Monday, March 4, 2013

I'm Giving Up Food


Mushrooms.jpg (93423 bytes)I've decided the only solution is to give up food.  I can't afford to buy it any more.
I rarely go shopping these days.  I have to be out of absolutely everything before I go to the store..the thrill is definitely gone!

Walking into Nugget supermarket I saw a "sale" on blueberries.  A container that amounted to about one cup of berries for "only" $4.00.  You could get two containers of blackberries, about the same amount in each container for $7.00 each.

Strawberries, which were in a slightly larger container, were $5.   I love berries.  I eat a lot of berries on cereal, in cottage cheese, and just as snacks, but I passed on the berries.  I couldn't justify the luxury of the price.

Continuing through the produce aisle, I decided to look at the price of artichokes, which Walt and I both like a lot.  $3 each.  For one artichoke.   I've seen them higher, but I wasn't about to pay $6 for two artichokes.

But it wasn't until I came to the mushrooms that I had apoplexy.   $16 (well, $15.99) for mushrooms.  These aren't fancy schmancy mushrooms either.  Just the same old mushrooms I buy whenever I want to buy mushrooms.  Safe to say there will be no risotto or sauteed mushrooms in our foreseeable future.  The other mushrooms were every so slightly less (at least they were in single digits), but still not a price that I felt I could reasonably afford.

I moved on to the meat aisle.  What had brought me to the supermarket was having nothing for dinner.  Meat?  Pfwww.  Who can afford meat?  I didn't write down the price, but I wasn't going to pay $25 for a very small roast anything. It's been so long since lamb was affordable (and I love lamb...almost as much as I love crab) that I can hardly remember what it tastes like.   Hamburger now costs per pound what I used to pay for steaks.

It's not that the prices have suddenly jumped up.  They've been going up right along, but I usually go through the store with my eyes closed.  We need the stuff, and I grab it without checking the price.  Today my eyes were open.   (Well, really it was the mushrooms that opened my eyes!)

I finished the shopping, rejecting item after item after item because I wasn't going to pay that much.  In the end I had half a shopping cart full of food and it still cost me $100.  I had given up and bought some meat -- a pound of the lowest grade ground beef, and chicken that will last us two meals.  I also will make a "clean out the freezer" soup this week.  I don't have a clue what it will taste like, but it will be hearty and healthy.

As I left the supermarket, I was thinking about what they say will be the financial implications for the little guy with the financial downgrading this damn sequester will bring.  Walt and I aren't poor.  We have enough money to buy the food we want for dinner; it's just the principle of the thing that kept me from buying more stuff.  How in the world do people who are less well off manage?

Before I went to the store, Walt and I sat in the living room and listened to Says You on the radio.  Our dogs are so frustratingly weird.   Whenever there is anything unusually "social" going on (visitors, or Walt and me sitting in the living room) they feel that their way of participating is to wrestle at our feet.  Every. time.

I got my iPad and decided to make a video of it.  Unfortunately Sheila had tired by the time I got it, but Lizzie and Polly played all the way through the end of "Says You."  Windows Movie Maker doesn't permit me to edit video any more, but it will, at least, put together a few clips and turn them into a movie, which I have added to the "Photo of the Day" block.
One of these 
days I am either going to try to reinstall Windows Movie Maker or set aside time I don't really have to learn Adobe Premier Elements, which Ned loves and which I just can't seem to wrap my head around. Yet.

4 comments:

Harriet said...

You're in the wrong store -- or you don't read the ads. (My mother said we had to learn to eat the specials.)

I bought strawberries -- in a supermarket -- on Saturday for $1.99 a pound.

Kwizgiver said...

As a singleton, it shocks and appalls me when I spend $100 on groceries for just myself for a week.

Mary Z said...

Is there an Aldi in your area? Their prices, especially sale items, are usually lower than WalMart.

Around here, it's "freezer sludge" soup. LOL

phonelady said...

Well I finally gave up meat and most dairy too . Im down to rice , soup , mashed potatoes and I alternate those every day . You can live without meat you really can and meat is not all that healthy for you anyways . I got castistrophically sick two years ago and because I am also in pain every day and no dr can find out why . i also have that gerd stuff so I take nexium every day too . but food is just like blah to me and I have to eat such small bites that eating is not really a pleasure it is a necessity ,We no longer eat out because gas and food cost so much and movies we cannot even touch . It is just ridiculous what things costs now .so my husband is down two days a week only with meat. Im afraid that it will only get worse . we stay at home and we have cut our cable bill , cell bill , electric bill and water bill . we also just watch every penny . I think one has too these days . Yep goodbye meat in this house and good bye ice cream and milk and cheese pretty soon too .