Click image to enlarge.

Scott Terrell

Ditch that daily double latte, pack a lunch, dine in and clip those coupons — because the inflationary squeeze is on.

Last year marked the biggest year-to-year jump in the nation’s consumer price index in nearly two decades.

Worse yet, the cost of gas, groceries and just about every other consumer staple rose even faster than inflation as a whole.

As a result, inflation-adjusted earnings for the average worker fell, as high energy and food costs eroded their purchasing power.

Data released late last month by the U.S. Labor Department shows that the trend is continuing. In other words — consumers’ dollars aren’t buying nearly as much as one year ago.

“Everybody I know is trying to be careful about what they’re spending,” said Tammie Cartwright, while bargain hunting Wednesday with her 9-year-old son Matthew at the Grocery Outlet in Mount Vernon.

To save money, Cartwright, a married mother of three who works as a custodian for the Burlington-Edison School District, has been saving coupons and scanning ads for the best deals.

When it comes to inflationary pressure, Cartwright and other Puget Sound area residents have been hit harder than the country as a whole.

In the Seattle metro area, consumer prices increased by 4.6 percent last year, according to the Labor Department, compared with 4.1 percent nationally.

The Labor Department doesn’t track inflation by county, but experts say most of Western Washington likely saw a similar level of price increases.

The region’s gas prices, which soared 20.5 percent last year, drove much of the increase. With prices at the pump hitting a record average of $3.45 a gallon in Washington this month, according to the AAA auto club, the situation has only worsened.

Gas prices aren’t just hurting consumers at the pump but also indirectly through higher shipping costs.

“We’re not in the middle of a great big distribution network,” said Hart Hodges, director of the Center for Economics and Business Research at Western Washington University. “We’re at the end of it.”

The shift by crop farmers to growing corn for ethanol production rather than food may have also contributed to the run up in food prices.

Whatever the culprit, whether it’s the average price of groceries, which increased 5.6 percent in the Seattle area last year, housing (+4.9 percent), electricity (+4.4 percent) or medical costs (+6.8 percent), just name it, and chances are it became much more expensive.

“When you add it all up, it’s more inflation than we’re used to,” Hodges said.

Higher prices often begin with raw materials producers, and the tab gets passed down to wholesalers, retailers and finally consumers.

Local business owners say that raising their prices is always a last resort, but lately they’ve had no choice.

Doris Robbins, who co-owns the Farm to Market Bakery in Edison with her daughter Chelan, said that the orders she places for staples like butter and sugar come with $20 to $50 fuel surcharges from suppliers. Even products that she buys locally, such as milk, eggs and flour, are significantly more expensive.

Just down the street at the Breadfarm, which produces artisan bread for the retail and wholesale markets, owner Scott Mangold has raised prices on his organic artisan bread by up to 20 percent.

“Last year we saw higher inflation coming because everything from plumbing to ingredients cost more,” said owner Scott Mangold. “This is the year it will hit consumers.”

In the last two weeks alone, the cost of organic white flour that Mangold uses to make bread shot up 32 percent.

The increases are so staggering that Mangold may have to switch from organic to conventional ingredients. Either that or the price of Mangold’s baguettes may go from $3.50 to $7, which few consumers — Mangold included — would ever pay.

“We’re organic for idealistic reasons, but now we’re having to be realistic if we want to stay in business,” he said.

Large-scale producers aren’t immune to cost increases either. Evidence of that can be found at the grocery store.

Be it whole milk, which rose 29 percent last year, according to Labor Department statistics, bread, up 13 percent, or peanut butter, 9 percent higher, food price increases are far outpacing overall inflation.

Coupled with the prospect of $4 gas prices, which experts — including Hodges — are saying appears likely this year, things may get even worse.

“It’s depressing,” said Hodges. “It triggers thoughts about not going out to eat as many times and not taking that trip to Mount Baker. There’s a ripple effect with those decisions, and it slows the economy a bit.”

The situation also leaves the Federal Reserve in a tricky spot.

With a recession possibly on the horizon, the Fed could cut interest rates again to help stimulate the economy, but doing so will also exacerbate inflation. Likewise, if the Fed increased rates, inflation would slow, but the economy would contract.

“Their hands are tied,” Hodges said.

Until inflation slows, consumers will continue to adjust their spending habits.

Barbara Day, who lives on Samish Island, said she’s being more conscious about the number of trips she makes to the grocery store in a week.

“I’m not going to the store at the drop of a hat,” she said.

Meanwhile, Cartwright and her husband are already questioning whether they’ll make the six-hour drive to their cabin in Eastern Washington this summer.

“We’ll stay at home and work in the yard,” she said.

• Josh Lintereur can be reached at 360-416-2141 or at .