Nearly everything at the store, from beef and cereal to fruit and veggies, costs more than it did a year ago. Inflation is the culprit eating away at your budget. You may not have noticed yet because it takes a while for these changes to trickle down. But we need to be keenly aware of what’s going on to stay ahead of this. We need to know what to do now. Beat the Shrink Inflation doesn’t always show up in the price of an item. It may appear that nothing has changed, but check the product size. It’s a sneaky and common way that retailers hide inflation. They shrink the size of the product but leave the price the same. Sugar used to come in five-pound bags. Now that same sugar comes in four-pound bags with no change in price. There was a time when coffee came in one-pound and …