Please don't turn this into a political thread. I'd really like this thread to continue and not be wiped because a few people ranted and others got offended and ranted back.

IMO, prices are the way they are because we have a free-market society and Big Business charges us what the market will bear. Not because of who's in office.

You may disagree with me, but I started the thread more to share information and price trends around the country (and in other countries, since we're lucky enough to have members in Canada, France, Australia, and elsehwere), and to swap tips for coping with the prices. Okay, and to vent, too. But not to start a political debate.

DCH, I'm with you!!

what happened to eating what was in season? in the summer we ate summer fruit and veggies. in the winter we ate apples and bananas and oranges from florida. true, there wasn't as big a selection, but we didn't pay for transportation to get everything here from brazil or wherever. and we didn't get rickets. some americans are very spoiled and have high expectations and then gripe about the prices. we all know that asparagus will be expensive in february. school food services are right to serve fresh foods within reasonable price ranges. if parents can't understand that, they should pull their kids out and enroll them in private schools or pack a school lunch for their kids at home.

as for the sports equipment, if all the parents feel the same way, no one should let their kids play sports. let the coach eat it.

This is an interesting discussion. And it's interesting to see how we all cope. Making a loaf of good bread in my bread machine costs less than $.75 for me. My DIL has chickens, but hens eat chicken feed, too. Gardens are good, but they take work and time as well. I know as I've frozen and canned all my married life. I watch some little things like using a pump for the dishsoap and shampoo bottles-I use less of both than pouring it into your hand. I rewash ziploc type bags whether they are new from a box or used to sell nuts or brown sugar. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store--the more processed foods cost the most money and generally are the least nutritious.

Having worked in the grocery business for 37 years this reminded me of probably 30 years ago a group of us cashiers were discussing the price of bread and saying "the way it's going it's going to be $1.00 a loaf one of these days". We should be so lucky!! I think I can make it cheaper in my bread machine but when that warm bread comes out I want to eat the whole loaf so I refrain from doing that.

lol, lacikat!

I tried a bread machine once, since I'm no good at working with dough. The bread was horrible, and I tried three times. Never figured out whether it was the machine or me. I took the machine back.

To those that live alone or just two people,
An idea that I had a couple of years ago has paid-off well. For all fresh veggies for soup or other cooking, I go to the salad bar. Instead of spending ten dollars on celery, onions, carrots, peppers, etc.; I buy just what I need. It usually costs me less then two dollars and does not get to go bad in my fridge. So I may spend $8 a month and have fresh for all my cooking all the time. I was tired of throwing away soft veggies. A waste of my hard-earned money. I do buy the pre-packaged salads with dressings, croutons and stuff for the same reason. Everything I need and nothing goes bad.
Quilter68(aka Kathleen)

Lisanne,

Thank you re: the politics -not for this thread.

About prices, I posted two items as I thought of them but ...yesterday 5lbs. of sugar was only 4 lbs., coffee is not a pound but only 11 or 12 ounces.

I live carefully except for my quilting!!!!
Quilter68 (AKA Kathleen)

heating, gasoline, food and just about everything else has gone up double in Ohio. Plus we seem to be one of the states that has the largest unemployment. I know this because my husband is one of them. Sure we get unemployment, but it is less than half of what he was making. Can't afford for him to retire because our funds went down just like everyone elses. I work full time, clean an office building and we are struggling to pay the house payment and bills. If something does not break soon, I am sure we will lose our house. Can't sell, no one is buying around here. The worst parts are that now we get to pay taxes on the unemployment, and forget about giving us food stamps--yet others are getting a "free ride" Sorry, guess I needed to vent a little.

Quilter68, I discovered the salad bar trick a few years back. I mean, you can get salad greens for a fractions of the price of those pre-packaged ones, and they're fresh that day.

For soups and other recipes using only a bit of celery, you can fit the chopped celery in one of those salad dressing containers and it rings up for pennies. (Some stores were giving them to me for free, telling me they were sample sized anyway. That's one thing when it's celery, but quite a savings when it's chopped bacon!)

I don't get all the salad bar items. Shredded carrots were not freshly shredded, and all that exposed surface area just makes them decay that much faster. Same with cheese. And it used to be, they set out freshly chopped fruit, but now they just set out the fruit from the catering platters that didn't sell, so you're getting 1 - 2 day old chopped fruit.

And I agree with you about smaller sizes. A pint of Haagen-Dazs is 14 ounces now, I think. I bought pita bread and whoa! Size cut by at least a third. Wal-mart is selling Kellogg's Corn Flakes boxes for $1.50, which sounds good until you notice it only has 7 servings in it. Used to be, a box of corn flakes lasted a month. And Dial soap has a narrow "waistline" now, which only makes you use it faster and get rid of it when the center breaks into two pieces.

fkt, didn't we always have to pay taxes on unemployment?

Hard to believe prices have actually doubled in Ohio - that's scary!

Canmitch1971,look over in Recipes Section i have put something over there i think you and maybe all the other fine Ladies would like with the price of Conensed Milk it's like almost 3dollars a can here in W.v

from another Jerseyan...we have shoprite, A&P and a few other supers in our area.

My hubby is a BIG mild drinker..so I check out the circulars each week as they arrive and go to the one who has the lowest price.....works for me as there usually is one that is running a sale on milk.

I know........nothing political but I cannot keep still. As everyone has observed, prices for even basic foods have increased over the years. The government says there is no inflation so the Social Security for retirees does not get a Cost of Living increase this year! Humpf!!!!!

