[ceejayoz]

Yes, some individuals will see higher than average inflation in their basket. Others will see lower than average. That's why we work with the averages for policy decisions rather than looking for individual anecdotes.

If I subsist entirely off the cocktail shrimp at my local Wegmans and have no other expenses, my inflation value is something like 500%. Is that a particularly useful number for the Fed? No.

[jollyllama]

Cocktail shrimp sounds extravagant; that's not what we're talking about. GP is on point. We're talking about basic staples, the real food you find on the edges of the grocery store, not the highly processed items in the middle.

[ceejayoz]

You've misread my comment. The cocktail shrimp example is why "nuh uh, my personal number is higher" is not a valuable data point. Maybe you go to an expensive store, maybe you buy the fancier lettuce, maybe your basket includes some things you consider staples that aren't all that common nationally.

It's why we have a nation-wide check on the prices of a well-researched selection of staples in the average proportions they make up in an average person's budget, rather than polling random people on the Internet for anecdotes. That number is far more useful.