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.

I still buy the same food as always, I like to eat what I like to eat. I just have to spend a little more for it. I try to buy things when they are on sale but there is nothing you can really do about it, you need to eat. So I don't worry or give it much thought.

I suppose I could stop eating out so much to save money, but then I would have to cook more…..

Well put. Everytime I hear someone complain about high gas prices I have to laugh. The high prices have not changed the vast majority of peoples behavior. I work at a credit union and our loan officers are swamped with new loans for gas guzzling SUV's and trucks.

I'm like Brian; I'm watching every penny. My wife and I carpool to work everyday we can. We are watching the sale ads at the grocery store and buying in bulk.

Its my money and its my resposibility to take care of it!

Wonder where my Economic Stimulus check is at?????

Ah, now I get your handle/avatar!

How's Granny doing these days?

-Blast

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

Bite your tongue!!!

Can't go back to work in law enforcement, too old and worn out. We do the volunteer thing now for several reasons, but right near the top of the list is that we basically live for free (other than vehicle payments now) except for food and entertainment. Right now we are at a national wildlife refuge in the boonies, 30 miles to a "town." So we make very few trips to town, buying several weeks worth of food at one time, saving us fuel money. Works for us...

I think the IRS starts mailing out the checks in mid-may, I could use it too. grad school tuition eats up all my wage, savings, loan and then some....and i will graduate right in the middle of the recession.....

Well put.

It has made certain changes in my eatting habits. All good. Less beef, less cane sugar, less trucked produce. More local produce (yeah for spring and farmers markets) and preserves (boo for pickled beets which I used to like and were a really good deal at the farmers market last summer), switched to chicken and pork. And less snacks.

Sure, I'm driving the whole whopping mile and half to work- when I get out at 8, I don't want to walk. But I've still lost 10 pounds in four months. So it is all around a good thing.

MoBOB, You have a PM

Well, the way I see it, eventually corporate life will no longer have a place for me. When that happens, I think I will become self employed as a consultant, sharing my years of experience with the noobies and charging a nice, hefty consulting fee every time I decide to show up for work, which is entirely at my discretion.

I suspect there's something like that in Law Enforcement as well. Okay, so no more beat cop for you, but I bet you still have plenty to offer in terms of experience and lessons learned. There's an awful lot of these young punk greenies that think putting a badge on equates to having an "S" tatooed on your chest. Maybe a dose of reality might be worth a buck or two.

Probably, but to tell you the truth, I have had enough of it, I have no desire to get back into the law enforcement business.

A good friend, on the other hand, retired from an allied agency, got hired back the next day as a "range officer," got sent to S&W, Colt, Remington, HK, and probably others that I have forgotten armorers schools, so that he could maintain their departmental weapons. Then he became a classroom instructor as well. Then they came up with a new rule preventing him from using all that knowledge, so he became a part time background investigator, plus teaches classes in the local JC. Makes him a lot of spending money, and gives him something to do. Not my cup of tea tho, we are having a ball doing our volunteer thing...

Hey, if you can afford to do it for free, by all means go for it, man. To my way of thinking, why do for free what someone will pay you good money for. Then again, that comes with certain conditions you may not care for.

Doing your own thing is worth something, so being able to just walk away can be a deciding factor, especially later in life.