Illinois Grocery Prices: These Staples Have Increased The Most

A few months back, I challenged you to guess which food staple has gone up the most in price at your favorite grocery store. Not to be a spoiler for my own story, but the answer turned out to be eggs.

As you'll see below, eggs have skyrocketed in price, but eggs most certainly aren't the only staple at the grocery store that can give you a good case of sticker-shock. At this point, I should do a very short piece on the foods that won't.

It's Not Just Groceries--Is There Anything That Hasn't Jumped In Price?

According to a report on inflation at Forbes.com, just about everything is more expensive than it used to be, but certain areas have been hit harder. For example, airline fares are up 37.8%, electricity costs will run you about 12% more than they used to, and rent prices across the country are over 5% higher.

But you don't eat airline fares, electricity, or rent. The real shock comes from those things that you consume on a daily basis, like groceries. I'm not even going to get started on gas prices, as my doctor worries about blood pressure.

We've Seen Nearly Everything Go Up In Price At The Grocery Store, But Some Things Have Gone Up Quite A Bit More Than Others

The Consumer Price Index says that items that had their price go up above 15% when compared with last year include:

• Soups (18.5%)
• Cereals (17.4%)
• Milk (17%)
• Chicken (16.6%)

That's bad enough, until you read that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 5 food staples at the grocery store that have seen price increases of nearly 40% since last year at this time:

• Eggs (39.8%)
• Margarine (38.3%)
• Butter (24.6%)
• Flour/prepared flour mixes (23.3%)
• Olives, pickles, relish (19.4%)