Tuesday, July 24, 2007

A Gallon of....

I went grocery shopping today, and I randomly started thinking about the prices we pay for things. I was shocked when I went to the dairy section and reached for a gallon of milk -- $4.06 for a gallon of 1%. Then I started thinking about how that price compare to other things. A gallon of regular unleaded gas is $2.96 (or was when I was out this afternoon). A gallon of bottled/filtered/distilled water costs somewhere between $0.98 and about $2.50. A 2-liter bottle of Coke is usually $1.19 when it's on sale; regular price is $1.69, I think.

But anyway, I was wondering why we complain about prices of some items but not others. Nobody's happy about the rising gas prices, but how often do we hear people complaining about the rising milk prices? (I'm sure the fact that people typically purchase multiple gallons of gas at once as opposed to single gallons of milk at a time contributes to the complaining.) Anyway, I left the grocery store sans milk; I went to the ice cream store around the corner and bought my gallon of 1% milk for $2.89.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A nearby smalltown newspaper editor wrote a column recently about gas prices vs. other items per gallon. He said we should be glad our cars don't run on computer cartridge ink, as that figures to around $5800 per gallon.(If my memory serves me right - sometimes it doesn't, you know) Another comparison was for Evian, and although I don't remember the price, he did mention that if you spell it backwards it's naive. (Hmmm)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. If I went to the ice cream store to save a $1.17 on a gallon of milk it would cost me more than that for the ice cream cone I would purchase. Plus, the several hundred extra calories acquired, but not needed, would figure into the equation. For me, it is better to stay far, far away from the ice cream store.

ginabnina said...

I returned to the ice cream store for milk yesterday. Their milk price is now $3.49 per gallon. Thus, it no longer seems worthwhile to stop at the ice cream store for milk on the way home from the grocery store...may as well pick up the milk at the grocery store.