Inflation gets personal - Now I'm worried.

[disneysteve]

We went to buy soft pretzels the other day (We're born and raised in Philadelphia - it is in our blood). The soft pretzel place has always been 3 for $1.00. It is now 3 for $1.50! What an outrage!

Seriously, though, I thought a 50% price hike was kind of steep.

[autoxer]

They just did that at the philly pretzel shop near me too! I was also kinda shocked. I think they are even making them smaller... [/conspiracy]

But they are definitely better than wawa's pretzels.

[jIM_Ohio]

There are two places I go for a good pretzel.

1) Quaker steak and lube. Get the wings/pretzel combo. recomend Arizona ranch or hot flavor wings, 3 pretzels come with the meal (and cheese too!).

2) Haupferhaus- it has a beer gardens and they serve pretzels as an appetizer. I recomend the pretzels with a tall order of their wheat beer. But they have 2-3 beers there which are among best I have ever tasted. make sure if you go this route you have a high alcohol tolerance or a designated driver.

[Broken Arrow]

We went to buy soft pretzels the other day (We're born and raised in Philadelphia - it is in our blood). The soft pretzel place has always been 3 for $1.00. It is now 3 for $1.50! What an outrage!

The place I go to has been charging me 3 pretzels for $2 this entire time! Well, now I feel gipped. But then, it could also explain why the price hasn't changed.

[JBinKC]

Given what has happened to the price of wheat that price rise is not out of line. You have to be a big sucker to believe the US inflation rate is at 4-5%. Hopefully instead of saving dollars like this website promotes you are taking the further step and converting them into a store of value like consumable commodities i.e. food stockpiles.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm with autotexr, are you sure they aren't smaller as well? I noticed that the price of some stuff hasn't gone up, but the portions are noticably smaller.

[Snowgirl]

Price of wheat has dramatically increased lately, so all the derived products also did. Our bagel shop went from 5$/dz to 6.50$/dz in January, a 30% hike. Well, the price hadn't gone up in the last 4 years, so part on it is the accumulated inflation, but I fear another increase is forthcoming, with the wheat at historical high. And people think bio-fuel is a solution! Would only drive the food price higher, but that's off-topic!

[disneysteve]

a 30% hike. Well, the price hadn't gone up in the last 4 years, so part on it is the accumulated inflation

That's a good point that I bring up periodically. There are some things where the price stays stable for extended periods and then everybody gets all upset when they finally raise it because they raise it a lot. Road and bridge tolls are a good example. They don't creep the price up gradually because they don't want the toll to be $1.28 or some odd number that means they have to make a lot of change. So they keep it at $1.00 for years and then hike it to $1.50 all at once. It makes it seem like a 50% jump, which it is, but if you figure that it had stayed the same for 10 years, it really isn't that bad.

I had seen a change with the pretzels, though. At first, they were 3/$1.00 and the coupon in the paper was to get 6/$1.00. Then I noticed the coupon started being for 5/$1.00 instead. Now they've gone and upped the price entirely.

[aida2003]

Since you're talking about the prices of treats I want to share too .

DH who ADORES and canNOT live without sweets mentioned to me that a new ice cream shop opened in the same shopping plaza we went shopping for herb seeds. Well, I being pregnant bit the bullet and said let's go to check them out. We got two KID size cups of ice cream and paid $4.52 . Ice cream was delicious though.

Anyway since we hardly ever buy ice cream, it's OK, but if families went there once a month (worse: every Sat.), that would be outrageous, IMO. No wonder you hear this frugal tip "Don't eat dessert in the restaurant, go to the supermarket".

[sweeps]

Even ice cream in the store has gone way up. An average price for a quart of Edy's, Dean's or Breyers is $5-$6. Cha-ching.

[Aleta]

I'm with JBinkC. It's important that you buy items in bulk at times like this. As JBinkC says 'commodity buying". I like the pretzels too. How about buying them and freezing them. I know a lady that makes hers in the bread machine. I don't know if you want to go that far. You could always freeze them.

I have to laugh everytime I hear the infation index figures. Who are they kidding or trying to fool. It's important to keep your eyes open and prepare.

[disneysteve]

I like the pretzels too. How about buying them and freezing them.

You must not be from Philadelphia. Soft pretzels are best just out of the oven. They are okay within an hour or two and they are pretty much trash after that. They have a very short shelf life.

[simpleyme]

Other than a place call aunt Annie's I have never had a pretzel that is not frozen and thawed
they sell the pretzels in the freezer section of costco, they are to be served with that fake cheese dip , you usually find them at little league concession stands

I had a yummy cinnamon roll pretzel at aunt annie's a couple years back it came with a little cup of frosting it was like 2.50 but it was big in size but was so thin the pretzel had very little pretzel ,was yummy but I will never buy one again

[disneysteve]

Other than a place call aunt Annie's I have never had a pretzel that is not frozen and thawed

Auntie Anne's are NOT Philadelphia-syle soft pretzels. Not even close.

[markusk]

Since moving to CA from the Philly area, definately miss the hot soft pretzels -- and freezing them for later just won't do. I also miss blue berry iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts and real cheese steaks.

I think however, the increase in pretzel price has more to do with farmers growing less wheat (to grow corn for the gasoline additive) than inflation.

The local news had a story yesterday about bakeries' cost of (20lb?) bags of flour going up from $15 to $40 over a 7 day period. They interviewed a wheat farmer who basically said he never thought wheat prices could get this high in his life time. There is such a scarcity of wheat world wide that certain traditional exporters of wheat have banned all wheat exports. If you check your local super markets for pasta, it should already be up at least by 20 cents. Restaurants will have to increase prices.

Time to stock up on flour and pasta!