Shopping and getting sticker shock…

Recently on the news California had their own sticker shock at the gas pumps with prices heading towards the six dollar a gallon mark. Unfortunately, their prices seem to be much higher than the rest of the other states. So it is logical with all the gas prices fluctuating that getting food to the grocery stores would cause the prices of the food to accelerate in price too. This afternoon we decided to take our grocery shopping trip and pick up items that we needed. Mostly vegetables and fruit and some staples like milk, eggs and bread, but some cleaning items for the laundry. They did have a sale on one of the wines we enjoy and so we bought four at less than seven dollars a bottle we felt that was a good deal. Wine is good for the aging heart, even the doctors say… We do seem to buy less red meat, more chicken and fish at the counter when it's on sale and more healthful foods and so that's what people say costs more and I suppose that's why it did; BIG time! For instance more healthful foods are multigrain breads from their bakery, EB eggs and fat free dairy products such as milk and sour cream. It is apple season and we bought a 3 pound bag, four bananas, four plums, strawberries and seedless white grapes. Oh and we bought things like vine ripened tomatoes, romaine lettuce, celery, one sweet onion, one red onion, cloves of garlic, and two avocados. We had radishes and carrots still at home. The only cheese we bought was some part skim milk shredded mozzarella for our homemade pizzas, since last time we picked up yeast for our flour and we already had heart smart tomato sauce. Making pizza at home we used to do quite often and enjoy. Especially, when we used to grow our own tomatoes and I would make the sauce from scratch, making your own pizza dough isn't so difficult, really. At one point I was considering reading up on how to make cheese from milk. But that was a short lived idea; for what we needed it would be overkill, it's easier to pick it up from the store. We did buy some shrimp on sale and some 93% ground beef, but we had things like chicken and steak in the freezer at home even some tilapia and so our diet is quite healthy as you can see, but every time we go to the store the prices keep going up and we still have to eat so that's a bit of a dilemma. Making healthy choices that we will always be able to afford has become more challenging. I am sure that all of you have come across this situation as well that is trying hard to eat healthy and stay within a budget. We’re not quite spending as much as when we had two teenagers at home, and those teenagers have been long grown up so we are talking like 20 years to get to this point of groceries costing almost as much for our family of four, for just two? As I said though we still aren't there yet, thankfully; you know I'm beginning to sound like my dad who was in the food business and always with talk about way back when things cost $.30 for this or $.20 for that, but I can remember also when $25 would buy a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four, Yep way back in 1970s. And gas was well under a dollar a gallon. Oh those were the days, but you must also know that having a $25,000 year income you were riding high, and so let's admit times are changing and everything has gone up according to what people are receiving an income percentage-wise, although, some of us still realize that the balance of what goes in and what goes out is a teetering on the edge of not being able to pay our own way. And so many of us even though we are making more than we had in the past still have to adjust to the best way to stay out of the poor house. Caution and care is what this last downturn in the economy has taught us all and I'm sure more of us are more careful than ever before how we spend our money and how we prioritize our expenditures. I know we are more careful than ever before, we have no need to go long distances and so our gas expenses are minimal, and we only buy things we can save up for, for cash or that we can afford to pay for in small increments. Being a retired credit manager, we have not charged more than we can afford and at the end of the month, remaining to have a zero balance then on any of our credit cards; which counting our debit one we have three altogether, which is more than enough in my opinion and we all know how much that is worth. I seem to be going off on another tangent and I am getting very wordy again thinking about all that I want to say… But as a very smart woman once said, “leave them wanting more”, and so I will, with that hope in my heart that you will too, huh? Now allow me to be the very first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!