PORTLAND, Maine — For almost two decades Dean's Sweets has been serving the locals and visitors of Portland, Maine, alongside the dozens of people who order online.

"My husband Dean and I started this business just about 18 years ago and we started it in our home kitchen," said Kristin Thalheimer Bingham, the co-owner of Dean's Sweets.

All these years later, they are facing the reality of inflation and many businesses like them are heading into a crucial season for business.

Bingham said about 50% of their revenue is made during the holiday season.

"The supply chain has gotten to be more of an issue recently," said Dean Bingham, the co-owner of Dean's Sweets.

"Especially in this last eight months, nine months, 2022 everything has just kind of shot up and skyrocketed," Thalheimer said. "We were taken a little bit unaware by even just a few months ago. To see that sugar has increased 10% to 15% last spring and then it increased again over the summer, same with chocolate."

That's along with other items like cocoa, butter, cardboard, packaging and shipping materials. It's all making them question if it's time to raise their prices.

"I think we're going to take another good look at it as we head into the holiday season," Thalheimer said.

They say it's not something they want to do.

Thalheimer worries a rise in prices could change that and cause people to skip purchasing that chocolate gift.

"I'm as aware as anybody else about inflation and I hate to be one of the contributors but on the other hand if all of my costs are going up I cannot afford to stay in business if I'm not recouping my costs and making a little money for myself," Dean said.

They've tried to ease the pain in other ways.

"For a long time I thought my mantra was, make more sell more and you sort of make up for the increase in price by volume but we're starting to realize that you can't do that," Dean said. "Volume has costs associated with it too because the more that you sell, the more you need to buy and the more help you need."

Buying that treat is attached to a sense of happiness they don't want to see disappear and a moment of magic they hope a rise in cost won't ruin.

"I've always felt that chocolate was one of those things that you may not buy a pound but you can buy one or two pieces and that's going to help you get through some of the stresses of the other difficult times," Dean said.

"We are always conscious of the fact that we want to be a place where people can come and get a little gift for somebody and find something nice for themselves so we want to keep it that way," said Thalheimer.

Related video above: Is there a "best way" to brew coffee?

Coffee futures are crashing. But that might not mean too much for the price of your cup of coffee.

In August, Arabica coffee futures were trading at $2.43 per pound. By Wednesday, the price had tumbled to $1.59, a roughly 35% decline.

There are a few reasons for the steady drop in prices, explained Carlos Mera, head of the agri commodities markets team at Rabobank.

For one thing, weather in Brazil is better than it has been the past couple of years. Rainfall this fall suggests that the country will have a good coffee crop, securing supply.

"September is usually the start of the wet season," Mera explained. "The start of this wet season was actually very good."

Then there's the strength of the U.S. dollar.

"When the dollar goes up, everything measured in dollars, like international coffee prices, tend to go down," Mera said. Farmers outside of the U.S. are incentivized to sell their products because they'll earn a price in U.S. dollars which translates to a higher amount of currency at home.

"Farmers are keener to sell any stocks that they may be holding," Mera said.

The situation marks a sharp reversal from what was happening last year.

In November 2021, coffee futures climbed to the highest level since January 2012. That was thanks to severe drought and unusual frost conditions in Brazil, which caused turmoil in the market.

And short supplies of shipping containers put roasters on edge, inspiring them to stock up as much as possible.

Now, "there are some delays, but nothing in comparison to what it was before," Mera said.

Coffee has been getting more expensive for consumers, as well.

In the year through October, not adjusted for seasonal swings, coffee prices jumped 14.8% in the grocery store, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Starbucks said in November that it has raised prices this year by about 6%.

But the improved conditions won't necessarily mean a big decline in coffee prices for consumers, Mera noted. That's because while coffee prices are falling, other costs, like labor and distribution, are still high for producers.

"I think if we see dropping prices, [they] are going to be modest," he said.

Plus, big coffee companies like Starbucks secure long contracts, which help protect them from short-term volatility.

The end of the year is a time to celebrate and reflect, but there are issues that made 2022 exhausting for many people. 

Breanna Dietrich, who lives in West Virginia, spent weeks searching for baby formula for her infant daughter when many shelves were bare nationwide. 

“Knowing where we were at, it still breaks my heart every day," she said.

Dietrich started a social media group earlier this year. It allowed people to post pictures of places they were finding the baby formula.

The formula shortage has improved since the middle of the year, but it's not over.

It's estimated roughly 87% of formula is now in stock.

However, nearly a third of adults with newborns at home said in a recent U.S. Census survey they’re still struggling to find what they need. Formula makers expect some shortages to continue until the spring.

Like the difficulty of finding the right baby formula, skyrocketing food prices is not an issue that will end in 2023.

Caterer Jessica Walks First said the ingredients she uses for her business doubled this year.

