Sticker Shock

46 this morning, cold and rainy. Which basically describes this whole week.

So this evening I went into the grocery store for the first time since the beginning of March, and I was stunned by the rise in prices. We haven't needed much as we were pretty stocked up, but I was low on a few things. Larry has been running in to pick up milk and a few things here and there, but this was my first time to actually see for myself how prices have gone up. Wow.

Here's what I bought--and it cost me just over 90.00:

• 3 loaves of bread at 1.50 each
• 3 dozen canning jar lids. 3.99 a box, so almost 12.00 just for those.
• 1 gallon of milk
• 3 gallons of water
• 1 pound of butter
• 1 can of spray olive oil and a large bottle of Canola oil
• 12 pack of toilet paper. 10.00 right there.
• Produce: Celery, lettuce, tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes--3 packs because we eat them for snacks; apples, oranges, bananas, 3 pears, grapes, broccoli. The produce was the bulk of our costs, at close to 40.00.
• A box of ice cream sandwiches, a quick treat some afternoons--2.49
• a pack of bacon
• a pack of sausage--so sad that we're out of our own bacon and sausage.
• kielbasa. These few meats cost about 10.00. Cannot imagine how people afford more expensive meats. I feel so grateful for our freezer full of venison, I can tell you, and for all the frozen and canned turkey I put up when the price was low.

And that was it. We've always shopped frugally, and now we have to be even more so. As I look over this list, I guess we could have done without the ice cream, bacon and sausage. Our well water has iron in it so we buy drinking water; maybe we need to look into a way to make our own more palatable. But what else on this list can I cut? I refuse to cut back on fruits and fresh veggies, although I bought less than I'd have liked this time. I can make bread, of course, but I think the cost might be close to what I just paid for the marked-down loaves of decent bread. I've gone on an off breadmaking as life gets slower or faster, but looks like it might be time to be back on it, although online sources put the cost of a loaf of homemade bread at around 2.00--and that's probably not considering the recent price hikes.

Next time we need groceries, we're going to try Aldi's, which I know is more reasonable. It's a good 45 minute drive from home though, so will the savings be worth the time and cost of the drive? I'm not sure.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.