Posted on 03/13/2011 10:52:38 AM PDT by Nachum
What’s in your wallet?
Not much — especially after a trip to the supermarket.
At the checkout counter at the D’Agostino in Hell’s Kitchen, retired ballerina Carol Sumner shook her head over the increasingly steep price of her weekly grocery bill.
“It’s outrageous,” said Sumner, a senior citizen who was making a pit stop to buy soda, ice cream and cake for a party she was throwing.
“I feel like I am getting fleeced and taken advantage of. I don’t buy meat anymore. I can’t. It’s too expensive.”
The price index for groceries is expected to surge 3 to 4 percent nationally this year, according to the US Dept. of Agriculture.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I buy TP and paper towels by weight. If there two packages the same price with the same number of “rolls” I get the heavier one.
Quilted northern cut their’s down by an ENTIRE inch. Form 4.5 inches to 3.5 inches. However, a news agency that contacted them after it happened started asking questions, and Quilted Northern said they only mean tto cut down the size by 1/2 inch, and that there must have been a problem and there were a few “miscut” a full inch. Yeah right. The news anchors looked at several packages from different stores IIRC, and all were 3.5 in, a full inch smaller. I’m glad I don’t buy TP often, and I don’t buy quilted northern anymore either (used to exclusively). Now I buy the store brand when it’s on sale, but those are dwindling. They have a really good sale once or twice a year (or used to, but they seem to not be as good this year, but still a great bargain compared to name brands), and I usually buy then. Same as everything I buy, I just rotate it. TP never goes bad, and you’ll be using it as long as there is a flush toilet, and then, maybe even after, so I say invest if you can, when the price is right. I won’t have to deal with the streamer sized rolls for some time, thank goodness!
Well I can assure you few of the posters on this thread can afford to shop REMOTELY regularly for cake, meat, tuna, or anything else at D’Agostino’s.
Typical New York ivory tower journalist bullcrap to do a story on the price of food in America...
From a boutique grocery in one of the priciest neighborhoods in the world.
Thanks for the math. I seldom bother with details these days, and sometimes I should. I worked for a couple of years managing a warehouse for the state of Texas. Part of my job was purchasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. This was during the time when Carter’s bad policies caused fuel prices to soar, and it made my life miserable, trying to juggle the books, and take money from other budgets to keep the diesel coming. I can’t help but imagine large corporate farms are in the same boat, and those expenses get passed on. Smaller farms get hurt the worst, because they don’t always have the resources to handle it. Truckers have to either park their trucks because the rates don’t cover the fuel, or the rates have to increase to keep them on the road. We saw this during the last big fuel bubble. Anyhow, I suspect the cost per pound of produce is increased far more than .5 cents. Of course, you are correct. Fuel prices going up also mean the value of the dollar is going down, and that translates into higher prices at the grocery store, where real inflation for ordinary people should be measured.
Canned tuna has indeed gone from 7 oz, to 5 oz. All my recipes call for a 7 oz can of tuna in my cookbooks and some of the cookbooks aren’t that old. This must have changed in the last year or so, since I just started using the smaller weight cans, and I try to have a dozen cans or so ahead at all times.
Some canned tomatoes are now only 10 oz. instead of 14.5 oz. now too. I wonder what will be next to switch to smaller size cans.
Oh man! I am so glad we put a 1/4 beef in the freezer 2 weeks ago! 3 weeks ago ground chuck was on sale still for $1.89 last week the same sale prive was $2.29.I was able to find chuck roasts on sale for $2.29-$2.39 last week they were $2.99!I am stocking the freezer this week with the $1.39 chicken breasts and doing the same with anything else I find on sale.Things are just starting to rise by this time next year who knows what thigns will cost.
I use an old but brilliant technique to save money on toilet paper.
You know how there’s SINGLE ply and DOUBLE ply?
Well the single ply is about half the price, so I buy that.
BUT - if you fold it in half before you wipe, it feels about the same as the double ply, for half the price!
Try it out. It might be just the thing.
I’ll lay 10-to-1 odds this Carol Sumner of Bronx, New York voted for the very same corrupt empty-headed socialists who are causing our inflation problem.
I’ll lay 10-to-1 odds this Carol Sumner of Bronx, New York voted for the very same corrupt empty-headed socialists who are causing our inflation problem.
***With all due respect, you’re missing the price of diesel in every step in the manufacturing chain.***
I find it interesting that back in the high oil prices of the late 1970s and 1980s and ‘90s that diesel was lower in price than gasoline by several cents.
Today diesel is higher than gasoline.
I heard a caller to Rush Limbaugh try to explain that to him, and how it’s an unaccounted for factor in inflation. Rush kept telling the caller it wasn’t that big a factor and didn’t matter. I wanted to scream at him. It obviously IS a factor, has been going on for years, and most certainly does drive up the per unit price of any product. It is stunning that a man as knowledgeable about economics as he absolutely is would not know or realize that.
Going to get worse.
Not sure if it’s true, but my understanding is that beef is about to go throught the roof. Some law was just passed to add labels on all beef with extra labeling for the nutrient content of something like 40 popular cuts of meat on beef alone, I dunno about the other animals. But that’s not the main thing. My understanding is that as the cost of feed (corn) went up so much, farmers have been culling their herds, thereby LOWERING the cost of beef the last month or so. And once their done culling the herds, the price is going to rocket. Again, it makes sens,e but I dunno if it’s true. I live in a dairy community and there’s seldom a shortage of beef here, but london broil, for example, was $0.99/lb on sale 4 years ago (IIRC). Last winter, (4 months ago), it was $1.99 a lb. This last week one of the best stores in town had it at 3.99 a pound, and I just looked to verify and this week it is $4.59 a lb. I thought the 3.99 a lb was gorrific, but it’s getting crazy.
Saqme with corned beef I used to buy after St. Patrick’s day for about $0.50 a lb, it’s now over $2.00 a lb on sale. Prices are skyrocketing, and I don’t see them going down soon. I am a firm believer in gardening, even if it’s just in a pot. Things are getting hairy, and it’s best to keep your eye open for good deals like you did on that 1/4 beef. I’ve bought some canned meat, but that’s soaring lately too, it seems.
I did try to make the point that this administration and its anti-American business policies that are really to blame.
This bastard (I believe he is one in the true sense of the word) in the WH has no compunction whatsoever in seeing the U.S. brought to her knees.
I figure 20% just like last year.
Track the price of SPAM, Eggs, Onions, Potatoes and US Apples if you want to know what the price of food is doing.
I don’t have a diesel, but first noticed the flip a few years ago. I remember when it was less expensive too. My uncle had a diesel, and would often talk about how it (his truck’s use of diesel) was more efficient and that the fuel was less expensive so he won all the way around.
My favorite real-world example of this absurdity:
$25,000 fine and hazmat response for spilling a can of latex paint
Yea, 3-4% my butt.
Hi Allegra! Love the photos on your homepage. (Especially the one of you sitting on Saddam’s “throne.”)
You’ve certainly seen a lot of really significant and historic changes in Iraq, during your seven years there.
Stay safe, and continue to take care!
I went to mass at St. Raphael’s church in Baghdad in 1983, during the Iran-Iraq war. There was no interference from any of Saddam’s goons.
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