What happens when the average North Island household sees its annual grocery bill climb from $12,590 to $15,462 in just four years? As RNZ reported this week, households are putting their spending on ice. The food price data shows exactly why: that's an extra $2,872 a year going to groceries alone. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)

Break it down weekly and it's $55 more at the checkout than it was in 2020. That's not a rounding error. That's the difference between having breathing room in your budget and constantly recalculating what you can afford.

The trajectory is relentless. In 2020, during lockdowns and pandemic uncertainty, North Island grocery spending sat at $12,590. By 2021, it crept to $12,930. Then 2022 brought the first big jump: $13,984. Last year hit $15,306. This year? $15,462.

That's a 22.8% increase in four years. Meanwhile, wage growth hasn't kept pace. Discretionary spending hasn't kept pace. The only thing keeping pace is the grocery bill itself, climbing year after year like a tax you can't escape.

Here's what that means in practice: a household that could once afford both groceries and a weekend away now chooses groceries. One that used to save $100 a week now saves $45. The family that upgraded their car every five years is driving the same one into its seventh.

This isn't about luxury purchases disappearing. It's about the essentials crowding out everything else. When your weekly shop costs $55 more than it did four years ago, that's $55 that doesn't go toward Christmas presents, school trips, or the emergency fund you keep meaning to build.

And this data is an average. It includes households that can absorb the increase without changing their lifestyle. For everyone below that average, for renters already stretched thin, for families with multiple kids, the squeeze is tighter still.

The cost of living crisis isn't an abstract economic concept. It's this: watching the same basket of groceries cost more every single year, while your income barely budges. It's doing the mental arithmetic at the checkout, swapping brands, skipping items, making do.

North Island households are now spending nearly $300 a week on food. That's not fine dining. That's milk, bread, vegetables, meat. The basics. And every year, those basics cost more.

So when economists wonder why consumer spending is flat, why retail is struggling, why households are cautious: the answer is in your fridge. The money that used to go elsewhere is now going to keep it stocked. The discretionary income that once flowed through the economy is now flowing to supermarkets instead.

Four years. $2,872. That's the story of where your money went.