Costs of the Good Old Days

A slice of pizza and a soda could be bought for less than a dollar back in the good old days. What happened to make the prices so much higher today? Inflation happened- and it happens in small ways everyday. In today's world, a price jump in one product one week can lead to a cascading effect, raising prices all across the line for every product out there. Again, just look at the price of pizza and soda. In NYC, up until quite recently, a slice of pizza was $1.50 in most places, and a bottle of soda, $1.00. Now, Pizza costs upwards of $2.00, while soda now costs $1.50 plus. The price rise is in increments (and many places are still slow to change), but it has happened at an alarming rate.

There are ways to avoid paying the extra money that these increased costs require- a method that simply requires careful early planning. One need only find the best possible prices of an item (a process made considerably faster and easier with the introduction of Froogle.com or Shopwiki.com) -prices that are usually even lower during a sales period. Then one can buy these items in bulk enough to last for a year or two. But one must also exercise caution when buying these products, since they will have to be able to last in storage for years (more or less). Buying thousands of bananas would be a bad idea since they would spoil in a matter of weeks, for example. Pens and paper are prime examples of items that will last a very long time in storage. Buying them in bulk also saves one a considerable amount of money versus buying them in small packets- especially when buying them to avoid rising costs.