“They’ve gotten better in some aspects and in some aspects, they are still the same," she said.

Walks First's catering business specializes in Native American food. Her menu requires specific ingredients to be authentic, like wild rice, which she often buys from native growers on reservations.

In the fall, food and shipping costs were so high, she made 500-mile round trips herself, multiple times a month, to pick up the ingredients herself. Now, as 2022 comes to a close, she says she's in a better place.

“I’m not driving as much. I did find a good source for my wild rice where it now gets shipped to my house in 50-pound bags, so I have that going for me, which saves me 3-4 rides a month," Walks First said.

The USDA expects food prices to continue to rise in 2023 but not at the same rate as in 2022.

Walks First and Dietrich both are hopeful as another new year approaches.

“We get a little better back to the old normalcy," Dietrich said.

“I don’t do this as a job," Walk First stated. "This isn’t work for me. This is my passion, and my life dream, and I give it all I got."

Video above: Best cell phone plans for seniors

Verizon is raising the prices on some of its older cell phone plans, the company confirmed to CNN on Monday. The move is part of a broader effort to get more of its customer base on 5G plans.

Customers who decide to stay on one of Verizon's older Unlimited plans will be charged an additional $2 a month. The change will take effect on April 10.

"Customers who are currently on — or choose to stay on — older Unlimited postpaid wireless plans from seven years ago will be notified of a new rate plan adjustment by email, direct mail and in their next bill to account for the added cost of maintaining these legacy plans," the company said in a statement.

Plans facing a rate change include Beyond Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited 55+, Go Unlimited and Verizon Unlimited. The company is encouraging customers to upgrade to plans such as 5G Get More, 5G Start and others that provide more "choice" and "flexibility."

The price hike comes as Verizon looks to grow its consumer unit, a part of the business that's struggled to keep up with competitors. AT&T raised rates last year on some of its older plans by up to $6 for individual lines and $12 for family plans. Verizon followed with the same price increases.

Verizon, whose shares are down 30% over the past year, did not say how many customers will be impacted by the latest price hike.

Last week Verizon announced a management shakeup and appointed Sowmyanarayan Sampath as CEO of the consumer business unit. Verizon's chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said the appointments reflect the company's mission to strengthen its "competitive capabilities."

MILWAUKEE —

Inflation is at its highest point in decades, but there may be some hard-to-spot price hikes in the supermarket aisles, disguised from consumers by creative packaging.

Consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky said "shrinkflation," another term for product downsizing or manufacturers putting less product in a package for the same price, is more common during times of inflation.

"It really does come in waves and, unfortunately, we are in the middle of a big wave right now," said Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org.

"Prices are going up, and I think companies want to do the most to make sure it looks like they're not the ones raising their prices," Milwaukee shopper Sam Krieg observed.

Dworsky highlighted examples of shrinkflation.

"We always used to buy half-a-gallon of orange juice. Then it went down to 59 ounces. Then it went down to 52 ounces," he said.

Consumers are likely to find fewer sheets in a roll of paper towels, less pet food in a can or maybe an ounce less of cereal in a box.

"That little 1-ounce multiplied by tens of millions is big bucks in their pocket, and out of your pocket," Dworsky said.

He said other manufacturers may change the shape of their package.

"There's now an indent on the bottom of the Skippy jar that's, in essence, dead space. Gatorade came in 32-ounce bottles. They're now 28 ounces. Look for the one that kind of has a waistline on it. That's the one that's 4 ounces shorter," Dworsky said.

Sister station WISN found an example of downsizing on a Milwaukee store's shelf.

The older package for a tube of Crest 3D White toothpaste showed it contained 4.1 ounces, while the newer package listed 3.8 ounces.

Selling for the same price, the newer tube contained 7% less toothpaste.

Crest's parent company, Procter & Gamble sent a statement to WISN 12 saying in part, "P&G takes a holistic view of pricing by product category... Our focus is on delivering superior products with the best performance, ultimately delivering value to our consumers."

The best advice for shoppers may be to check the price per ounce or per unit, which is often posted in smaller print on the store shelf.

But even that may be hard to find because not all states require stores to post a unit price.

Nineteen states require some form of unit pricing, WISN reports.

Dworsky said consumers who don't routinely check unit prices may not be aware when a product has been downsized.

"Manufacturers are counting on consumers not noticing," he said.

But is it an attempt to deceive consumers?

"It certainly is a bit of package trickery, to say the least. Does it cross the line to be illegal? No," Dworsky said.

It's just a cleverly disguised hit to your household budget.

This week the National Association of Realtors reported that median existing-home sales went up at a pace of 15.4% on a year-over-year basis. The median home price for a home in January was $350,300. It was the highest median price on record for the month of January, as CNN reported.

