Do you feel knots in your stomach due to financial stress? If so, you certainly have lots of company. All of a sudden, everyone is talking about the cost of living and prices are rising by double-digit percentages all around us. There are so many people out there right now that feel like they are "drowning" because no matter how hard they try there simply isn't enough money for everything. Unfortunately, we are being warned to brace ourselves for even more inflation in the months ahead.

When I heard that the cost of vegetables in the United States had gone up by 40 percent in one month, I thought that there was no way that it could be true.

So I looked it up, and I discovered that the cost of vegetables in the United States didn't go up by 40 percent in one month.

The real figure was 38.9 percent…

A 38.9% increase in prices for fresh and dry vegetables from June to July was the major driver of a higher index for "final demand goods" (things that are done and ready to be sold to a consumer, as opposed to things that go into a later production process).

That is nuts!

How can the cost of vegetables go up by 38.9 percent in a single month?

Apparently this was the largest spike that we have ever witnessed in a summer month "in figures that go back to 1947"…

Per Bureau of Labor Statistics data, it's also the largest monthly increase ever recorded in a summer month (June-August), in figures that go back to 1947.

The other day, I wrote about how beef has become so expensive that it is now considered to be a "luxury".

Well, now vegetables are a "luxury" too.

And let's not forget coffee.

The price of coffee went up by 25 percent in just three months, and that was before coffee exports from Brazil were hit with a 50 percent tariff…

Coffee prices were already up before a 50 percent tariff on Brazil, the top coffee importer to the U.S., went into effect last week.
Coffee prices sharply rose 25 percent over the past three months, according to inflation data released Tuesday. Reuters reported Tuesday that Brazilian coffee exports have started seeing postponements to their U.S. shipments.