More

More price hikes.

Does it ever end?

Do things ever go DOWN instead of UP?

Just wondering.  Has anyone else wondered the same recently?

I spent most of my time in PaknSave last shop muttering under my breath.  They had a stupid audio advert on trying to tell us that despite prices going up everywhere else they are keeping grocery prices low.  Yeah, right.  It could be a Tui ad, for crying out loud!  (non-kiwis - Tui is a brand of beer here...they do these big bill board adverts that have very unlikely or improbably statements followed by 'yeah, right.' As in, not likely, sarcastically said).

Munchkin has been having goatsmilk since he turned one.  It was half the cost of the goatsmilk formula.  In those four months, it has gone from a regular price at Countdown of $4.09 to over $4.90.  FOUR MONTHS!  Nearly 20% increase!!!!!!!!!!  Needless to say, our income has not had a similar rise.

We are gradually changing him over to cows milk starting this week.  About 8 months before I wanted to, but it is a third of the price and he hasn't shown any obvious allergies so hopefully it will be okay.  And then we can put the money saved on milk into our straining grocery budget. 

The first time, I thought it was just a fluke.  We went over budget.  But the second time, and the third?!  I'd honestly not noticed the price increases.  My mind has been swamped by study.  And we ate a lot of fruit from the garden over Autumn which kind of masked the fact that we were spending more and more on food.

But at least we have extra income to put towards food.  I hate doing it.  I want to decrease the food budget, not increase it.  I hate seeing all that money go into something so temporary.  Okay, so I know we need it to survive, but somehow I'd still rather see it in books, or a house fund, or anything tangible and semi-lasting!

But while I've been sitting here wondering about our groceries and how we are going to manage, things are much worse elsewhere.

This is what we received from World Vision this week.



Click to enlarge

A request to increase our child sponsorship by $5 a month.  From $40 to $45.  Not much.  But enough for me to feel just a teeny bit stressed by it.  But read the rest.  Their development projects have experienced an increase of 50% in food costs in the past six years!  Yet during that time they have managed, somehow, to keep child sponsorship at the same level.  So I don't feel that they are at all forward or pushy in asking for a bit more.  I am horrified at how people who have so little to survive on to start with are now managing.  We haven't had to decide whether to eat this week or not.  We've still even had a bit of spare money to buy pies for an easy dinner.  Yet it is still stressful, this food business.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for others.
I'm going to be gardening this summer, trying to get as much food from our garden as possible.  And thanking God that we have a garden to use.  It's fertile enough to grow good food, safe from robbers and civil war, with easily accessible water, and a good growing climate. 

With such a blessing available to us, I guess I shouldn't really be complaining, should I?


Amy