What I Have Been Doing The Past Month

It has been a while since I have been able to talk with you. It has been a busy month and I have not had time to prepare a post. So I am just going to speak as if I was just chatting with you.

I have again been dealing with health issues which means lots of running to doctors, many tests, being rushed to the ER at 4am one day, resting when I can, etc. I am still dealing with doctors the next 2 months and now a chiropractor every week. Getting old is not fun!

But I have missed all of you during this time. So it is time to get back to frugality.

How is your grocery shopping going? I was finally able to get out and do a quick shop at two stores yesterday. I went to Aldi’s and Walmart. I was surprised at how few people were in the stores. There was only about 1/4 of the number of people that I would usually see on a Monday. After looking at some of the prices, I think that I understand why. There were many things that I would not pay the inflated prices for. I imagine that many people are not shopping these days because of the prices. I hope that they stocked for a few months when prices were lower. I have also heard on the news that many people are using the food banks more.

All I had to pick up at Aldi’s was heavy whipping cream at $ 3.89 a quart. Not only do I use it in my coffee in the morning but we make Keto ice cream with it. So I picked up 4 while they had them. I also got a large container of vanilla yogurt. Since eggs have gotten so expensive, I now have some yogurt with a sprinkling of blueberry cinnamon Keto nut granola for breakfast every other day.

At Walmart, I picked up fresh tomatoes for our salads at $ 1.48 a lb. They were beautiful. Aldi’s had them on sale but they were rotten. Walmart’s produce section has shrunk to 4 wooden boxes of veggies and some prepared packaged items. They also had tons of bananas at $.47 a lb. I was really shocked at how poorly stocked they were. As I walked the store, I saw many holes in freezer cases with frozen veggies and potatoes very low.

I was looking for a favorite cookie for Hubby. The cookie aisle had two stacks of fig newtons and no other cookies. They had filled the aisle up with chips. Wherever there were holes on the shelves, you would find these chips even amongst the crackers which were very lean. Just about every aisle that had items was filled up with items that didn’t belong there, mostly junk food.

As I was walking through the cereal aisle, I found a few packages of Oreo’s at one end. I was able to get 2 packages of what Hubby wanted. Lots of shelves were fronted with items but nothing behind them.

While I was perusing the dairy aisle, I noticed that there were not many eggs. I checked the price on the 5 dozen box that I usually buy. Two weeks ago I paid $ 8.60 for it. Now it is $ 13.83. Ugh!

Hubby is having allergy issues this spring. I am very low on Kleenex. I looked at Aldi’s for some and they had none. I got the last 4 of 7 on the shelf at Walmart. There was plenty of toilet paper though. I told Hubby if I can’t get more, we will revert to using our handkerchiefs.

The clothing sections were sparse also.

I couldn’t help but wonder if China keeps their people locked down, will we have food and clothing in a few months? And many other items. The worst thing that happened in the 1990’s was that we went to a global economy. We make hardly anything here anymore and that is not a good thing.

The same can be said for oil, natural gas and electricity. We are all getting hit hard with those prices. My gas and electric bill has gone up 24-28% every month since we turned the heat on for the winter even though we save on using electricity and and natural gas every day. We still have our heat on because our nights are still very cold. Our gasoline has gone down a little to $ 4.28 a gallon. However NY State and my county will both drop the sales tax on gasoline effective June 1st. NYS is dropping it 16 cents per gallon and our county has capped how much they get so we will see what that does. But I have the feeling that as long as we have a war and this administration does not open up our production, the gasoline prices will continue to rise. I am also concerned that we will see shortages of both gasoline and natural gas.

Well, I hope to be posting more frequently now that I am getting a little bit better. My property taxes are rising again with a huge increase in my assessment. But I will talk about that another day.

Let me know how you are doing with the rise of prices on just about everything.