When Did Things Become Expensive?

Any idea when things got so expensive? I’m dying to find out because more and more I find myself amazed at the cost of things; everyday items and specialty purchases only made once in a while.

We have all lived with our parents at some point and one of the benefits was the out of pocket costs with living at home. When you wanted to do laundry you went downstairs and there was detergent. If you were lucky like me dinner would magically appear when my mom made the announcement.

Fast forward to being on your own, either life as a single person, living with someone or married. This is when you find out just how expensive things are.

My thoughts today aren’t so much about getting a great deal by shopping around because let’s face it – if I buy detergent downstairs at Ralph’s for a few dollars more than Target, how much money am I saving having to drive 15-20 miles round trip to get a bargain?

A few things that have me scratching my head …

• Laundry Detergent – Because we use this fancy machine, I need to buy high efficiency (He) laundry detergent. I’m fairly brand loyal and Tide has always been my choice in this department. Today I picked up a medium sized container that is supposed to do 64 loads, which never happens because I’m guessing they don’t take pre-wash into account when putting that number together. Cost: $14.99, and that was on sale ($1.50 off). So regularly it’s $16.50. It’s tough to put a number on clean clothes but has Tide always been this expensive? We used to buy detergent at Sam’s club but it came in a huge container that did close to 10,000 loads and we no longer have space for such a behemoth.
• Chicken – I like chicken, namely boneless/skinless chicken breasts. We buy them pre-packaged and they come with 3, maybe 4 pieces inside. Cost: $8.50. I am almost positive we weren’t paying this much money for chicken back in Chicago. Is there some kind of chicken shortage going on I don’t know about? I know they are a lot safer these days thanks to Proposition 2 but does that mean they’re going to be more expensive? Does the Colonel get a better deal on chicken than I do?
• Ground Beef - We use two pounds a week usually, sometimes a little less. We try to get lean beef with 7% fat or less and a pound runs us in the neighborhood of $6.50 or so. See my statement about chickens above but replace with cows and McDonald’s.
• Beds – I’m talking mattresses specifically. A couple years ago H and I bought a queen size mattress. It’s functional, it’s not the bottom of the barrel in quality but not top of the line either. $1,000. One thousand dollars? For a mattress? I mean for $1,000 they should throw in some pillows or something don’t you think? I had never bought a mattress before and shopping for one is terrible. You walk into a department store and after laying down on 3 or 4 of them they all feel the same. I should point out once again that we got ours on sale and saved a few hundred dollars which makes the real cost even that much more ridiculous.
• Furniture – There is nothing wrong with Ikea furniture, in fact H and I got all of our stuff from there for the first 2-3 years we were married. But there comes a point in time when you want something a little nicer, made of real wood perhaps and does not require 3 hours of following instructions made in Sweden without words. Last year we picked up a coffee table, two bookcases and a media console. I’m not going to tell you the full cost because I am embarrassed. I will gladly tell you we got them at a discount because a woman I worked with had a part-time job at Pottery Barn and offered to pick stuff up for us any time we wanted. We took her up on the offer because the 60% discount is a lot of money in the end. Let’s just say the coffee table was almost as much as our mattress even with the discount. Will furniture always be this expensive? Of course we still don’t have our shelves but that is another story …

And the one thing I do not understand the price of more than anything …

• Razor Blades – It doesn’t matter if you’re a man and shave with a Mach 3, Fushion or any other fancy thing that comes out every two years that “… revolutionizes the way that you shave …”. If you are a woman than I am talking about the Intuition or whatever else they sell. Eight cartridges is about $25 for the razor I use. Does anyone else think this is some kind of scam? With all the mass production technology in the world, they haven’t found a way to make these cheaper?

Of course some of you out there might not pay that much attention to the price of things, even in these tough economic times. If you are one of them …. would you like to adopt a couple living in California?