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Is Inflation Eating Into Your Pay Check?
by James Glaser August 22, 2011 
I know everyone sees it at the gas pump, but at least for me, inflation jumps right out at the grocery store. We are at the height of the vegetable growing season, but Winn-Dixie is selling unripe green tomatoes at $3.99 a pound, and the same price is true for yellow bell peppers. I can understand prices like that in the middle of winter when you are only getting produce from plants grown indoors or that which is shipped in from foreign suppliers. However, right now everything should be at rock bottom prices. After all, here in Florida we live in a tomato growing state. We bought some ground turkey today, and it was just over $3 dollars a pound. Turkey is supposed to be cheap. Bread—bread is costing us over $3 dollars a loaf, and we all know how packaging has been cheating us for a while. Orange juice is now 59 ounces and get this, 11.5 ounce packages of coffee. There doesn't seem to be anything that is one pound anymore. President Obama keeps telling us that things will be getting better soon. But, even if he is right, they are not about to increase the package sizes or lower prices, because we are now used to them. It is hard to get a corporation to cut profits after they have had high ones for a while because they get used to them. In WWII many, maybe most, Americans had Victory Gardens, because so many of the farmers were off fighting the war, and production and distribution was down. After the war, cheap food came back, but I believe those days of inexpensive food are gone forever. So think about putting in your own little garden. You could call it your Inflation Garden. It really doesn't take much time or effort to get a few plants started, but I must warn you that after eating a few of the best tomatoes you ever had in your life, and they cost almost nothing, you might get hooked on growing more and more of your own vegetables. That's not a bad thing, and in fact, it can be quite rewarding in both money saved and self satisfaction. So, if like me, you are seeing inflation eating up your pay check, think about putting in a little time in the dirt, and soon you will be to walk right by much of the produce section at the grocery store. |
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