sf wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:33:08 -0700 (PDT), Nancy2
> > wrote:
>
> > Janet, my weekly shopping, food and paper goods, etc., was about
> > $20, in the early sixties. I used to multiply bags by $5 to
> > estimate total; now, it is more like $20 a bag or more.
> >
> I figure my grocery shopping is more like $50 a bag now. Meat is what
> drives up the price.

Probably what helps here is we are low meat eaters. Not vegetarian by
any means, but meat tends to be more of a garnish overall in our
cooking.

Some days we hit 6$ or more each, others 2.50 or so.

Lets see how today works out.

Breakfast: Dashi Miso Udon (extra udon). About 22 cents each. 1 hard
boiled egg split (bought at 99cents a dozen sale) so make it 25 cents
for breakfast. Hot tea (less than a penny each).

Lunch: Home made pizza. dough makes 2 at 40cents so 20 cents dough,
1/2 cup sauce made at home from cans and spices, another 20 cents.
Onion chopped another 20 cents. sliced hard salami (2 pieces) about 20
cents since thin cut, Cheeses 47cents. Fed 3 at 42 cents each.

Dinner: 1/2 lb Gai Lan (Asian broccoli) at 1.29lb = 64 cents. Fresh
Pompano at 3.49lb, 2 lbs = 6.98. fresh bread at 40cents for 2lbs.
Call the portions 6 cents worth? Add 15 cents for butter. Mint tea
made from my own yard mint and the bags from breakfast (slow steeped
then chilled). Fed 3 at 2.62.

3.29 each today.

--

lucretiaborgia wrote:
>
>In the sixties for a family of four and one large dog we spent $50 per
>week on groceries and pet food and what's more we would split the list
>and David and I both had a cart full each! Nowadays $50 barely covers
>the bottom of a cart!

Living is LA in the '60s the total food bill for two adults and a
child was under $20 a week and was more than we could eat.. gasoline
cost 9¢/gal and got double plaid stamps plus a steak knife... I had a
glove compartment chock full of steak knives, today I'd probably be in
prison as a terrorist for that. The world has changed in a bad way, I
don't like it, I'm glad I'm old. However anyone comes to bother me
I'd shoot them full of buck shot with my Winchester 12 ga. without a
moment hesitation. Towel heads would end up in my pond as carp chow,
mo one would find your DNA. Mooslems hate faggots because they are
ALL faggots themselves.

On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 21:32:26 -0400, Brooklyn1
> wrote:

>lucretiaborgia wrote:
>>
>>In the sixties for a family of four and one large dog we spent $50 per
>>week on groceries and pet food and what's more we would split the list
>>and David and I both had a cart full each! Nowadays $50 barely covers
>>the bottom of a cart!
>
>Living is LA in the '60s the total food bill for two adults and a
>child was under $20 a week and was more than we could eat.. gasoline
>cost 9¢/gal and got double plaid stamps plus a steak knife... I had a
>glove compartment chock full of steak knives, today I'd probably be in
>prison as a terrorist for that. The world has changed in a bad way, I
>don't like it, I'm glad I'm old. However anyone comes to bother me
>I'd shoot them full of buck shot with my Winchester 12 ga. without a
>moment hesitation. Towel heads would end up in my pond as carp chow,
>mo one would find your DNA. Mooslems hate faggots because they are
>ALL faggots themselves.

9 cents a gallon for gas? I'd believe 29 cents.
Janet US

On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 20:02:06 -0600, Janet B >
wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 21:32:26 -0400, Brooklyn1
> > wrote:
>
> >lucretiaborgia wrote:
> >>
> >>In the sixties for a family of four and one large dog we spent $50 per
> >>week on groceries and pet food and what's more we would split the list
> >>and David and I both had a cart full each! Nowadays $50 barely covers
> >>the bottom of a cart!
> >
> >Living is LA in the '60s the total food bill for two adults and a
> >child was under $20 a week and was more than we could eat.. gasoline
> >cost 9¢/gal and got double plaid stamps plus a steak knife... I had a
> >glove compartment chock full of steak knives, today I'd probably be in
> >prison as a terrorist for that. The world has changed in a bad way, I
> >don't like it, I'm glad I'm old. However anyone comes to bother me
> >I'd shoot them full of buck shot with my Winchester 12 ga. without a
> >moment hesitation. Towel heads would end up in my pond as carp chow,
> >mo one would find your DNA. Mooslems hate faggots because they are
> >ALL faggots themselves.
>
> 9 cents a gallon for gas? I'd believe 29 cents.
> Janet US

+1

--
A kitchen without a cook is just a room

On 3/9/2015 10:02 PM, Janet B wrote:

> 9 cents a gallon for gas? I'd believe 29 cents.
> Janet US
>

I've bought at the Merit station in Philly for 19.9¢ in the early 60's.
Most times is was 22 to 24 for the major brands like Esso. .

