DIY
Call for Submissions: Responding to Rising Food Prices
An invitation to share your ideas, from The DIY Diaries
Over the last few months, I’ve read a number of news stories about rising food prices, with connections to deeply serious issues including the invasion of Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, worker shortages, and more.
As it so often does, it took a much, much more insignificant event to feel the impact of food prices in my own suburban life. It took the price of my go-to box of Cheerios from the no-frills, lower-priced grocery store in my neighborhood to pass five dollars.
I’d been sort of sleeping on the increasing prices, maybe just ignoring them since there wasn’t anything I could do to get the prices to come back down. But once I noticed the Cheerios, I took a second look at everything in my cart the other day and saw that prices had increased for most things.
The power of a DIY community
This got me thinking that it’s a good time to share ideas, strategies, tips, and stories about ways that we’re coping with higher food prices in our lives. Though we can’t make the prices come down, we can do plenty of things ourselves to respond to higher prices through our own planning.
The first step comes from being mindful of the situation, not ignoring it like I’d been doing. From there, we can take more and more helpful actions, especially if we have the inspiration of other people’s stories to motivate us.
I know that many people reading this have been very conscious of prices and have a lot of longtime practices for saving money and making the most of every dollar spent on food. I have had more of a focus on this, too, at many times in my life, and I feel silly and remiss in admitting that I’d been ignoring it lately, though there are some money-saving things that I’ve been doing so long that I don’t even think of them as choices anymore.
Please also note that while I’m writing from my perspective as an American here (mentioning the dollar, etc), I hope to read stories from writers all over the world about rising prices or issues with shortages, and your strategies for making the best of things.
Call for submissions
I invite you to share your stories of (big and small) ways you stretch your food budget. This can be anything that comes to mind, such as:
- your favorite money-saving recipes,
- ways to replace meat and other pricey ingredients,
- how to grow or prepare more of your own food,
- tips for saving while grocery shopping,
- how to organize food storage in the freezer, pantry, etc
- and more!
A note of thanks
I seldom tag more than a handful of folks in an article, but I decided to tag everyone who has been added as a writer for The DIY Diaries so far, in hopes that people will see this and consider writing something to share. Any length of stories is fine, according to your preference.
If you’re reading this and haven’t been added as a writer yet, please let me know in a comment, and I’ll add you right away.
I truly believe we can help each other out with sharing ideas on this topic, and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks, everybody!
Amanda Payne, Staten Blogging, Danielle Hestand, Rhiannon James, J.R. Spiers, MW Mercer, Alicia Domínguez, Ali, Jess C., Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages, Backwards Tshirt, Amanda Jean, Carmellita, Cat Strav, Coyote Susan, Celeste Wilson, Dana Leigh Lyons, Daniella Montage, Audrey Howitt, Divya Goswami, Duvy McGirr, Elise Chidley, Christina Marie Ward, Bruce Curle, Gina Kimmel, Helen Miao Yu, Janice M. Flanders, Jerikho Jordan, Jan Sebastian, Joel Brown, Kaitlyn Allen-Rosillo, E. Katherine Kottaras, Lindsay Olin, Mandy Zeller, MN, Katie Michaelson, Mercedes O'Leary, Gerald Washington, Mona S Gable, Mulan, Suma Narayan, Omy, Patricia Timmermans, pockett dessert, Michele Baumgardner, Preeti Ramachandran, Sara Burdick, Sarah J. Baker, The Sober Vegan Yogi, Steffany Ritchie, Stefan, Susan Alison, Trista Signe Ainsworth, Vashni Stories, Min L
Your articles on ALL topics are still welcome, and this call for submissions about saving money on food is open indefinitely.
Many thanks, Amanda
