It's Time To Tighten Your Belt

- jim Young 20240512

“What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of living high.” - Doug Larson

I grew up in the 60s in a household that gathered together every night for a sit down dinner much like the Cleavers did.

Each of us was encouraged to talk about our day. Everyone spoke and more importantly, everyone was heard.

As an impressionable, young boy, I usually hung on every word my father would say when he told us about his day at work. My father and his brother were charter members of the IGA food chain in Stroud, Ontario.

One of the things I find interesting is that, while there have been many changes in the grocery industry in the last 60 years, many things remain the same.

Just like today, people would lament about the high cost of groceries even in 1965 and they weren’t shy about sharing those concerns with my father, their local grocer.

In particular I remember my father thinking it odd that people were quick to grumble about paying $2.60 for a 25 lb bag of potatoes while never blinking an eye when they threw a 25 lb bag of dog food or two, that cost about $6.50 into their cart.¹

Grocery Bills may be more detailed today, but they sure don't last as long.

My father never objected to a customer’s need to care for their pets nor did he complain about the profit he made on the sale of that dog food, he just got frustrated that his customers would so often moan about the high cost of food to feed their families even when it seemed cheaper than feeding their pets. 

That got me thinking about the many complaints of the high cost of groceries in today’s world. So I took a closer look at my most recent grocery bill of $216.85 from Independent Grocers in North Bay. That amount includes $15.27 that I paid to the government in the form of retail sales tax.

This is not a scientific study by any means and while this grocery bill may not be typical of your grocery bill, it is typical of mine. Nevertheless, I think some conclusions can be drawn from it.

As I scrolled down my receipt I noticed the first two items on my grocery bill were the two most expensive items we purchased on May 9th, 2024. The first item, at $43.99 was for (very coincidentally and highly ironical) 12.7 kg of dog food. The second most expensive item was 7.0 kg of Sunflower Seeds for our backyard bird feeders at $17.99. Both of these items are also taxable.

We didn’t purchase any potatoes on this trip but for the record we could have purchased a 10 lb bag of Russet Potatoes for just $6.49. Coincidentally, this was the same price as a 25 lb bag of dog food almost 60 years ago.

If you do all the imperial/metric conversions and “goes-intos” properly you will find the ratio of dog food costing 2.5 times more than potatoes, remains about the same as it did in the 1960s.

The rest of the groceries we purchased on this bill, while not all edible products, probably qualify as typical “household grocery items”. However, when money is tight we could easily do without the popping corn, Miss Vickie's Chips, paper towels (seriously a cloth rag from an old t-shirt could be used in most cases), granola bars, CLR (vinegar and water mixed with elbow grease would suffice if necessary), candy popcorn and jelly beans. These are all luxury items.

I will leave the fruit platter in. However, even at the discounted price of $3.00 it would probably still have been cheaper to buy fruit and cut it up ourselves.

But taking everything else out would have brought our typical $216.85 grocery bill down to just $94.92 of which only $1.56 would have gone to the government for taxes. (Although they are a food item, fruit platters are taxable presumably because they include the luxury of a cream cheese dip.) 

I’m not suggesting that groceries or the cost of living have not gone up overall recently, nor that some people are not suffering a real hardship because of these prices. Like everyone else I would happily accept some relief in this area. 

However, sometimes people need to help themselves as well.

Just how many cleaning products do you really need?

I don’t see any shortage of any of the luxury items in any of the grocery stores these days. In fact, I would even dare say grocery stores sell more luxury items than they do necessities. That suggests to me that these items are still being purchased in sufficient quantities to encourage the grocery stores to continue stocking them. Let’s face it. Grocery stores are NOT going to stock items that do not sell.

I also remember my father telling this story at the dinner table about one of his days as a Grocer in the 1960s. One local family in particular would often ask my father if they could buy their groceries “on credit” as they were a little short of money and they promised to pay him the following week. Credit cards were rare in the 1960s and even then, they were prohibited from use in liquor and grocery stores. 

My father was a community minded business man and would never see a community member or their family go hungry. Sometimes the outstanding bill would be paid the following week but more often, not.

One day when this family asked if they could pay for their groceries on credit my father agreed, but first he began removing items from the shopping cart; items such as cigarettes, candies, desserts and other non-essential items saying “You may purchase only what you need to feed your family on credit.”  

Sometimes, when times are tough we need to practice self control. In the 60s there was a common phrase that we often heard. “It’s time to tighten your belts.”

- 30 -

1(Note: I was about 12 at the time and so the accuracy of those numbers is based on my memory but I believe they are close. However, if you look at today’s prices the ratio is still about the same. Depending on the brand and quantity, 25 lbs of potatoes today would cost you about $16.00 while 25 lbs of dog food would cost about $40.)