I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

I remember 5-cent chocolate bars and popsicles!  Also, I had an intense fondness for paper dolls, and I remember you could buy a book (probably about 8 pages' worth) for a quarter. I'd passed the doll stage by the time Barbie hit the shelves.

Remembering the price of groceries, not so much!  I left that up to Mom. But I could cook at a young age.  When I was just under 10, Mom was in hospital for 2 weeks and I prepared the meals for my father and brother.  Don't ask me what they tasted like.

Kam - I'm spending about $300 per month - so figure about $10 per day - that's breakfast, lunch and supper - I am not a big snacker and rarely eat out - not only is it prohibitively expensive but at my age I've seen it all and eaten it all.  I am not a huge meat eater but even fish is very expensive these days - fresh produce is terrific here in the summer but in the winter it's sometimes ridiculously priced - hope this helps with your planning - oh yes, the dog food and treats aren't in this budget item - that's around $20 per month.

Sandy - $20 a month for dog food?  How much does that dog weigh?  My 2 cats eat nearly $65 a month in food.

For some reason, I remember a Big Hunk was 5 cents, but I swear I can remember gasoline at 15 cents a gallon, but I don't trust my memory that well.  We had this neighborhood market growing up (today it is an upscale gourmet market serving the rich) that sold this package of 6 cupcakes....they were wonderful.  I believe that package was $3.50, so quite expensive for the 1960's.  One cupcake for each of us for dessert.

I remember my mother buying a cart full of groceries, full of steaks, roasts, milk, eggs (my father grew up on a farm) etc. ,for a family of 6 and she wrote a check for about $40.  She could have been overwriting for cash back, too.

Paula!

$300 per person seems consensus...so I spend 35% more in this dinky town, so $12 a day, or  $360 a month might not be that far off.

Believe me, I would feed them the best food on earth if I could, but the only food & flavor that Emma kitty can eat (allergies) is Fancy Feast Beef and Gravy, which is fairly reasonable on the possible scale.  They'll eat 3 cans of FF a day @ around 60 cents a can and about $10 a month in dry food.  Emma has big reactions to more than a small amount of dry food, so it's not their main fare.  Emma is 14 lbs and Boo is 8 lbs.  Emma is on a diet.

Anyone collect pop bottles to make money? I think you could get 2 cents a bottle. A milk bottle was a real find....5 cents. That's how my brother and I got candy.

Anybody remember Green Stamps? My mother collected them like crazy. We would delight in looking through their books and saving for whatever caught our eyes. But what a hassle. 

Hahaha!  Yes, I remember Green Stamps.  My mom got them but didn't collect them in any systematic way -- they just disappeared into the maw of her purse, until my sister and I fished them out and used them as stickers.  We didn't understand how they were supposed to be used. 

(The memory reminds me of the "points" I get from my credit card -- equally unused, but less fun!)

Linda

Hi.  We were spending around $600 a month on groceries for three of us until my youngest took to weight training and met her boyfriend, who comes to dinner often.  He's a nice young man, working 30 hours a week for minimum wage and going to school, so I don't begrudge feeding him too. Now we're at around $800 a month.

I spend an incredible amount on food for my two kitties.  I don't feed them dry food.  When my beloved cat Mozart was dying from kidney failure and cancer from radiation treatment for hyperthyroidism, I read some articles on cat diet. It was too late for him, but I wanted my other babies not to have the same problems, if I could help it.  Cats in the wild get much of their moisture from their prey because they don't have a strong thirst drive.  Dry food dehydrates them.  There's also evidence that certain grains can contribute to disease as well.   Since I do have the money to spend on them and would rather do that than spend money on clothes or restaurants, they get canned cat food like Natural Instinct or Weruva that costs around $2 a can, give or take a few cents, twice a day which means i spend an average of $120 a month on cat food.  Yikes.  But, again, I can.  The breeder that i got my beautiful Tonk Xiau Mao from strictly uses Fancy Feast, which is expensive enough, and her cats live an average of 18-22 years.

Took most of my info from Lisa Pierson, DVM.  She homemakes her food and feeds raw, which while i understand the theory, it's not for me.  She strongly advocates for any canned food over dry.

http://www.catinfo.org/

I know what you mean! My mom was pretty obsessed and systematic at first (she was a CPA). Even trained my sister and I to never ever let a green stam get away! Then we all started slouching off and she decided that it was just not worth all the work. 

Thumbs up, Blue.

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I too remember green stamps.....was almost sorry to see them go.  I always waited ( hard sometimes ) to get 'quality' things from the stamps......you had to save a lot more, and to this day still have a couple of my "green stamp" buys.  The only prices I recall well ( a couple mentioned seemed very familiar ) were a pkg of Hostess Twinkies ( 2 ) for 5 cents.  We also bought a lot of 'penny' candy, like jaw breakers, Bazooka bubble gum, and sure were others but I can't recall them. 

My cats here at home eat Diamond Active Cat......about $16.00 per bag and I buy 3 bags at a time or per month....third bag tides us over till I can find the time to go back and do it again.  The dogs get Diamond Lamb and Rice 40# bag...about $23.00.....it is a good food that is lean so the slower dogs don't put on too much wt.  One of the big problems with animal food is the fillers, dyes, and such.  Most cats will tend to do adequately if you can find a food that takes the real junk out -- although there are exceptions. My feral cats get Purina and all seem to do fine.....but I do leave fresh clean water for them along with the food..........so they seem to do ok.  I have been feeding the same cats for over 7 years.....and don't know how long they were at the colony before I came.  Their longevity is based on the fact that the majority have been neutered so they "stay" and don't go out looking for panting females and so on.  They only encounter what is in their familiar territory and so they are not subject to the shorter life spans the unentered cats typically have.

Blue.....the poster was so right.  I'm always amazed at that channel.  Of course -- purchased survival I guess can make a big difference.

Jackie

!!! Whew....good thing my spell checker was working this time....my brain sure wasn't.