FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - 1961 food prices vs. today (for a family with 18 kids)

cshenk

wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> The family?
>
> The Beardsleys, of California, as featured in the Lucille Ball movie
> "Yours, Mine, and Ours."
>
> Before the movie, their story was written by the mother as "Who Gets
> the Drumstick?" (Helen was a widow with 8 kids, he was a widower with
> 10. They had two more.)
>
> In that book (chapter 12), a researcher comes to the house a month
> after the wedding in the fall of 1961, to do the math on how they
> manage. He concludes that they spend 66 cents a day for food, per
> person. According to one inflation calculator, that's $5.15 in 2014 -
> and another says $5.16 in 2015. (I assume they were strict about not
> wasting food!)
>
> What's interesting, though, is that I DO waste food, unfortunately,
> but MY food budget, last December, was $120 a month - or about $4 a
> day!
>
> Also, there was clearly a mistake in the book - the mother said they
> spent $450 a month on food, so unless she meant $400, that would be
> just under 74 cents per person per day (using 365.25 days a year, I
> mean), not 66 cents!
>
> Thoughts? Granted, I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons food might
> be cheaper now - someone also once said that in the 19th century,
> too, food was pricey but servants were cheap, which was why Louisa
> May Alcott, in "Little Women" could get away with calling her family
> "poor" even though they had a servant, Hannah.
>
>
> Lenona.

I actully run an average of 4.45 a day per person (all adults). The
people who can't believe that can happen, generally are getting things
like pre-stuffed chicken breasts and a lot of premade frozen stuff to
nuke.

Of course it doesn't hurt at all if you learn to make real bread. I
make all ours and most of the time I spend about 60 cents to make the
equal of a loaf.

It's mostly raw produce, flour, rice, butter and a few sauces/canned
items like tomatoes here. Mixed million ways, it is not at all boring.

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