Published: May 11, 2008 12:31 am            

GENCO: Trying to find a bargain with today’s increasing prices

Last week, I mentioned my tendency to be a cheapskate. If there is a way to save a buck, I do it. I guess that makes me literally conservative.

Some things, I always buy high quality. For example, shoes and tools.

Often, it comes back to finding a balance described by Elbert Hubbard: “It’s not how cheap but how good.”

I thought of this last week as I contemplated $4 a gallon gas. I noticed a few months ago that if I slow down and pay attention to timing lights and other conservative driving habits, I pick up an extra mile per gallon.

As I write that, I still can’t bring myself to drive to the reservation for gas, because even if I save 20 cents a gallon, that’s not enough to justify the extra gallon of gas I burn to get there.

Our grocery bill has expanded at a double-fast rate, with one increase coming from the appetite of growing healthy teenage sons and a second whammy coming from increases in grocery prices.

You can place your own knee-jerk blame here:

n From the Republicans: It’s because the Democrats won’t let us drill for new oil or build refineries or nuclear reactors and food prices have been artificially escalated by the myth that it is worth relying on ethanol.

n From the Democrats: It’s because of the war in Iraq and because the Bush administration refused to allow us to increase gas mileage standards in exchange for access to oil fields. Besides, we need this to combat global warming.

Anyway, lest I digress further, our grocery shopping habits have changed significantly. The bottom line: Everything seems to cost more.

Five years ago, as a family, we were exclusively Wegmans shoppers. In our opinion, Tops had substandard service.

Today, we check the newspaper ads and split our shopping between Wegmans, the NT city market and Aldi with an assist to Budweys, Division Market and occasionally BJs for meat, which seems to have a smaller role at the table.

It’s funny, too, that some of my conservative habits have been ingrained since before price increases became so drastic.

For example, we have never been big purchasers of prepared foods. Why use a boxed cake mix when it takes an extra 60 seconds to mix from scratch? Why pay $2.49 a pound for apples when you can buy a half-bushel for $4 on Saturday morning on Robinson Street.

At home, we have replaced probably 60 percent of our bulbs with florescent to save electricity.

For years, I have purchased jeans from whatever thrift store has the best deal when I need a pair. Why pay more than $3 for a pair?

Our home is mostly decorated with estate sale finds — real furniture made of wood, not included in any chic magazine but also mostly absent flakeboard, pressboard and the other mass-merchandised over-priced junk. I’m certain a lot of our stuff will be antiques long after the true value of that junk from the name store on the boulevard has been exposed.

The trouble I’m having with this entire thing is that my natural evolution to being a more conservative shopper has left me flummoxed in my quest to find ways to save more as prices increase.

Send me an e-mail to the address below or use Soundoff for the common good and share your ideas for other way to save their. We are all in this together. Thanks for reading.

LM Boyd of the Week: In dog show literature, if it’s listed as “dog,” it’s male.

Word of the Week: Slubberdegullion: A glorious 17th century term of contempt, apparently meaning a dirty, wretched slob.

Contact Joe Genco at jgenco@localnet.com

        

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