Are you near Fresno? If so, you can always get a free meal over at the Poverello house. You can also get a food bag. https://poverellohouse.org/what-we-do/food/emergency-food-bags

I used to volunteer over there. Great place.

As far as prices go, you can get a big 25 pound of rice/beans for less than 20$ over at Winco. Back when covid happened it lasted my wife and I about a year on both. It gets boring, but it works.

I mostly shop at Costco and am not struggling so maybe my perspective is skewed but it seems like food prices have been coming down recently, and I haven't noticed any shortages. If you think it feels like things are being covered up that sounds a little paranoid and conspiratorial to me, food distribution in the US is a huge and complicated system involving a whole lot of people, it seems completely implausible that a cover up of a major food crisis would even be possible. There's just too many people who would notice (and there isn't any kind of centralized hierarchy involved that could pull something like that off). I don't see the relevance of shale oil production, the US produces plenty of oil to be both self sufficient and one of the largest oil exporters in the world. If you're concerned the US doesn't have enough oil or something like that you really shouldn't be.

Food prices have been high for a while and it’s probably tough for donations. We are looking at a 30% higher cost of groceries compared to 5 years ago with some items up to 50%. I think the main reason for the cost is corporate greed. If you have an Aldi nearby it’s probably the best place to shop on a budget.

It's so strange. There's this really large divide happening in America. And I am not even talking about a political one. It's a huge class one, and you're either on the side of the fence that doesn't seem to think much of anything is going on, or you're drowning every day with something new being thrown at you ever other second. More people are depending on pantries than ever before. If you've got time, consider grabbing from a variety of banks over sticking to just one. Could save your life. Other suggestion is grabbing the world's largest thing of pinto beans and rice (Walmart will ship) and living off of that and a multi-vitamin for as long as you can. Add in some veggies if you can, use the scraps for broth. Best of luck, it looks like folks got your back anyways.

Sorry to hear about your struggle. Food costs are up.

U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS - Division of Consumer Prices and Price Indexes

Looks like:

• fast food outpaced everything
• $10 worth of groceries in May 2023 cost $10.10 in May 2024… seem like more? :)

Contrarian views:

Prices have been going down around here.

Where are you?

My dad is retired and volunteers at a food bank. They had to cut the number of bags of groceries during the pandemic but it's since bounced back.

I'm 100% sure this is regional though, so it obvs doesn't represent your area. Where are you at, roughly?