davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2023

[davidd]

$50 used to get you a lot of groceries too.  Now every trip to the grocery store is a chorus of "HOW MUCH???!!" 

Oh, I know! Coincidentally, I was muttering about this very thing last week: how, not so very many years ago (or so it seems), fifty bucks was a "major shopping trip." Now, fifty bucks is "a quick stop to pick up a few things." A "regular" grocery trip easily costs over $200. A "big shop" can be $300 and up.

And despite the "official numbers," anybody who shops for groceries and who understands math (why do people think "percentages" are so difficult?) realizes that in the past year or so, grocery prices are not "up two percent" or "up five percent" as the media report, they have increased 50% to 100%. When that box of crackers went up from $3 to $4 since last week, that's not "only a dollar," that's a thirty-three percent increase. Since last week. And it happens every few weeks.

There used to be a lot of snobs here in the States who claimed they never shopped at Walmart, which would have required them to rub shoulders with the great unwashed masses. Now, there are just as many Lexus and Teslas and even the occasional Porsche in the Walmart parking lot as there are beat-up old clunkers with duct tape holding the windows in place. The store shelves at Walmart are mostly full... of name brand products. The shelves dedicated to the "store brand" versions, which retail for one-half to two-thirds the price of "name brand" products, are almost always stripped bare.

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28 December - A Doll A Day 2023:

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28 December - A Doll A Day 2023