Bean Counter’s Scrapbook: Why Cuca Counts Beans

When Cuca was little, her abuela made her “pick the beans.”

No, this is not a story about child labor in the fields. “Picking the beans” simply meant pouring dry pinto beans onto the counter to look for little stones, dirt clumps, or the occasional bad bean before they went into the pot.

But Cuca’s abuela added another task.

“Count them,” she would say.

At first, Cuca hated counting the beans. There were always too many, and she could never understand why it mattered. Still, it was what Abuelita told her to do, so she counted them one by one across the kitchen table.

One morning, Cuca finally asked.

“Why am I counting the beans, Abuelita?”

Her grandmother smiled a little and leaned against the counter.

“When I married your grandfather,” she said, “we had very little money. He worked in the fields, and I cleaned houses for extra cash when I could. We wanted a house of our own, so we learned to be careful with every dollar.”

One way they saved money was by eating simple meals. Good meals. Filling meals. But simple.

“And nearly every meal had beans.”

Then Abuelita told her about one particular summer.

Money was tight, and she was pregnant with Cuca’s tío. She had been waiting for summer because, back then, beans usually became cheaper in the summer months. In her mind, she had already spent the money she expected to save. A few diapers. Maybe a little something extra for the baby.

When summer finally arrived, she went to the store and filled a paper sack with the same amount of beans she always bought. Sure enough, the sign said the beans were cheaper than before — nearly ten cents less per pound.

But when the cashier weighed the bag, the total was almost twice what she expected.

“I thought there must be a rock in the sack,” Abuelita said. “Or maybe the scale was broken.”

When she got home, she poured the beans onto the table and counted every single one.

2,742 beans.

“I still remember,” she told Cuca.

Then she called her sister, who still had part of an older sack of winter beans at home. Her sister laughed and told her she was crazy, but she brought the beans over anyway.

The moment Abuelita lifted the sack, she understood.

The summer beans were fresher. They still held more moisture inside them, which made them heavier. The winter beans had dried longer and weighed less.

The summer beans had a lower price per pound.

But pound for pound, there were fewer beans.

“When cooked,” Abuelita said, “they tasted exactly the same. But that summer, even though the price was lower, the cost was higher.”

To stretch the budget, they ate fewer beans that summer. After that, she always tried to buy beans in winter and store them in large sacks whenever she could afford to.

“Today,” she said, “beans are easier to buy, and I do not need to count them anymore.”

Then she looked down at the little pile spread across the kitchen table.

“But habits survive hard times.”

That was the day Cuca learned there is a difference between price and cost.

Sometimes the number on the sign goes down while the real expense quietly rises.

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Welcome to the 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.

Nationally, inflation pressures continue to center around the same familiar pressure points: fuel, transportation, and groceries. The latest Consumer Price Index report showed annual inflation rising to 3.8% in April, with energy costs playing a major role in the increase as gasoline prices climbed sharply nationwide. Grocery inflation has also accelerated again, particularly in meat, produce, and transportation-sensitive goods as higher diesel and shipping costs continue filtering through supply chains. Federal data shows “food at home” prices continuing to rise this spring while transportation costs remain elevated nationwide. Economists increasingly point to fuel and freight costs as the connective tissue between higher prices at the pump and the slower but steady rise of prices on store shelves. 

Here in our broader community, we should be over the sea sickness as the price waves continue to move up and down, and this week, prices moderated a little for Memorial Day weekend providing a psychological benefit to travelers standing at the pumps. The five-station sample used for this week’s fuel snapshot eased from an average of $4.20 to $4.14 per gallon — matching the mark from three weeks ago when local prices finally crossed the $4/gallon threshold. Time will tell if the high from three weeks ago becomes the support-level low. Over the past ten weeks, the estimated cost of five gallons — roughly enough to drive 100 miles — has risen from $13.55 to $20.70, settling in above the twenty-dollar mark.

For gasoline, multiple sellers are sampled Sunday evening, including a truck stop, big box, petroleum brand, convenience store, and independent. Here, offered discount prices count because that is the price a shopper is actually paying in that moment. 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.

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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 straightforward: Gas prices moved a little above the $4/gallon canopy. And gas prices have invited a few select friends from the grocery aisles to the inflation party—but in sneaky ways.

The average grocery basket was almost uniformly stable across many aisles, rising 1.4%, from $160.65 to $162.85. One store’s frozen pizza discount could not hold back the tide of rising meat prices (bacon, in particular) and household paper products where buyers are increasingly forced to choose between “mega” upgrades to premium brands and deeply discounted bargain products. For the Bean Counter’s Scrapbook, generic or deep-discount substitutes are intentionally excluded. Aside from these three aisles, prices largely held the increases of previous weeks.

Local vs. National Pressure

Nationally, the same inflationary pattern appears to be settling into place. Fuel prices continue driving transportation and freight costs higher, while grocery inflation has become increasingly selective rather than universal. Instead of every aisle moving upward at once, economists are seeing pressure concentrate in products tied closely to diesel shipping, refrigeration, packaging, or livestock feed costs. Meat, produce, paper goods, and other transportation-heavy staples continue showing some of the strongest upward movement nationally, even during weeks when headline grocery inflation appears calmer overall. 

Locally, however, this week’s basket suggests that retailers are becoming more selective with discounts as well as offerings to soften the visual impact of inflation on shoppers. It’s not yet time to blow the whistle on systemic grocery inflation locally. Instead, it may indicate a growing pattern where specific aisles vacillate between temporary relief and higher price pressures as the larger baseline quietly creeps upward.

In other words, this week’s numbers do not show inflation disappearing or accelerating. They show inflation pausing long enough to catch its breath in a few carefully chosen corners of the store, while select items on the receipt continue lurching upward in fits and starts.

The Bottom Line

While the total check for the week popped two bucks (and some pennies), it is no signal to panic. Much of the change has to do with the limited role gas prices play in the overall weekly bill. For those who drive more than 100 miles a week, inflated gas prices are beginning to eat into other parts of the budget.

Fuel prices in our broader community remained relatively high this past week, and the prices of bacon and household paper products stood at the vanguard of the steady upward march of local grocery prices. It may be time to start looking at strategies to counter the creep of inflation.

That may be the clearest lesson in this week’s numbers.

Nationally, inflation remains tied heavily to fuel and transportation costs, and local prices increasingly appear to be reacting to those same pressures with delayed but familiar rhythm. Grocery totals may wobble week-to-week, but the broader trend remains difficult to ignore: necessities are becoming more expensive to move, stock, and replace — and eventually, those costs tend to find their way to the receipt.

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.