On Tue, 10 Mar 2015 10:45:07 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:

>On 3/9/2015 10:02 PM, Janet B wrote:
>
>> 9 cents a gallon for gas? I'd believe 29 cents.
>> Janet US
>>
>
>I've bought at the Merit station in Philly for 19.9¢ in the early 60's.
> Most times is was 22 to 24 for the major brands like Esso. .

Gas around Long Beach, CA was at that time 9¢/gal, the closer to the
refinerys the lower the price... plus all over LA there were price
wars in teh '60s, ther ewas a station on every corner, four at each
intersection, all trying to out do each other with low prices and
freebies... some gave a free car wash with a fill-up, by skimpy bikini
clad Hooters type gals... if it weren't so arid there my car would
have become a pile of rust. Back then gas was less than 30¢/gal
everywhere but LA had the lowest prices. If you stayed at a hotel in
Vegas they filled your tank for free when you checked out. In the
'60s I could drive between Brooklyn and LA for under $50 in gas....
once I made the trip in 45 hours, only stopped for gas and pee... and
the Interstate was far completed then, many miles of bad roads. Back
then Motel 6 cost $6... there were also motels for $3 and $4, you
didn't want to stay there, Alfred Hitchcock had nothing on those
fleabags. Motel 6 was pretty nice, many even had TV in the room (B &
W)... Super 8 was luxury... I still have my Super 8 card... Super 8
costs a lot more than $8 today, but it did then. The nicest motor
lodge I ever stayed at was the Super 8 in Thunder Bay, was brand new
then, still finishing up construction on one wing... anyone ever
drives around Lake Superior be sure to fill up at every gas station,
there weren't many then, you don't want to run out of gas there.. be
very alert driving, Moose think the road is their jogging trail,
today's little puddle jumpers don't stand a chance.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 9:35:17 AM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 3/9/2015 10:02 PM, Janet B wrote:
>
> > 9 cents a gallon for gas? I'd believe 29 cents.
> > Janet US
> >
>
> I've bought at the Merit station in Philly for 19.9¢ in the early 60's.
> Most times is was 22 to 24 for the major brands like Esso. .

The gas stations in Salem, MO, where my grandmother lived used to have gas
wars, and I think it might have been as cheap as 18.9 in the late 1960s. I
know it was 19.9 sometimes.

--Bryan

> wrote in message
...
> 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.

find some old episodes of Dobie Gillis and look at the store sign prices in
the background.

On Monday, March 9, 2015 at 4:16:57 PM UTC-4, Reggie wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
> > 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.
>
> find some old episodes of Dobie Gillis and look at the store sign prices in
> the background.

Or Andy Griffith. "Picnic ham 29 cents a pound".

> wrote in message
...
> 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 know that I saw the movie but don't remember much about it. And I was
only 2 years old in 1961 so can't say too much about that year, but...

We moved here in 1967. We did have supermarkets here but also lots of mom
and pop type grocery stores. And in some areas, the grocery stores were
still all that were available to the people who lived in those areas. I-5
(Freeway) had not been built yet. If we wanted to go into Seattle, we took
back roads or Highway 99. So just in this area alone, we have many more and
bigger stores and many more roads with many more lanes.

I got married about 20 years ago and left this area. At that point in time,
the part of Bothell where I now live was still for the most part farm
county. People who lived here had to drive quite a few miles to buy
groceries. Now all I have to do is go right around the corner. No, there
is not a supermarket there but a drugstore that sells things like milk,
bread, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, a small selection of frozen,
meals, canned vegetables and fruit, soup, crackers, rice, pasta, etc. When
I was a kid, the drugstores were much smaller and did sell candy and nuts
but not a lot of food beyond that. We also have a little Mexican food
store/taqueria. I haven't been in there so don't know what all they sell.
And two Quickie Mart type places that are open 24 hours a day. They did put
a 7 11 store very near our house when I was a kid but in those days they
were only open from 7 am to 11 pm, hence the name. And they didn't sell any
fresh produce. Now you can get green salad, fruit and perhaps baby carrots.

If I do need to buy groceries, all I have to do is drive 2 miles or less in
one of two directions and there are supermarkets. Also a Dollar Tree and
some other options. Like Fred Meyer. If I choose to drive 7 miles or less,
I have even more options. So I am literally surrounded by food!

I realize that not everyone in this country is as lucky as I am. There was
a woman who lived in the military housing on Cape Cod who came from a very
isolated area. She and I both had very different takes on Cape Cod. To me,
it was a sleepy little area with not a lot to do and I felt like I needed to
pack a lunch if I had to leave the military base to go grocery shopping or
even buy bedding plants. She felt overwhelmed by the area and what seemed
to me to be the few stores and other businesses that we had. I think she
said that she came from North Carolina but I could be wrong on that. She
said that the nearest grocery store to the house that she grew up in was 20
miles away and that wasn't even a large store. She had never eaten fast
food at all nor had she seen a fast food restaurant. So places like that
still do exist in this country but they are not the norm.

