Nicole Colson: Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?

But as Bush pointed out, consumer confidence is rapidly tanking. For working families, a skyrocketing grocery bill is one of the most ever-present of reminders that they have been making do with less. Each week, it seems, the price of staple food--everything from eggs to milk to cereal--edges up higher.

"I've spent $300 in a matter of two weeks," one shopper, Roseann Fede, told the New York Times as she left a Bloomfield, N.J., supermarket. "It used to be like $150. Milk, eggs, nonperishable things--everything has gone up in price."

According to U.S. government figures released earlier in March, grocery costs increased 5.1 percent over the past 12 months. The U.S. is undergoing the worst grocery inflation in close to 20 years, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts prices will climb another 3 to 4 percent this year.

The problem is especially obvious when you look at the cost of individual goods. According to the Labor Department, milk prices are up 17 percent. Prices for dried beans, peas and lentils are up the same amount. Cheese is up 15 percent, rice and pasta 13 percent, and bread 12 percent. And the price of eggs has risen 25 percent since February 2007--and 62 percent in the last two years.