do you feel the pinch of rising food prices? Rising food prices have cause riot all over the world.

I wonder if the prices affect US prices too.

Prices go up, and so does mine. The laws of supply and demand aren't just at the pumps or the checkout counter. If you have something someone else wants, namely skills, then you have to stand up for yourself and name your price (William Shatner ain't gonna do it for ya). Obviously there's still plenty of work to go around, so all this does is maybe thin out more of the riff-raff and deadbeats from the workforce. In a PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. economy, this sort of incentive is stifled, as workers get their salaries capped no matter how hard they work or how good they are at what they do. Free enterprise and a little gumption is how paupers get made into millionaires. Well, that and successful criminal activity, but that can happen in any economy.

A good line from Godfather II, politics and crime are no different.

I track everything on Microsoft Money and run a report each month. I looked back and obviously gasoline expense has doubled in two years but so has my grocery bill. The family is not eating any more! My electric bill has been stable over the last two years and my per kilowatt cost has actually dropped. Strange!

I'm a homebrewer and the cost of malted barley has gone from $.99 a pound to $1.49 in a year. Hops have gone from $1.25 an ounce to $4.99 an ounce.

Now when my beer cost goes up I'm ticked off!!

Being a retiree who has never received a raise/COLA (no way Arnold is gonna give us a raise), and having an ex who gets 44% of my retirement, the rising cost of EVERYTHING effects us. We simply adjust our spending, buy as much as possible at Costco, look for store brands, etc...

or you could go back to work if need be, right?

Whoever came up with the notion that 50 years in the workforce is enough hasn't studied history much. From where I sit, that is not a realistic expectation. I've seen far too many "retirees" who thought that saving a million dollars was going to be enough to get them by the rest of their lives, and end up working the door at the local Wal-Mart, or mooching off their kids, or the community. So long as I have breath in me and the ability to reason well, I intend to continue working for a living. When I am no longer able to produce, I expect to be put out of my misery, one way or another. I never had any expectation that I would be able to quit working and coast to the end of my days. I don't care if I do end up with a million dollars in the bank, or more, there's no point in stopping if I can continue doing what I am doing. I may not be able to take any of it with me, even if I manage to have some left over at the end, but at least the surplus will do my family some good, if I am smart about how I do that.

I intend to earn my keep right up to the last, and my hope is that when I do finally go kaput, it is quick and as painless as possible, preferably while I am sleeping. Plenty of time to take it easy when you're dead, but that's just me.YMMV.

My grocery bill has gone up significantly over the last 6 months, and it appears stores are carrying less product.

I'm jealous. I miss brewing. However, I will be able to get back into it by either then end of the year or soon after, when my house is done. I am putting in an outside burner principally because I want to use it for brewing.

Dan McL,

Where are you building? When I return to the Empire State in a couple of months maybe we can through one back and compare EDCs.

MoBOB (soon to be back in Upstate..Binghamton area)

Sure, food prices has risen, so have the costs of other items. Certainly doesn't seem as bad as the late 1970's/early 1980's in Northern Ohio. I remember inflation rates above 10%, unemployment above 10% and fixed rates on mortgages above 10%. It helps to keep a little perspective on the situation in the US.

Rising costs just forces me to be smarter about purchases, gas usage, setting thermostat temperatures. It also means that I'll probably pick up a summer school teaching gig this June to add to the cash flow.

In essence, I have to become less lazy and lackadasical about finance. I may not be happy about rising prices, but whining about it does little good and only annoys those around me.

Food prices are going up here as well, but thats to be expected. Same as oil, and anything else that needs to come to this island via ship or plane. Always was expensive, and always will be expensive.

The only thing that remains a good bargin (aka. free) is the coconuts and key limes from the trees and the sunset every night on the beach.