And then there is how they make the packaging larger to get you to pay more. I understand that costs rise and so they must charge more for that reason. But to spend more on larger packages to con us into paying more - that's just, well, a con.

Not just food containers. A year or two ago, they started making some paperback books taller for some reason. And charging more. Or they'd bring a mass market paperback back as a much more expensive trade paperback. People seem to think nothing of paying $11 now for a paperback. I remember when they were 75 cents...

We go to Winco to buy our milk--last time we bought it, it was $1.99. Gas seems to be holding fairly steady here--regular is about $2.69/gallon but when we shop at Fred Meyer, we can get at least 3 cents off each gallon, and sometimes, even 10 cents off a gallon. My husband and I are very budget-minded, and watch every cent.
I don't know about the natural gas bills though. We had a new high-efficiency gas furnace put in, for which we got a $900 rebate from our utility company, and will get a $1500 energy tax credit on our Federal income taxes--but one of the best things is that our gas/electric bill for last month was only $150--last year it was over $400! Granted, the average daily temperature was much higher this year, but...what a nice surprise to see that low of a bill!

Nellebelles we had 24 new windows and a new gas furnace put in this fall and our gas bills compared to last year at this time are about half the amount of last year. We will also be getting some money back from the government too.

I bet that you noticed your home is a lot more comfortable too! I know ours is. The furnace kicks in and it seems almost instantly it is warm. We also added another layer of insulation in the attic. Along with keeping the house warm, that provided some noise control as well. We live a block away from a busy street, and now we can barely hear the traffic. We added new windows last year, all except for the big windows in the front of our house.That is our next project, slated for this summer!

Yes we have really noticed a difference in the warmth and the noise level. I just love my windows. I wanted new windows for so long and now I have them. We had also finished the attic when we first moved here and they put lots of insulation in it. It is my sewing room and I love it. This house was built in the 1920's and it had the original windows and furnace. Yikes!!!

I'm also tired of "re-packaging". Same size package, less contents. Don't buy bacon often, but it used to be a pound, now it's 14oz. Dog food used to be 20 lbs per bag and now it's 18 lbs.
I've always been the "coupon queen". I check the circulars and shop the specials with coupons. You don't want to get behind me in the checkout line because it takes the cashier forever to ring up my order. But with DH unemployed since Nov 2008 (now self-employed) every little bit of saving helps. Thank goodness there's only 2 of us at home--I can't imagine feeding a big family these days.

I agree the prices keep going up and the contents keep going down.

I went out on disability in 2004 because I lost my central vision after a stroke and 5 blood clots including my lungs. My husband retired to drive me to all of the appointments.

At first it wasn't too bad. We got by ok and had a mini (weekend) vacation every year. But with no raise in SS and with the jump in prices we can't even do that. We don't go out to dinner, etc.

I am a big coupon shopper, but they are making so many that you have to buy 2 for 50 cents. That is ridiculous!

What really ticks me off is when our local grocery store has a sale on something, like Italian Bread for $1.00 save 25 cents. Then the next week it is $2.00.

Also, I have my husband read the expiration dates especially the dairy items. When they have a sale, the expiration date is usually the following Monday or Tuesday.

What do they think we are stupid! How much more do they think the normal taxpayer can pay?

Now they are charging 5 cents a bag and we have a 5 cent deposit on water bottles.

You would think some enterprising person could start a work at home business sewing uniforms for a reasonable price. With so much unemployment seems some talented person could supplement their income. No way would I pay $600.00 for a cheerleading outfit -- not even in Dallas!!!

Yeah, they've been doing the "must buy 2" or 4 or 6 (yogurt coupons want you to buy 6) for years now. It must be a reaction against coupon doubling but it locks me out of using a lot of coupons, because I just don't use things up fast enough.

I read expiration dates, too. You know, if the date is too soon, you can always ask at customer service for a rain check so you can buy at the sale price after they restock. Or just wait until later in the week, when most of the old stock has been sold.

I do this with produce sales, too. They will have a great sale and crummy produce. I'll ask for a rain check if the veggies or fruit aren't in a condition I'd pay for, and they do usually give the rain check. Then, the week after the sale, you see beautiful, perfect, fresh produce at some pipe dream price, and I buy it using my rain check.

You know, I don't have that much of a problem with the cost of things going up gradually... What my latest gripe is: the price goes up, and the size of the packaging goes down! So, you get less, and still pay more!
Here's a couple examples making me crazy lately; Centrum vitamins recently had a commercial that said' Now smaller, and easier to swallow!' that means less vitamin, more price...
16 oz jar of Walmart salsa cost 1.86 2 months ago. Last week, I see they changed the shape of the jar.and it's 14 oz..oh yeah, the price went up to 2.54... My hair spray, Suave... 12 oz pump bottle 6 months ago,.97 ( last time I bought it) this last month , again, changed the shape of the bottle, now it's 10 oz. and price went up to 1.47. arrrgggh!

I too hate it when you get les product for more money. Our food here seems to be going up a little every week, They have put in Wal Mart Super Centers and continually raise prices. We have SavALot stores here and I've gone back to getting what I can there, their prices have gone up also just not as high as the other stores. I buy what we need or want. I also don't shop at LQS for fabrics and use less expensive fabrics. If my quilts don't last for several generations, I don't care, I won't be here to know how long they last. I want to be able to make them now. Usually people can afford whatever they want and just complain about the neccessities.

One thing I will always be grateful for is that a yard is a yard is a yard! They can't make that smaller and charge us the same. But, they still can end up charging us more for those yards. I have found though, that the price for fabric has stayed pretty stable. Is that the case everywhere?