It was a mainly cloudy day with a bit of sunshine in the morning. Temeratures are more seasonal now with very little wind. I shoveled the snow that had fallen and blown around two days ago. The deeper snow on the car was moved off while it was still feeling light. Tomorrow it may turn slushy and be hearier to move. A neighbour walked by and we had a good chat about the bitterly cold days. She has radiator heat with a smaller wood stove. She set her alarm for every two hours on the coldest night so she chould add fuel to the stove and check on the water lines to ensure things were not freezing. Another friend had a furnace stop functioning so she had to heat only with a wood stove. It has been a wild few days for this region.
While shoveling, I was pondering the grocery bill increases of late. Inflation has made checkout at the stores surprising. Tomorrow milk prices will increase for the third time in a year. This increase still doesn't cover the production costs of dairy farmers. The spin off here is that cheese, yogurt and other dairy products will increase, too. I expect all items to increase at the same time rather than in a week or two as the more expensive milk makes its way through the system. I expect others along the supply chain will be making more money than the farmers. This got me thinking about other price ncreases I've encountered. Package size has caught my eye a lot. "Shrinkflation" has hit many product lines. I generally keep a can or two of ready-to-eat soup on the shelf for emergencies or illness. When I bought a replacement can recently, I noticed the can was narrower and taller than before. Now, psychologically the taller aspect of the can makes it appear to be larger than a shorter can regardless of the diameter. So, I checked the volume. It was a couple ounces less than the former can. Frozen dumplings and samosas kept the same package, but held fewer pieces dropping from 15 to 12. The price increased a bit for each of these food products, too. I got some shampoo and conditioner last week. The shampoo was the same size and bottle as usual, while the conditioner changed to a large toothpaste style tube. The latter looked larger than the bottle, but was 50 mL less. The regular price of these also increased about $2. A moisturizer that I use comes in a bottle in a box. The box remained the same, but the bottle is much smaller. It went from 120 mL to 70 mL. The price increased by $2 per box, too. Other products may alter the quality of the ingredients to keep costs and prices in line. when doing consumer surveys, I always note that I'd like the quality to remain the same but make the package size slightly smaller. It seems that to deal with inflation at the production end package size was reduced and price was increased. Now some of the cost increases come from the higher cost of transporting goods from one place to another. Also, the floods in California affect the supply of fresh produce. With reduced supply and steady demand, princes increase. <sigh>
A recent survey noted that Canadians felt prices would drop a bit once inflation is reduced. I am not nearly that optomistic. <sigh> I would gladly be proven wrong, though. <smile> The song chosen for today deals with cost of livng increases and unemployment. Recent figures show unemployment rates are dropping and inflation is coming down -- but slowly. Keep safe. Enjoy!
Cost of Livin' -- Ronnie Dunn
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