For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 25, 2010

We’re having a ‘milk war’ around here right now…a gallon of milk is going for 99 cents…

About 2.19 for half gallon!!

Sale price: store brand half gallon $1.00 (10 for $10)

Bought a half gallon today. I have no idea what it cost. It just depresses me to look.

$1.79 for gallon of milk and $1.25 still for a loaf of bread in UT

2.19/ gal .99 loaf

Oregon: $1.99/gallon for local brands. I’m thinking of converting the car to run on 2%.

Oh you poor people. Our wages here are 1/2 or less of yours, and our food prices are twice as expensive. Still, we live in paradise as compared with many on our planet.

I used to live in the south where food prices were much lower than up here in NY. But, as it turns out, with all the taxes and higher prices, my standard of living is much higher here because the salary is correspondingly higher. For essentially the same job.

$7 for a gallon of milk here, $13 for organic. Sigh. However, I’m with nibor6, although I don’t know where he/she lives. Our cost of living is really high our wages are low (if you are lucky enough to have a job) but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else! at least we have free healthcare/pharmacare or we would of been bankrupted many times over!

Don’t want your healthcare, pharmacare or $7.00/gal milk. Wouldn’t buy rip-off $13. organic. We have the best medical doctors in the world. I thank God every day that I’m an American. Despite some faults, I’d not want to live anywhere else.

$7 a gallon here too. Cost of living high, wages lower than average. And we -don’t- have free healthcare/pharmacare.

I can get a family pack of chicken breasts for $1.49 lb on sale, a whole chicken is 99 cents on sale. And that is on LI.

Insulin was $1.39, now it’s $22.

I remember when my parents sold quarts of milk in a Mom-and-Pop for 27 cents (USD) about the time John F Kennedy was president and John Diefenbaker was prime minister in Canada. I was learning to add at the time, and 27+27=54 meant two quarts of milk!

I remember $0.25 for a loaf of bread, and milk was in glass bottles.

Hot lunch was a new thing, and only in winter. We were given milk in pint glass bottles.

A small Vt. town in the NEK, glad I grew up here. But, isn’t everyone glad they grew up where they did.

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2.50 for a gallon of milk at the store I work at, cheapest milk in the county. :D And the cheapest quarts are 1.28, but they’re name brand.

And I don’t understand what kind of bread she’s talking about, we have bread for 88 cents and the next up is 1.18. All the stores around here have bread under 1.25 at the highest. Unless she’s buying big name brands, then yeah it’s going to cost 3-4 dollars.

Grew up in N.J. and remember milk in glass bottles that were delivered to our home and put in a little box beside our side door, not that long ago in the 50-60’s. Being a kid then was so simple, now, there is so much pressure on the children.

I also remember milk delivered by the door. That was a time when milk tasted like milk, rich and creamy. Not like the white-colored water of today, with fats and solids removed.

But I can get chicken on sale for $0.79 per pound right now.

I remember breaking of the cylinders of milk at the top of the bottle cold mornings on the porch. I also remember having cream on my cornflakes and leaving skim milk for Dad’s coffee. “Honest, Dad, I forgot to shake it.” What my father did to my bottom would be child abuse today.

don’t worry! nobody’s talking to you , anyway! and keep your wrinkled hands off me and butt out!

blah blah blah, I think we agree that prices aren’t the same as in the past. Wages aren’t as low as back then , either.

I live in Wisconsin, and always have considered it odd that I pay $2.50-$3/gallon for milk that is made 40 miles from where I live. You can get cheaper, but it doesn’t taste as good. Anywho, when comparing prices to the past, don’t forget to compare wages too. It’s better to compare how much you had to work in order to afford xyz to see whether your standard of living has gone up or down.

Don’t remember what milk used to be or what it is now ( I’m lactose intollerant ) but I do remember gas for $.25 a gallon, and gas wars :-/

I’m old enough to remember milk in glass quart bottles delivered to the door - there really was a milkman. When I was about 6 and could count, I started riding my bike to the store for my mother to pick up milk and bread if we ran out. The 50 cents I got was enough money for both and some change. This was the Los Angeles suburbs, not a rural or small town area. Of course, my folks mortgage payment was less than $100/month and $5000/year was considered a very comfortable income.

sugie63, when I started driving at age 17, gas was $.25 per gallon. After a couple of years, most places it was $.32, but if you drove around a bit, you could still find it for a quarter. At the time I was making $300 per month and living quite well on it.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Those of us in the U.S. are shocked by what Canadians pay for milk, but our dairy farmers receive Federal subsidies that keep milk prices low.

