Mrs. Denmarkguy and I were enjoying our lunch sandwiches with turkey, Swiss cheese and arugula from the garden when she decided she needed some potato chips to perfect the sandwich.
I decided to have a few as well, because why not?
As the beckoning chip bag sat next to me on the table, I noticed the usual factory imprint, including the price.
$7.29
When the hell did a bag of chips get to cost $7.29?
Thankfully, I used a store coupon when I bought these chips, and the price I paid was actually $3.99. Even so... the "marked price" for a "Party Size" bag of chips is now $7.29.
Mrs. Denmarkguy and I started reminiscing about our college daze and how you could usually get a bag of fairly cheap chips at a convenience store or mini-mart for 99 cents. But even the good chips in the "family size" bag were always less than $2.00.
I chuckled to myself when I noticed that the bag contained 12 1/2 oz. of chips. The bag looked the same as it always had... but "way back when" the bag had 16 oz.
So-called "shrinkflation" in action!
Have we turned into "those old people" who sit around and complain about nothing being like "the good old days," all the time?
Hardly.
More likely, we are merely making observations about the evident collision course many are experiencing... in which our ability to pay for the ordinary stuff of everyday life is simply not keeping up with the cost of everyday stuff.
The Price of Eggs in the US is a Scam!
Regardless of what the current administration might be saying, we are still paying about $9.00 US for a carton of eggs at the local supermarket.
Eggs are much cheaper in other parts of the world, including my native Denmark... which is otherwise a very expensive place to live.
But here's the thing: a couple of years ago, a dozen eggs cost pretty much the same "here" as it did "there."
But then someone, somewhere freaked out and screamed "Bird Flu! Bird Flu! Bird Flu!" and suddenly the price of eggs more than doubled.
Egg producers worried that they would lose their entire flocks!
Whereas some egg producers definitely did suffer losses because affacted chicken flocks had to be culled, it is noteworthy that most major egg producers in the USA are enjoying record profits since the bird flu scare drove up the price of eggs to near triple what they were, a few years ago.
Some months back, I read an article in The Guardian about this very thing.
In fact, there are federal lawsuits pending, concerning alleged price fixing and price gouging consumers.
It's the American Way: "Greedflation" in action!
In the meantime, our food budget continues to need ever more careful micro-management in order for us to keep afloat. Like many, we increasingly just eat what we can afford, not necessarily what we want, nor what's healthy for us...
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!
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Created at 2025.07.17 11:55 PDT
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