What is in your price index basket?
@morgandrake (2136)
United States
August 11, 2009 4:07pm CST
I was just reading a blog (Luke Sidewalker) and realized that I do not remember the last time that someone mentioned the cosumer price index on the news. Sidewalker, whose blog is mainly about picking up loose change, is starting a new monthly feature on his blog where he tracks the price changes of twenty items. He feels that this is a better indicator of inflation/deflation than using car and housing prices.
For those who took economics, this is a "price index" and the set of items that is tracked every month is referred to as a "basket". (Yes, I took a couple of economics classes over the past couple of years.)
Reading his list, and the suggestions of his readers, I realize not only do I gauge the state of the economy like this, but I have some weird things in my basket. Besides the normal milk, eggs, bread, I have things like cat food and printer ink.
And I know that I am using them in my own personal index, I have been complaining about the rising cost of cat food all summer.
So what is in your own personal price index basket? What price have you noticed changing lately?
2 people like this
4 responses
@morgandrake (2136)
• United States
11 Aug 09
I remember when decent canned cat food was twenty-five cents a can. Today, it is forty-four cents and rising. Really good cat food is at least seventy-five cents a can. I think that you can still get generic, bottom of the barrell, canned cat food for twenty-five cents still, but then you have a case of "smelly cat, what are they feeding you".
We have to get five flats of canned, and a couple bags of dry (one bag is special diet), and that is just two or three weeks worth.
And don't get me started on vet bills. I need to pass the hat around for them.
1 person likes this
@morgandrake (2136)
• United States
12 Aug 09
It has been a parade to the vet this summer for us. One cat fixed, four cats got shots, three got medicine (one is ongoing). We also had to put one cat to sleep (she got into a fight, and she was so old that she may have never recovered---I miss her). The expense racked up fast. And here I am living off of student loans and a small freelance income.
1 person likes this
@blackbriar (9076)
• United States
12 Aug 09
I don't pay attention to that stuff. Only when I happen to be buying dog/cat food or something else and I notice the price seems pretty high do I say something.
1 person likes this
@morgandrake (2136)
• United States
12 Aug 09
I have always been interested in economics. Blame it on my self-employed father. And when I got to college, I chose to burn a couple of my electives up with economic classes. The classes have actually turned out to be a good investment, or at least the articles I have done based on economics have done better than some of my other articles.
@scarlet_woman (23465)
• United States
12 Aug 09
hmm..that sounds like an interesting blog.
food.food in general.
and you know-those places that itemize your recipt items using the barcode?
i think they're keeping track of what people buy more of and raising them accordingly.
like chicken and ramen.people were buying more because it was cheap.ramen used to be 12 for $1.now it's 3 for a dollar.
so people started buying the next cheapest-corned beef briskets.off season,you could get a big piece.they noticed,raised that.
@morgandrake (2136)
• United States
12 Aug 09
Yeah, I have noticed that the price of ramen has gone up. On one hand, I do not eat a lot of it; on the other hand, it is something quick to make when my wife is in class. She can't eat ramen (it has wheat in it), so I am the only one would is affected by that one. As for beef prices, along with pork, due to her diet, I have no clue what they are doing.
But you are probably right, it is a conspiracy to charge us more for inferior goods (hehe, another economic term slipped into the discussion).
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
16 Aug 09
Hi morgandrake, I carry my own mental calculator round with me every time I food shop and instantly noitice the price increases, and things here are now shooting up in large amounts, for example 30 cents on something which is around the 3 euro mark. Some of the basic food stuffs are just laughable where I live as it's a tourist place so I drive into the next town an hour away and even there the prices are increasing week on week. Funnily enough I was reading yesterday that Greeks won't complain about that kind of price rise but just accept it, in case it looks like they can't afford the item in question, but of course they complain about it away from the shop. We are now I believe pricing basic things at double the European average. Our prices are much higher on most goods than in America yet the minimum wage there is double what it is here.
So a few basic items I would include are Greek yogurt, more expensive here than the countries it is exported to and a necessity for most households.
Fish now set at approx 30 euros a kilo, price set by the sea police and this is a fishing village.
Electricity, prices risen more than 40% in the last year.
Eggs, milk, bread - all risen steeply with milk selling locally at 1.72 a litre.
Meat and chicken is now almost a luxury item now due to the increases in price.
Luckily vegetables are still affordable on the market and locally the price of a Greek coffee, with free glass of iced water, remains at one euro.
