Vital Items

I'm sure I'm not alone when I grump and growl, complain and yes, bitch -a lot -about how difficult it is to keep up with the ever increasing food prices these days.

One thing that bothers me a whole lot though is the price of one of the main staples in this house.

COFFEE!

The sad truth about coffee is not that we are drinking more of this but rather that it looks like we are drinking more.

It used to be if I purchased 2 cans of what was then, laughingly called, a 3 pound can of coffee -which it really wasn't because it only held 39 ounces and we all know (don't we) that there are 16 ounces to a pound so in actuality a 3 pound can of coffee should have contained 48 ounces and not the paltry 39 ounces. But, we adjusted to that, didn;'t we?

However, those cans -which we still refer to as 3 pound cans - now contain only 27.6 ounces of the black liquid which I rely on to get me started in the morning and through the day.

So, in the past, when I used to buy 2 large cans of coffee for our consumption each month, it usually was an adequate amount to keep us going.

Plus, back then, I could often find coffee on sale then too -the good brand names that I usually preferred -for even as low at $3.99 or $4.99 a can so when it was on sale at prices like that, I would usually try to stock up a bit and pick up at least 1, often 2 extra cans when I would do my grocery shopping.

Today's prices though are no where near those prices -often the prices are more than double that and for some brands and special flavors, the cost is about triple what it was and not that terribly long ago either. (I'm not comparing here back to what coffee cost 15-20 years ago, ya know.)

This has all come about in fairly recent years -this huge increase in something like coffee.

Figure it this way then, if I used to buy 2 cans of coffee with 39 ounces in each can and if today, I could still purchase coffee in containers that held that much coffee -and if say I paid $8.98 which is what a lot of the coffee I do tend to like now costs, that would mean I would be paying $17.98 per month for the amount of coffee we usually would use.

However, at today's sizes and prices, to get 78 ounces of coffee (or the equivalent to those so-called 3 pound cans), I would now have to purchase 3 cans of that size can which would provide us with only 72.8 ounces of coffee -about 5 ounces less than we would have had to use if the size of the cans had remained the same.

And at $8.98 (which is often a fairly "Cheap" cost today) I would now pay $26.94 for three cans of coffee to give me then not quite as much coffee as we use in a month but the increase in cost would be $8.96 more.

And, that's just an increase in coffee so who knows how much more all the other food items have gone up over the past couple of years. And how many people now have to buy more of an item to get the same amount you used to get but not realize it because the containers look to be the same size as before?

Some how, that doesn't look like a fair way of doing business to me. Just a bit of slight of hand -or slight of can!