I went grocery shopping last night to pick up a few things, and I was shocked by how expensive everything has become. Groceries in Manhattan are always absurd, but take a look at my list:
Frozen Tropicana OJ............2.39
Gallon milk..........................4.99
Peanut butter........................3.79
Can tomatoes (2@1.99 ea.)....3.98
Progresso soup (4@3.69 ea.).14.76
Yuban coffee (12 oz.)..............5.99
Arnold bread.........................3.99
Ronzoni fettucini...................2.49
Dannon yogurt (32 oz.)..........3.99
Total....................................46.37
And that doesn't include any fresh produce (which I buy from the produce cart, where it's much cheaper). This is at Gristede's, which is just your average Manhattan grocery -- nothing special.
I remember when I lived in Florida I could buy a cart full of groceries, including produce and all sorts of odds and ends, for roughly this much. Crazy!
(Photo: Another Reya-inspired shot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Sept. 2008)
Just be glad you had the $46.37 to pay for them! Yes, I too remember going out for my initial shopping when I first moved to DC and getting change back from $25. But that's when my take-home pay was $162 every 2 weeks, so my guess is that your income has been increasing all along, though possibly not at the same rate as the cost of food. One has to eat!
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy. I am constantly amazed when I go to the store, and not in a good way. I walk out with TWO smallish bags and a $40 bill -- and that's IF I tried to be careful and not spend a lot (otherwise it's $50-60). Yet we have $700 billion to bailout nasty banks and such .... bleeech!
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to note that the most expensive item was four cans of soup. I once wrote an article comparing my food shopping with that of my grandmothers and found that what we ate was not so dissimilar, but what we bought had changed because of the amount of processing I was used to buying. An example of this would be your cans of tomatoes (and my cans of tomatoes). My grandmother would have used the tomatoes, but she would have only bought salt and glass jars (and sometimes only the rims, because lord knows, she had a million glass jars), because she would have raised her own tomatoes and then canned them in August for use during the rest of the year.
ReplyDeleteGrandma and Grandpa lived on a peach farm and growing and canning their own food was a necessity for them. One of the funny parts of my article was that my grandfather loved corn mush almost as much as I love polenta... so corn meal was on both of our shopping lists.
Well, I'm off to breakfast and then my weekly shopping (and yes, it comes to about $100 dollars for two people).
I can't believe soup costs that much in Manhattan... geez. How are the farmer's markets in town?
ReplyDeleteShocking isn't it? I first noticed the prices going dramatically higher about six months ago. I stopped buying yogurt until I finally gave in and got used to it. Have you noticed that the packages got smaller as well?
ReplyDeleteGreat Reya-inspired photo!
ReplyDeleteWow! One of the groceries here has Progresso soup a dollar a can from time to time. I stock up.
ReplyDeletethat is pretty pricey... milk isn't much cheaper here, tho we can't buy it by the gallon (you drink a lot of milk!) the largest is 2 Litres. But 1.99 for a can of tomatoes?
ReplyDeleteprogresso soup sounds like something that might be advertised in the back of comic books - along with the Xray specs and Be Taller elevated shoes.
at that price it ought to do something special for you...