Is it just me?
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| Mon, 08-15-2005 - 11:25am |
Is anyone else noticing an increase in prices due to a jump in gas prices? Around here gas prices are about $2.50 a gallon and I noticed when I was grocery shopping that canned vegetables had increased in price by 10 cents a can and my favorite cereal had gone up $1.50 a box. I am buying as much generic as I can. And, by the way, I AM the person that drives everyone else crazy in the grocery store. I compare prices and and determine if the larger size is really the better deal. Example: the large container of Peanut butter was more than two of the smaller containers and by buying two of the smaller ones, I got 12 oz. more!
Just curious if anyone else noticed an increase. So, to me my budget isn't stretching as far, not just because of the cost of gas, but because of the ripple effect on the economy.
Kellie

I haven't noticed it especially, but it doesn't surprise me. Most items in grocery stores are shipped hundreds or thousands of miles to their final destination, so increasing gas prices increase the cost of business.
I'm not a purist about it, but I try to buy things locally, which buffers some of that effect. I read an interesting study recently that calculated the cost of a quarter pound of hamburger purhased at a fast food restaurant. I wish I could remember the exact calculation, but it included items like how much water was used, pollution created, etc. For just a quarter pound of the meat (not counting the bun, fries, cheese, etc.), it was something like two cups of gasoline burned. No wonder the cost of gasoline affects everything else!
Anyway, not to get on a high horse or anything, but it drives me crazy that our country is still so dependent on oil. There are alternatives readily available--we don't have to wait for some distant future technology. We already know we can operate vehicles on vegetable oil (it's called bio-diesel, and we've known about it for decades--in fact the inventor of the diesel engine intended for it to be run on vegetable oil!--and many people convert their petro-diesel vehicles to use it, but there is no supply chain for it, so you have to be pretty independent-minded and determined in order to do it). We already know we can run communities on solar power--there are entire communities that generate all their own electricity through panels on all the homes and businesses. Why aren't we doing it for heaven's sake???
It seems like our consumption ought to be more in line with the *real* cost of our resources, not the deflated costs associated with methods of harvest that strip our forests, destroy our water, pollute our air... argh!! Okay, getting down now...
I expect to see costs increase across the board for lots of things as oil prices go up. Personally, I hope they continue to rise.
Heather
I have definitely seen costs increasing.
The scary -- or comforting -- part for me is that on another board here in IVillage the CL is a former math teacher, from Scotland..and so she did the conversions for us (pounds to US Dollars, litre to gallon)....
She's paying $6.67/gallon there for fuel. ah!
Teresa
http://www.affordingpickles.blogspot.com