services to grocery consumers during lockdown. The cost of food production increased due to pandemic influence, such as labor turnover, contamination protection and safety training costs. 

Global issues, such as the war in Ukraine and the avian flu, also contributed to soaring prices. 

With the combined issue of supply restrictions and high demand, prices could continue to rise steadily.

Strategies for Saving Money

It can be a struggle to buy an adequate supply of groceries as a college student, especially with today’s prices. There are many ways to stretch your dollar without going hungry – growing your own vegetables, shopping at cheaper stores such as Aldi, or swinging by an area food pantry. 

There are more monthly visitors at Milwaukee area food pantries than during the height of the pandemic. The Hunger Task Force reports there were around 21,000 monthly visitors in 2020, compared to more than 31,000 monthly visitors this year. Hunger Task Force supplies food for the Milwaukee area at nearly 200 access points. To learn more, visit https://www.hungertaskforce.org/

Another resource for students is the UWM Food Center and Pantry, located in the Student Union. To access the UWM pantry, the participant must have an active UWM email. As long as the email is active, participants are permitted to use the pantry once a week. To learn more, visit https://uwm.edu/deanofstudents/assistance/food-pantry/