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A Timely Look Back


This morning I came by to visit this long-neglected blog. I saw the title of a draft post, "Can you afford $100 a month more?" This post was from 02/23/2013: 
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While looking for the blog of a well-known neighbor... I came across this headline: 

"Rising prices may cost you $100 a month"

I've got to pay at least $100 more a month to survive when we've only got part time employment to live on?

Thus, I made cheese last week when the milk went off. Then we set ourselves a goal of holding off on groceries until the end of the month, buying only what we need for the week ahead in the meantime. Today we used the last of the coffee and eggs and are out of milk.

I've been coming across things which must be tossed and others that are questionable. Apricot and prune filling a year past expiration date. Theoretically they should be fine, but to be on the safe side I checked it out here:  http://www.stilltasty.com

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Ten years on, the well known-neighbor blogger has moved to the east coast; the article linked to the headline no longer works; and I am blessed to have been employed full time since late 2016. Nationally, however, we are already far worse off than we were back then.  

There was little inflation in 2013, no supply chain issues, and more people were seeking employment than there were job openings. There were no national chain stores closing hundreds of their locations around the country. Malls were hurting a little, but not being deserted and demolished en masse. Crime was not so rampant that health and beauty products were locked behind plexiglas doors. These are but a few examples of the changes we've seen as we are told, "Bidenomics is working."

Looking toward 2024, they tell us we will pay an average of 2.9% more for groceries. While their report in November says that food inflation won't rise as fast as it did this year, the USDA admits that cost increases are not going away. 

Dust off your cook books from the Great Depression and the late 1970s for tips on making ends meet in touch times. 




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