Here’s How Much the $20 ‘Home Alone’ Grocery Haul Costs With 2023 Inflation
Written by
Josephine Nesbit
Edited by
Cory Dudak
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Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister’s famous grocery haul is almost 250% more expensive today than in the 1990 holiday classic “Home Alone.”
In the film, McCallister spent $19.83 on food and household items, including a half gallon of milk, a half gallon of orange juice, a TV dinner, bread, frozen mac and cheese, laundry detergent, cling wrap, toilet paper, a pack of army men and dryer sheets. Last year, the same grocery items cost $44.40, Fox News reported. This year, the cost of these items added up to $72.28 in 2023.
Food price inflation across decades is normal, averaging about 2% each year, but consumers saw the largest annual increase in food prices since the 1980s last year, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, when prices jumped by about 11% from 2021 to 2022. While food price increases have slowed in 2023, people still struggle to afford basic groceries.
The November consumer price index (CPI) showed that core inflation rose 3.1% over the last 12 months, while food at home prices rose 1.7% over the last year, and 0.1% over the month.
According to selected items that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks in its average price data, the cost of grocery basics is higher than pre-pandemic, but lower than this time last year, Yahoo Finance reported.
But monthly changes can be unpredictable, BLS economist Steve Reed told Yahoo Finance, and grocery prices are more volatile due to changes in the supply chain, climate issues or outbreaks like the avian flu.
Grocery prices have been discouraging, but Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said we could be headed for a period of shrinking food prices and a “deflationary environment.”
“We think we may see drug, grocery and consumables start to deflate in the coming weeks and months,” McMillion said during the company’s latest quarterly earnings call.
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