I know that Burger King's Whopper is not the same size it was when I was a teenager. Reese's Peanutbutter Cups are barely the size of a half dollar, there is less tuna fish in that can, and that is NOT a half gallon of ice cream in my freezer. Do they really think that we don't notice??? Does this get you ticked off too?

Toilet paper rolls are shorter (side to side).

We are in a "melt down" program in my community. A few weeks ago there was a nutritionist speaking. She showed us a slide show of the portions we ate in the 50's and today. All of the portions are twice to three times bigger today. Seems the companies are going backward in time to more healthy portions. That doesn't bother me but the fact that they are charging the same or more for those smaller portions does gripe my a$$.

Yes, I complain about it all the time. What really gets me is when the store advertises a specified weight and they no longer carry it because the size is now smaller.

I also complain about how items that are on "sale" in the ad at a large grocery store chain are near expiration. I am not talking about dairy or breads, but canned goods and condiments. Most people don't bother to check the expiration date on these when they buy them. I am always asking my husband if he checked. Many times they expire within a couple of weeks.

Plus all the recalls! I get e-mails from the U S Food and Drug Administration about recalls since I gave my granddaughter food poisoning from Skippy Peanut Butter. You can't tell me they go in and pull all of the recalls off the shelves daily.

See, now you got me on a roll!!!

Potato chips are now in a 11 oz bag when they used to be 16 oz. They are also a lot more expensive.

Yep, smaller containers gripe me too! And some fabric is also not quite as wide it used to be... :cry:

I was really mad when coffee went to 13oz and the price just keeps going up

Seems the only thing getting bigger today is my hiney. Smiles are still a cheap gift but worth more than gold. :-D :-D :-D

Yes and no. Since I live alone, I'd rather have smaller sizes than bigger prices on some things. restaurant portions and M&Ms, for instance. On the other hand, a pint is a pint. 14 oz. instead of a pint really annoys me.

I was noticing that the Beefsteak rye bread is much smaller than it used to be. I mean, those slices are now dinky! And once Thomas's bought out Sahara pite bread, boy did the downsize it. So now what are you to do if you actually want to stuff a piece for a pocket sandwich? Wegman's (East Coast supermarket chain) has downsized their brand of pita bread, too.

Peanut butter jars have been getting smaller for years. I griped not long ago about the minuscule boxes of cereal they're selling now. Only a week's worth of cereal!

Not accepted as rent money, though. :|

Just came back from grocery shopping. Everything is getting smaller but the prices are going through the roof. Is anything still the same size?

Milk is still the same size, but the price is going through the roof.

Nope, I guess not. My parents had several rental properties and they expected their money too, late they would handle, not at all they got testy over.
Things are changing and it seems not for the better. I remember when our family of 8 could go to McDonalds and get all we could eat for less than $10. And, we could all fit in one regular old Chevy or Plymouth to get there.

Did you know that one of the last things to really go up in price (when other things started climbing) was the 5 cent Hershey bar? The owner thought that everyone should be able to enjoy chocolate at a reasonable price. When prices of supplies went up, he made the bar smaller. When prices went down the bars got bigger. He did that for years until the prices of supplies went so high that the nickel bar would have to be bite size. The company then started sticking to one size and movable rates.
Just a little trivia I picked up on tv a couple of months ago.

Okay, so I'm not losing it, they really are smaller.

Don't get me started... I've noticed that for months now and have drastically changed my grocery shopping. Even the no name brand has gone up, like Target's mouthwash, it was $2.79 and now it's $3.49 but the Market Pantry Ice Cream half gallon is still $2.49 but only in two flavor (vanilla and chocolate). At Walmart the Great Values Bran Flakes was $1.79 and now it's $2.50. The more the prices go up, the more I don't buy.

As long as wages continue to increase so will the cost of living. I can remember when I could go a lot of miles on a dollar's worth of gas, but I can also remember how little I made per hour back then. Most of us have much more now than we did 30 or 40 years ago. I'm not trying to be argumentative; just trying to put things into perspective.