Mostly, we are surrounded by food and most of the time, it is easy to get
that food there. Cape Cod was another exception there because there were
only two ways on and off of the island. For the most part, no produce was
grown on the island so things had to be trucked in. So during inclement
weather, things could get bad and food couldn't get to us. I learned to
pretty much live off of canned food during the winter. Good, fresh produce
usually wasn't available. Particularly things like salad greens.

But for most of the country, if someone wants some lettuce or a tomato in
the winter, they can go to the nearby store and get it. Although more and
more people are eating locally and demanding organic foods, I still think
that many people do not care and will buy what's available.

So not only do we have more and bigger stores, more and better roads, better
distribution methods, better growing methods, computers to speed things
along for many reasons, but cheaper ways to produce these foods, partly due
to the reasons I already gave. Factories are much more automated than they
used to be. Lots of reasons.

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.

--

"cshenk" > wrote in message
news
> 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.

I can eat cheaply and most of the time, I do. But I also have a fondness
for olives and I don't always eat the cheap ones. I think that my daughter
eats cheaply most of the time too but her favorite expensive thing is steak.
I do try to limit the steak to once or twice a week though.

As for the premade frozen stuff, that's stuff that one can get for cheap or
even free if one wants it one isn't picky. I can't tell you how many of
those Magnum ice cream bars I got for free when they first came out. But
nobody in this house would eat them so getting them was a waste of my time.
Now I don't buy too much frozen stuff for myself only because it mostly
contains things that I can't eat. I do buy the little hamburger patties in
pita bread. Alas, I have not seen any coupons for those. And the stores
that are putting them on sale do not carry any that I can eat. I can only
eat that one kind.

If you have no concern for nutrition or really how the food tastes, then you
can get a lot of prepared stuff for next to nothing, if you can get the
coupons. But that's not the sort of stuff that we eat much of at all.

> Anonymous wrote:
> The family?
>
> 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.


Other considerations- do you think people back then just ate smaller
portions than we expect today?

I also always wonder if the stuff we find expensive today- like whole
wheat bread, etc would have been the cheap stuff back then. Maybe it's
the processed food that was expensive.

"barbie gee" > wrote in message
hcrg.pbz...
>
>
> On Mon, 9 Mar 2015, wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> Did mom stay home and cook for the family? There weren't nearly as many
> "convenience" foods back then as there are now, that cost a "normal"
> family a pretty penny. Eating habits weren't what they are now, portion
> sizes are all out of whack compared to back then...
>
> What do those goofy Duggars spend monthly, and per person, I wonder?
> They'd be probably the closest modern day equivalent to your Beardsley's
> of 1961...

If you've ever watched the show, you'll see what kind of crap they eat. And
off of Styrofoam plates as well! They have a restaurant kitchen complete
with a restaurant soda dispenser. But they also don't seem to buy
restaurant sized cans of things. The canned soup is they get is the
standard size. I don't know if it's still there or not but they had a Tater
Tot casserole recipe on their website. They use ground turkey instead of
beef. They also eat turkey bacon. Anna once posted a recipe for
Chickenetti which contained chicken (I think it was canned), Velveeta and
Rotel. They do seem to eat cheap white bread. And they don't seem to eat a
lot of vegetables unless you count pickles which are their favorite snack
food. I don't think I've ever seen them eat chips on the show but they do
bake a lot of cookies. They also seem to feed a lot more people than just
their immediate family.

I do not think the types of meals that they eat would be the equivalent of
someone in 1961, since people back then were probably still cooking most
things from scratch. The mom doesn't seem to do much in the kitchen or
otherwise and turns all of the tasks over to the kids. They did say on the
last episode that I watched that they do teach all of the kids to cook,
regardless of gender.

On Monday, March 9, 2015 at 10:30:08 PM UTC-4, barbie gee wrote:

>
> Did mom stay home and cook for the family? There weren't nearly as many
> "convenience" foods back then as there are now, that cost a "normal"
> family a pretty penny. Eating habits weren't what they are now, portion
> sizes are all out of whack compared to back then...
>
> What do those goofy Duggars spend monthly, and per person, I wonder?
> They'd be probably the closest modern day equivalent to your Beardsley's
> of 1961...


And then there was Amy Dacyczyn (author of "The Complete Tightwad Gazette").
In 1994, she was able to feed her family of eight - in Maine - on $180 a
month - the fact that impressed people the most. (That's $287.53 in 2014.)
Yes, they ate a lot of rice and beans - but also a lot from their garden.
Plus some meat. If you want to know more about what they ate, their menu
for two weeks in 1992 appears on pages 48-49 of vol. 1. (There's nothing surprising - but it's healthful, especially if the reader has the sense
to assume that some things are merely side treats, not the main course!)
Not sure if it appears in "The Complete Tightwad Gazette," which came out
in 1998 - check the index under "menu."


Lenona.

> If you want to know more about what they ate, their menu
> for two weeks in 1992 appears on pages 48-49 of vol. 1.


To clarify, that's vol. 1 of "The Tightwad Gazette." There were three
volumes. Before that, there were only newsletters.


Lenona.