Who remembers when a "quick trip to the grocery store for a few things" could be done for under $20.00? This is where I want to say, "I'm really showing my age, here" - but the fact is, the cheap old days of foraging in the grocery forest are not that long ago. More like...five years. 2007ish. When my car was still fewer than ten years old.
Granted, I'm not the world's cheapest food shopper. I buy 99.9% of my clothes at thrift stores and yard sales, pick up the majority of our furniture at the dump (it's amazing what a fresh coat of paint and some wood glue can do), and I'd gleefully skip barefoot through glass shards before I'd pay for cable TV service. But when it comes to "What's for dinner?" I'm about as cheap as a late-model Jaguar.
It's always been that way for me though, especially since college. I have an autoimmune condition that flares up like the White House on July Fourth if I dare to cross the fast-food barrier. So...no prepared frozen meals or canned cake frosting for me. It's all organic produce, meat, and bread. During the warmer months, I get 75% of my food from local sources...but in the winter, it's a trip to the store for everything from broccoli to butter.
Even at that, I fondly remember when I could swing by Albertsons, fill up a carry-basket with everything from rice milk to nuts, and be out of there for under $20.00. Now...it's almost twice that for the same staples.
And it's not like we've balanced the scales by receiving a much-deserved boost in"expendable income" (don't you love that term? - it sounds like something Mitt Romney would make up, like - "creating jobs by sending them overseas").
So...here we are with the same-sized bellies we had five years ago, but our wallet is shrinking. We go out to dinner once a month now instead of once a week, and we never, ever, EVER go to the movies without free tickets. We also don't buy much stuff in general...gone are the days of spontaneous purchases on fancy cat litter and those beaded thingies that keep your ass and back from sweating against the seat of your car.
I got back from the store today with my usual stock of basics...112.00. Not bad. It would be even better if this wasn't my second trip to the store in less than a week.
Frivolity is out, frugality is in. For once, I'm riding the trend-wave...and careening wildly toward shore without a surfboard.
If this isn't a stick up...what is?
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