Nereo, thanks for posting. As a stats buff whose degree prepared for, among other things, a possible BLS job, I hold BLS in fairly high regard. I didn't actually work there, but suspect that their work is pretty darn good.
As an indicator of what an average person pays, their stats are better than our individual anecdotes, because they have a wider sample and we Mustanchians are more likely to be unusual individualistic shoppers. I fully respect that the individuals reporting higher prices on their favorite items experienced what they said, but that doesn't mean average prices rose. It means that prices on one specific person's favorites rose.
My own anecdote is that I lazily buy canned black beans at my favorite grocery... and in an indulgent mood, pecan shortbread cookies. Recently my main grocery reduced the daily price of a 1 lb can of black beans from 72 cents to 55, a reduction of more than 20%. Then they dropped their store brand pecan cookies from $1.89 for a 1 lb package to $1.39, drop of more than 30%. These are marked as permanent changes, not sales, though of course they will change eventually.
Balancing the anecdotes makes me again suspect that BLS is pretty on target. I sympathize with those whose key items went up though.
