It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard show. Our mission is to serve you with knowledge that empowers you so you can make better financial decisions in

your life.

You know I answer questions every day on this podcast but they are a tiny, tiny microscopic fraction of the number of

questions that people have. So if you have a question I want you to know that we are prepared and ready and anxious to answer your

questions one-on-one for free. Contact our Team Clark Consumer Action Center.

If you go to Clark.com slash CAC,

you see when you can talk to someone Monday to Friday,

how to reach someone and get that one-on-one advice.

Today, I actually have some great news about food prices.

Think about that.

With the inflationary cycle that we went into in in COVID, food was the one item that went up at a faster rate

than anything else.

And I got some good news on that.

Later, I want to talk about something that we're doing that's costing us big money when we eat out.

Well, let's talk about the good news.

We all know the bad news.

Food became something that in America, we've always been privileged for decades

and decades and decades to spend the lowest amount of our dollar on food

than just about any other place on earth that the

disposable income people have, foods always been ultra- inexpensive in the United States compared to other particularly developed

countries and then this inflationary cycle where food was going up

more than 10% a year and some items went crazy high in you know 21, 22 and there's new data that food prices not only have leveled off, but the effective amount you're paying is down from what it was if you go back a year ago.

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