Across the five gasoline classes sampled, the average price rose from $2.71 to $3.26 per gallon in one week.
By Levi Gwaltney
Welcome to the inaugural installment of Bean Counter’s Scrapbook.
This is a place to find validation for what readers in our broader community may already be experiencing at the cash register and the gas pump. It is not the purpose of this feature to introduce people to anything they should not already know. Nor is it intended as a political statement about the economy. It is simply a snapshot of what is happening here, in our broader community, at a given moment in time.
There are plenty of national sources for financial news. Very few are built around lived local experience.
Last week, AAA reported that the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline had jumped nearly 27 cents. A week later, AAA said the national average had climbed nearly 35 cents from the prior week as spring break demand pushed prices higher. By Sunday evening, AAA’s national average stood at $3.79 per gallon, up from $3.54 a week earlier.
Here in our broader community, the rise was steeper. The five-station sample used for this week’s fuel snapshot rose from an average of $2.71 to $3.26 per gallon — a jump of 20.3% in one week. That pushed the estimated cost of five gallons, roughly enough to drive 100 miles, from $13.55 to $16.30.
The numbers are as they are found. Not massaged. Not seasonally adjusted. Not made to fit a narrative. For groceries, prices are collected from one big box store, one regional grocer, and one local independent on Monday mornings. For gasoline, multiple sellers are sampled Sunday evening, including a truck stop, big box, petroleum brand, convenience store, and independent. Sale prices count because that is the price a shopper is actually paying in that moment.
This is also not meant to be a bargain shopper’s guide. The prices listed here are averages across several stores, not endorsements of where to shop. Las Cruces Digest’s position is that store-hopping is usually not the most effective way to lower a grocery or gas bill. But knowing the average price at a given moment can at least help readers understand whether what they are paying falls near the middle of the market — or well above it.
The Top Line
The top line this week is simple enough: prices moved up fast, and almost no category was spared.
The average basket total rose from $146.85 last week to $156.57 this week, an increase of $9.71, or 6.6%. All 29 items in the basket were priced at all three sampled grocery stores, so the increase cannot be blamed on missing data. The market basket simply got more expensive.
Gasoline moved even faster. Across the five gasoline classes sampled, the average price rose from $2.71 to $3.26 per gallon in one week. The independent station category posted the sharpest jump, rising 34.9%, while even the truck stop category climbed 14.3%. The class average added $2.75 to the cost of a five-gallon fill-up in a single week.
That jump is larger than the national gas-price increase highlighted by AAA over the same period. AAA’s own reporting tied the national rise to spring-break demand and higher crude prices.
Groceries told a slightly more complicated story. The biggest upward moves in the basket were not the glamorous items. They were the kinds of things shoppers buy without much ceremony. Diapers rose from $10.32 to $14.31, a jump of 38.7%. Ground coffee climbed 21.3%, from $15.27 to $18.53. Premium white eggs rose 18.3%, and pickled jalapeños rose 18.7%. Flour tortillas were up 14.3%, white rice rose 12.2%, and whole milk climbed 10.4%.
Some items fell, but not enough to change the larger picture.
The most dramatic percentage drop came from yellow onions, down 33.4%, while paper towels fell 13.1% and mild cheddar dropped 13.6%. Frozen pizza fell 7.4%, though that appears to have more to do with one unusually high price last week than with a broader market correction. The previous week’s average was distorted by a frozen pizza at one sampled location priced at nearly double the closest peer price. That sort of outlier is exactly why tracking the basket over time matters. One week’s shelf tag can look absurd. Two weeks begin to tell a story.
Some of the quieter movements may be the most interesting.
Maseca did not move. Cooking oil did not move. Beer did not move. Bacon did not move. In a week when much of the basket lurched upward, those flat lines stand out. They suggest that even in a period of visible price pressure, not every staple is being tugged upward at once. But there were too few of those holdouts to offset what happened elsewhere.
The category totals tell a similar story.
- Dairy rose from $11.28 to $12.21.
- Pantry climbed from $43.33 to $46.88.
- Bakery moved up from $7.34 to $7.82.
- Produce rose from $6.68 to $7.04.
- Baby climbed sharply from $10.32 to $14.31.
- Health rose from $11.98 to $12.98.
Only a few categories moved meaningfully lower, and even there the declines were modest.
The larger picture is hard to miss. A shopper could have felt some relief in a handful of places this week, but the broad movement was up.
THE BOTTOM LINE
National inflation is not exploding on paper. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the all-items Consumer Price Index rose 2.4% over the 12 months ending in February, while the food index rose 3.1% over the year. Reuters, summarizing the February report, noted that consumer prices rose 0.3% for the month, driven in part by gasoline and food.
That is the official picture. The local picture looked harsher this week.
A 6.6% one-week rise in the grocery basket and a 20.3% one-week rise in the five-class gasoline sample do not mean annual inflation has suddenly spun out of control. They do mean that, at the level where people actually spend money, this was a week of meaningful price pressure.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand Bean Counter’s Scrapbook. It is not here to tell readers how they should feel about the economy. It is here to confirm what the receipt already told them.
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