I will be the first to admit, I like to save my money. I always shop off the clearance rack, only go to Starbucks if I have a gift card and I hardly ever get fast food. During these recent times, the prices of normal household items and food has gone up substantially.

My family has never been one to shop at fancy grocery stores such as Whole Foods where a carton of strawberries is close to five dollars. We stick to local stores such as Jewel or Marianos, where we can shop right and save some money while doing it. Although we try to save money wherever we can, we’ve realized that our grocery bills in general recently have gone up a lot.

Last weekend when my family went grocery shopping, we needed the one thing that everyone was buying when the lockdown was put into effect — we needed toilet paper.

Normally, we go with the name brand toilet paper because it usually is comparable in price with the store brand, but just better quality. However, when we walked down the paper product aisle at Marianos, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good experience.

When we approached the toilet paper, they only had two types. They had the store brand which had 12 rolls for fourteen dollars or Quilted Northern which only had six rolls for 12 dollars. Both of these prices seemed outrageous compared to what my family was used to paying.

Other household products are experiencing a price raise such as Kleenex, paper towels, paper plates and even cleaning supplies. While many stores are limiting these products to only one or two per household, the price of these products is a problem that many families are experiencing.

Grocery stores are doing their best to help their customers right now. Many stores are reducing the number of patrons that can be in the store at once, making most aisles one way and by enforcing the six feet apart rule. I still personally feel that there is more that the companies supplying the goods in the stores could do.

A lot of families are experiencing decreased paychecks or loss of jobs at the current time. While I understand that these household products are in high demand, we shouldn’t be charged more for them at this time of need. We should be charged the normal price, to ensure that everyone who is in need of it can get it, no matter their financial situation.

I understand that prices need to be increased to keep up with the supply demand but I don’t think it is fair to raise prices as much as they have. Companies need to make money to keep up with the supply demand but with these increased prices, some families can’t afford these products that they need.

If grocery stores were to maintain their normal prices of these high demand products while maintaining their product limit, I truly believe that there wouldn’t be any pricing issues on household goods in this unknown time. Grocery stores and product companies will still be making money due to families buying the product but please do us all the favor and lower the prices of these products.