12 Everyday Grocery Items That Cost Way More in Hawaii
If you’ve been dreaming of visiting the beautiful, picturesque islands of Hawaii on a budget, don’t count on making your own meals as a cost-cutting hack. Plane tickets, hotels, and dining out will certainly drain your wallet, but buying groceries is so expensive in Hawaii that they just might leave your bank account bone dry. Here’s a look at the cost of some of the most popular, everyday items in the Aloha State.
Prices are based on a Safeway store location in Hawaii and are subject to change.
1. Milk
At $8 a gallon, we’d be going dairy-free if we lived on one of the Hawaiian islands. And to think we hear folks griping when a gallon gets close to $3. It costs almost four times less to grab a gallon on the mainland.
2. Hamburger Buns
If you have dreams of heading to Hawaii and grilling out on your lanai, be prepared to spend a decent chunk of change. Buns alone cost $9 for an 8-pack.
3. Bacon
Bacon is one of the most beloved breakfast meats known to mankind, but at $16.49 for a pack, we’d be looking to raise our own Hawaiian hogs.
4. Chips
The price of chips has gone up everywhere thanks to inflation, but Hawaii’s standard of $8 for a bag of Ruffles is absolutely outrageous and would undoubtedly be enough to make us switch to pretzels.
5. Bread
As you might have gathered from the price of hamburger buns, Hawaii’s bread products are subject to higher prices than the rest of the nation. An ordinary, nothing-special-about-it loaf of sandwich bread runs about $6 a loaf on the islands.
6. Cream Cheese
So, dry bagels aren’t that bad after all, huh? You won’t catch us paying $6.50 for one measly brick of cream cheese.
7. Chicken Breast
I typically make a rule out of not buying chicken breast unless it’s less than $3 a pound, so my doctor would be yelling at me to eat less red meat if I lived in Hawaii, where chicken costs $7 a pound.
8. Ritz Crackers
Cheese doesn’t even need a companion to be delicious, so if you ask us, Ritz has some nerve touting around a $6.50 price tag.
9. Tortillas
$8.29 for a 10-count package of flour tortillas? *Looks up how to make homemade tortillas.*
10. Soft Drinks
There was never a better time to say no to soda and start drinking more water. $14 for a 12-pack of Coke is a sign that it’s just not worth the money, guys.
11. Ice Cream
Petition to add an eighth deadly sin to the list, because charging $8 for a 1.5-quart container of painfully average Breyers ice cream (sorry, it’s true) in a state where it feels like summer all the time should be a crime.
12. Canned Soup
Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup has a reputation for being a cheap ingredient to elevate a laundry list of dinner recipes, but at $3.79 a can in Hawaii, we’ll be skipping right over those ideas on our Pinterest boards.