No other major U.S. city has it worse than we do here in the Valley when it comes to the rising inflation rate.
“Right now, I didn't get any meats,” said Huda Mohammed, piling groceries into her car.
To find a better deal on meat, Huda says she’ll travel to wholesale retailers to compare prices.
“It's all almost $300, I used to get the same groceries like around $150 before,” she said.
Over the past 12 months, the Phoenix-area inflation rate leads all major U.S. cities at 13%.
The national rate is 8.3%.
Economists expected dropping gas prices to help draw down inflation but new consumer price index reports this week show food prices for the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area have increased over 3% over the last two months.
Foods like meat, bread and eggs - shot up more than 4%.
With not much going down in price, one relief for some could be the price of alcohol, which did see a 2% decline.
“Wages and everything just stay the same and everything else just keeps increasing,” said Karen.
A key driver for our sizzling inflation rate are fuel prices.
“Oh that too, the gas is sky high,” said Gloria Lumbert.
Expert tells us the price of groceries won't go down until the price of gas starts to decline.
After a brief stint under four dollars a gallon for unleaded, AAA has gas prices in Maricopa County back to where they were for part of the summer.
Greg Barr with the Phoenix Business Journal says the cost of everyday goods is tied to transportation costs and gas prices. That's partially why we haven't seen much relief yet.
Not helping alleviate what seems to be like never-ending higher prices, the most recent reports on inflation could lead the federal to raise interest rates yet again this year by three-quarters of a percentage point or more.
“High inflation, even though it could come down could persist through the first half of next year as well,” said Barr.
When asked why prices shoot up so quickly but are slow to decline Barr said in part, "Just the fact that oil companies are not as quick to lower the prices at the pump as they are as hiking them.”