In effect we pay more for our milk than the price paid at the store, because our taxes support the subsidies.

2.99 for a 4 litre bag of milk which is about a gallon for the americans.

$1.99 @ gallon of milk here. I also remember .25 gas. I’ve seen cigarettes at .25 @ pack. When cigarettes went up from .38 to .50 I decided to quit.

The first few rock concerts I went to were $2.50 to $3.50. I thought it outrageous that I had to pay $8.50 to see Led Zeppelin.

JanCinVV sounds like we’re the same age. My first car a “Rambler ” was $2,000.00 brand new . Love to have those days back LOL. You could feed a family of 3 on $30 a week cause we did. Oh well can’t live in the past. Just fun remembering :-D

I remember my mother feeding a family of 9 on $20 a week. Of course, we also had our own meat, milk, fruit, and vegetables. She also sold cream, real cream, for a dollar a quart, raspberries for 35 cents a quart and corn on the cob for 50 cents a dozen. Gas prices during a gas war would be as low as 17 cents a gallon. Now those were the days…of course my dad worked for about $8000 a year too. One other thing…around here Walmart has the highest prices on milk, usually close to $4 a gallon whereas l can get it most anywhere else for $2 a gallon.

Its not the cost that matters so much as the cost compared to income.

I remember when gas was 25cents a gallon, new cars could be had for 2000.00 and you could buy a new house for 25,000.00.

Car prices went to 4000. and I said I would never pay that much for a car. L.O.L.

When my husband bought his first house, he barely qualified. We ate a lot of hotdogs and beans, and lived for many years with hand-me-down furniture.

Still live in that same house. The mortgage was paid off long ago, but now the taxes on it are higher than our payments ever were.

I remember when I wanted milk I took my tin cup to the corral at milking time (we didn’t have milking parlors), and my brothers or my sister would fill it directly from the cow.

I was taught to respect my elders. The problem is I am having difficulty finding any.

Am I the only one who found the creepy old guy touching her creepy?

I remember being in the seventh grade up in Mendocino county in California> I got 25 cents to buy lunch. I’d go to the store and get a quart of milk , then to the bakery for a loaf of white raisin bread, usually still warm from the oven. And I’d eat and drink all of it!!

That was 1943-‘44. Candy bars were a nickel, as were sodas + a deposit on tne bottle. Gasoline under twenty cents a gallon. Life was much simpler then!!.

3 bucks per glass quart milk, 2.50 deposit 99 for a quart in wax covered paper soy milk - 2 bucks a quart hemp and nut milk - 4 bucks a quart

Don’t ask me what I remember, In a country with inflation rate of 30%.

@angelnurse,

Odd. Walmart is where I get milk for $1.99 @ gallon. The Walmart across town charges $2.99. Except for the time ours went up to $2.99 while theirs was $1.99. Go figure.

Candy bars were still a nickel in ‘65. And you could still find the occasional .05 Coke machine. In ‘70 there was still one in my hometown (Leeds, AL) that gave 10 (or maybe 12?) oz bottles for a nickel.

Of course, in ‘75 I had to work a little overtime to take home $80. @ week at minimum wage. I believe that was the year it went from $2.00 @ hr to $2.10.

And yes, even back then we had to listen to old-timers talk about how cheap things used to be.

Oh wow, in my area a 2% gallon of milk is $3.41

Our Walmart sells a gallon of milk for $4. I have heard that the US has some of the best healthcare in the world, but I wouldn’t know. I can’t afford to go to the doctor. Bartenders don’t get health insurance. I could get my own for as little as $300 a month, but that’s a full week’s pay. Two more years of school…my classmates talk about fancy cars and expensive shoes, while I fantasize about being able to afford a dentist.

No time to read all posts. We DO still live in the best, free-est country, tho’ who knows how long ;-( I am glad that my hard work and earnings have gotten me enough credit in SSA that as a 70+ I am receiving enough to pay most necessities. Living in a really nice house where my kids and grandkids can visit also has constant maintenance issues (this year were bad) so glad I’ve saved in all those IRAs too, even though most have lost half their value. I still have what I consider a good life- and a great family!

I’m unemployed, broke, uninsured, and about two steps from being homeless.

Yet I live better than most of the people on this planet.

God bless the USA.

Florida Non organic, around $4 I think, organic is $5.50

Raw (aka the good stuff) $6 per half gallon! We just use less so we can afford the stuff that is actually healthy for ya!