My DD is very organized. She shops for groceriess every two weeks. When she noticed that her bill was going up and up she looked at what it cost her about 18 months ago. Like most of us, she buys basically the same stuff every time. She is a very picky shopper and makes sure that bargains are really bargains. She found that her grocery bill for her family (they have two boys, 12 & 7) had gone up about $100 every two weeks but their wages have not gone up nearly that much. I don't know how families do it. As we all know, eating healthy is not cheap to begin with. For those of us on fixed incomes, it is even worse. We didn't even get a raise this year. Even if we had, it wouldn't have come close to matching how much everything has gone up. This year I am going back to canning everything I can grow and lay hands on.

That's actually quite interesting. Thanks for posting it! I'm only a short drive from Hershey, PA. I bet if I ever get around to going there for something other than quilting, I'd hear that bit of lore.

Darlene, your info is outdated already. The Lay's Sour Cream & Onion bag I have is 10 1/2 oz. :hunf:
I definitely buy fewer bags of chips, and most of the time wait for the sales.

Minda, you're right; there has always been that tug of war between prices and wages. One would think a sustainable balance could be reached, but it won't happen without some huge changes, if ever.

In the last 18 months, my monthly grocery bill has almost doubled... and no, I am not buying any differently :roll: I understand when fuel went up, groceries and other items had to go up... but when the price went back down, why can't the prices reflect that too?

Funny that is my everyday saying" Pay more get less! Been saying that for a long time and it is becoming more evident each day! Cake mixes come in much smaller boxes these days!

The prices of things have gotten so bad that we have to keep taking from our savings account just to make ends meat and sometimes there is nothing there to take. My DH thought I was just wasting the money so I started making him go grocery shopping with me, now he doesn't complain. I basically wear rags so my kids don't have to look bad when they go to school. My avatar is a recent pic of the family that was done for free by some photography college students at murray state. They made me cry when they did this for us. At tax time we feel rich an buy what we need, thats when I buy my fabric too. But I can't complain too much cause we have a roof over our heads and we have each other. Things could be a lot worse.

The 5# bag of sugar is also no more -- except in a very few spots. Same price or higher now for a 4#. When my pickle recipe calls for a 5# bag, it now takes measuring instead of just dumping the sack.

I was reading an article about how much we waste as a nation. What really got me was when the author said to stop next time you go to the store and look at your cart, then calculate 30% of what you just spent. On average we throw away 30% of what's in the cart. If you just spent 200.00 then you can be sure that you just wasted 60.00. Makes me look at shopping in a whole new light.

I've noticed that too

What I noticed was that Walmart told us they were making their products better and cheaper by changing the packaging, they went UP in prices. My favorite Devils Food cookies went from .99 in the old package (14 oz.) to $1.99 (12 oz.)in the new package. Please, Walmart, don't do me any more favors!

Yogurt used to come in 8 ounce cups. Now, they are 6, and some are even less!

I just bought sugar and yep, the bag is only 4 oz. :|

Of course, I don't actually need sugar...

I check the bottom of the jars and containers. Many have a big indent in the bottom to hold less product but still make the container look big. That really makes me mad!

The majority of items at the supermarket are convenience foods and yes, you pay for that luxury. My parents had a large garden, my mother canned, made all bread, cake, pies, etc. We only went to the market for meat, milk, cheese, fruit and other items that we couldn't get otherwise.
I think that it would be a good thing if people bought less prepared foods. There is an obesity problem in this country and it's fed by the food manufacturer's beliefs in high sodium, high sugar, additives, coloring and preservatives.

Especially when it's my favorite wine! LOL!!

I have a slightly different take on this. Junk food that is now in smaller portions is better for you, not that I don't agree about getting ripped off. But we are way too fat in this country. Junk food and portion size are two very good reasons for it. But I will stop b/c I don't want to get into the health reasons....... :D Can anyone tell I'm a nurse?? :D

The packaging size and keeping the price the same or a bit more is a way of deceiving the public. Make more on less is the issue here. We the consumer are duped. Sure portions are an issue in our diet today, but don't try to slip it by us with keeping the price the same and give less, like we won't notice!

