Shopping Saturday

I know I am not alone in saying that my mother was a "shop-a-holic"! Growing up, she often took us along as she went shopping. Sometimes for hours, and hours, and hours on end. If it was on sale, Mom considered it a bargain, whether she wanted or needed it, or not! If it wasn't something she liked, she'd give to someone for a birthday or Christmas gift!

My sister got that gene from Mom.

Me, on the other hand, hate to shop! If I can con (er uh-hmmm), rather I should say, if I can get someone else to volunteer to go to the store when something is needed, I'd much rather let them go.

I've been wondering about the sky rocketing cost of groceries, and just how much inflation there has been since I was a child way back in the (mumble-mumble-mumble), well way back then.

So let's take a look at some common grocery items and see what the difference is:

When I was a child, the cost of:

bread cost 22 cents a loaf

a half gallon of milk was 49 cents

sugar was 38 cents for a 5 pound bag

coffee was 39 cents a pound

butter was a whopping 67 cents a pound, which meant most households went to using margarine which never went rancid if not used up

a chocolate bar was 15 cents

and a bottle of my favorite beverage was 35 cents, but you got 2 cents back on every bottle you returned! Or you could get 2 cans for 27 cents.

That was back before missing children were placed on milk cartons. And you could still get your milk delivered to the house if you wanted, or buy it in the super market.

Specialty shops were common place:

bakery for bread

dairy for milk or ice cream

butcher for meats

We had convenience stores, but there weren't many. As I became a teen we began to see more and more of these.

And now for the 'coup de grace'. When I was married to my first  husband, on the back of our wedding photo and announcement in the paper, is the brand new Volkswagon for that year. The cost?

A whopping $1,800!

Oh, if we only knew how high inflation would take us, we could have bought stock in common grocery items, and have retired long ago wealthy!