In December, Zillow predicted that the 12-month rate of home price growth would drop by 11%, but then revised that forecast saying that 2022 would finish up 16.4%. Now the company is predicting that the year-over-year rate for growth of home prices could peak at 21.6% by May.

According to the National Association of Realtors, in 2021 around 25% of homes, that sold, had one offer, but 75% had more than one offer.

And even with the price hikes, buying a home may still be a smart move in 2022 for some. The trade publication Mortgage Reports said that buying a home could work for investors, given "how inflation will push rent prices higher."

Jess Kennedy, a co-founder and COO at Beeline said, "When you look at where the housing market is right now, you still see big gaps between available supply and demand. Until that demand is lowered due to rising rates, housing prices won’t go down."

Kennedy said, “As supply and demand come into line with one another, we will see a normalization of the market but I don’t anticipate that housing prices will come down – they just won’t continue to grow exponentially as they have in the past year. In the short term as buyers look to find a property before higher rates impact them, we could actually see home prices driven higher.”

By the end of January, for sale home inventory fell to an all-time low of 860,000, CNN reported. Which was down by 16.5% from last year.

As NAR reported, the current environment has become even tougher on first-time home buyers. These new buyers accounted for a smaller share of the market than before, at around 27% according to the REALTORS Confidence Index Survey.

The survey found that homebuying demand outpaced supply, and that caused properties to stay on the market for a shorter amount of days compared to a year ago. Last month houses averaged days on the market, compared with 21 days a year before that. The group said that 79% of property listings stayed on the market for less than a month.

U.S. inflation remains much higher than anyone would like — consumers, the White House, the Federal Reserve. In September, prices stayed high, returning to a 13-year peak after dipping a bit in August.Consumer price inflation — one of the key inflation indicators — rose 0.4% in September, adjusted for seasonal swings, faster than in August but slower than in previous months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.Rising prices for food and shelter contributed more than half of this increase, while prices for new cars, household furnishings and car insurance also climbed. The index that tracks new car prices rose 8.7% over the 12 months ending in September, which marks the biggest jump since 1980.Overall, inflation stood at 5.4% in the 12-month period ended in September. Stripping out food and energy costs, which tend to be more volatile, prices rose 4% over the same period, the same rate as in August.America's annual inflation rate is the highest since the summer, which had matched the highest annual inflation rate since 2008.More expensive food and cheaper plane ticketsFood prices jumped 0.9% in September, far more than in August, as grocery store prices climbed across the board.But not everything in America got more expensive. Plane tickets, for example, keep getting cheaper: The price index for airline fares dropped 6.4% in September, after a 9.1% decrease in August.That's not great for airlines, and it's happening even though demand for travel continues to recover from the worst of the pandemic. Delta said in its earnings Wednesday that the company expected to feel price pressure from rising energy costs.Energy prices rose 1.3% last month, the fourth straight increase. Gas prices rose 1.2%, less than in the prior month. Over the past 12 months, the energy price index rose nearly 24.8% and gas increased 42.1%.

Last month, CNN's Before the Bell observed early signs that the red-hot global housing market could be starting to cool, as elevated prices appeared to hurt demand and home improvement spending eased.

It may have called the top too soon.

What's happening? U.S. home prices rose 18.6% in June compared to one year earlier and 16.8% versus May, according to the S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Index released this week. In Phoenix, home prices jumped 29% year-over-year, while San Diego logged a 27% increase.

It's the third month in a row that the rate of house price increases set a record.

Video above: How the pandemic is keeping first-time homebuyers out of the market

Over in the United Kingdom, annual house price growth rose to 11% in August from 10.5% in July, according to new data from the Nationwide Building Society. Prices were up 2.1% month-on-month, the second-largest monthly gain in 15 years.

In Australia, while there are some signs the housing boom is moderating, home values still rose 1.5% in August, according to CoreLogic's latest Home Value Index. This rate of growth remains "well above average," CoreLogic said. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, for its part, recently said house prices are "above sustainable levels."

What gives? Low borrowing costs and work-from-home upgrades are still supporting demand, even as some would-be buyers scoff at the scale of recent price increases.

Yet in a research note published this week, Goldman Sachs emphasized another factor.

"While low mortgage rates and the shift to working from home are also fueling housing demand, one under-appreciated reason for the price boom is that housing supply is very tight," the investment bank's economists said.

Price increases would normally feed a boom in the construction of new houses. But this hasn't materialized, thanks to raw material and labor shortages, as well as land regulations, according to Goldman.

"While the easing of temporary bottlenecks, such as material constraints and pandemic labor supply effects, should support an eventual recovery in supply ... more persistent constraints, such as land-use regulations, should continue to push up house prices in coming quarters, especially in the U.S., Canada, and UK," the bank predicted.

In short: Even if demand starts to waver, supply problems could bolster prices for some time.