All of your points are so valid, and I couldn't agree more. One thing that gets me is that no one seems to understand that one of the biggest feeds into rising prices is the ongoing demands for raising the minimum wage laws. Why don't people realize that every time the minimum wage is raised, the cost of living goes up even more? Sure the minimum wage worker is taking home a little more money, but they are now having to pay out more than that to buy necessities, as are the rest of us, who didn't get a raise at all. Do people really think that raise is going to come out of the employer's pockets or the investors' profits? Of course it's not! They are simply going to pass that increased cost on to we the consumers. And no matter who the first line consumer is of any product, sooner or later, it filters down to you and I. And we are the ones paying the higher prices for smaller amounts, lower quality, etc. Oh, my, yes.. this does get my GRRRRR up!!

Amen to that

You maayalso find this interesting,. I live in California now since 1989. In 1994 I changed carrees and started driving Semi long haul. West coast to east coast. Did this 14 years, till mom fell ill . I am fenale now 51yrs.old. My longtime mate still drives. We hauled produce from here and Nogales to out east I am from Chicago, by the way. Even after all the freight charges put on those loads that produce and fruit is still cheaper to buy out there then in the state of California where it was grown. When my mom passes on I am moving back to the midwest. Boyfriend finally realized how expensive his state of birth is here.

Me, too. What kills me is they're doing the same thing with Dial soap. It's indented now - kind of narrow in the middle and normal-sized on the ends. And to make it worse, they've started packaging it in boxes, so you can't tell until you take it out of the box. So either the cardboard packaging costs them less than the soap or it costs the same or more, but we have to buy soap more frequently now that there's less of it in each bar.

True, but did your mother work 40 hours a week? Most people nowadays do, so there isn't much time or energy for baking and preserving. Back then, people had houses with enough land to have a garden. One income was enough to pay for that house, a vehicle or two, healthcare, clothes, furniture, etc, etc.

Granted, back then people weren't paying $200 - $300/month for cell phones, cable TV and Internet access.

yes it dose, I can not remember the last time I had Ice cream. as we can only get the necessities due to no money. Penny

True, but people who work just as hard as you do, or even harder, deserve to be paid enough to live on. And the minimum wage has never even approached that point. Meanwhile, those at the top earn undeserved millions every year.

If you don't allow people a living wage, then we all only have to subsidize them for the things they can't afford, such as housing (public housing projects), healthcare, food (food stamps), childcare, etc. This happens through public benefit programs, through tax credits, through charity drives.

And you do get lower quality, because only the most inexperienced and desperate of people will take those jobs. And once they can, they leave for something better, so you lose any experience and skills they develop. But give them a living wage for their work, and they will stay and you'll get the quality that comes when they develop expertise at their jobs.

You're not wrong. When overhead, whether it's the cost of supplies or rent or wages, goes up, businesses almost always pass the cost on right to the customers. Or they lay people off or cut corners on quality or quantity.

IMO there just has to be a better solution than not paying people enough to live on. Part of that is making those at the top accountable for their bonuses and perks. Part of that is realizing that not every publicly-owned company (stock market companies) should always grow in value. There's this idea that corporations have a lifecycle, and once they stop growing, they die. There is just no reason they can't reach their "right size" and sustain that - except that then the stockholders sell their stock and the company's paper value goes down. Oh my, such a shame.

Sorry, I've gone into a rambling rant here. Stopping now.

I am sorry, but people who are working need to get paid a livable wadge. At one point in my life I was getting paid minimum wage at $2.45 an hour, I had a baby to raise and I worked my tail off as a cirtified nurseis aid. needless to say I did not eat half the time so I could feed my child and pay the bills. Penny

I agree that everyone should be able to earn a wage that they can live on; I just don't think that raising minimum wage gives anyone a liveable wage. As Wildyard previously said, when minimum wage is raised so is the cost of living (food, rent, clothing, etc.) It's hard to believe that there isn't a viable solution. No American should be going hungry.