Must be nice to be able to afford to operate a vehicle.

$968/mo doesn't leave much for frivolity.

Not worthy of existence.

Most should not be re-elected.

we just did the bi-weekly fill the pantry run yesterday. Retired from the Grocery Industry after fifty two years,latest price check from two weeks ago,noticed the new round of price increases on most Paper Goods at least 1-3 %. The largest increase was in Cleaning Products and Aerosols,geees,10% or more. Anything ready to eat,frozen or other,5-7% and that is across the board. One has to really plan ahead now days,and got a hunch there are more to come and those so called no inflation price increases are just the tip of the berg. Remember,Albertson(Cerbus-Pete Peterson-Capital)just took out Safeway as well as Vons. And Kroger bought out Roundy's,and this is all junk bond financed. And there is no inflation. Yah right.

10+ percent. Paper Products and Household Cleaners appear to have the largest increases,Northern tissue and Dixie which are Koch Bros.,anything Johnson and Johnson also R.C.Johnson. Most Dairy products are jacked at least 10 percent and the irony is raw fluid milk has dropped over 50% since June. Don't know about you,but our household still buys the same items month after month and we bitch about the continuous price increase we see. And there is no inflation,oh that's right,the 1%ers do not have a clue what the price of a loaf of bread costs. In that lies the problem.

Certainly since the summer. Nat gas is nearly free, reg gas is 1.90-ish, and canned Green Giant has been .50-60 for a month (haven't seen that in well over a year). Probably depends on where you live.

I don't eat canned food if I can avoid it. The bread I buy has stayed the same price but a loaf is about 15% smaller. Good meat isn't cheaper.

That's been going on since summer, but if you catch a sale, it's usually spectacular. I do get floored with the not on sale items. There were some problems in the industry earlier this, as you probably recall.

Not to rub anything in, but I probably gas up my 8 gallon tank every 4 months or so. It will be a bit more often in the winter though. I love the Volt.

on the road and about 26 in town. To go anywhere in Austin is pretty much a minimum 40 mile round trip.

During the warm months, I was getting around 48 on the battery.

And depending on your tax situation, you can knock off $7500 with the Fed credit, and more if your state has any. Illinois stopped funding their $4k credit 4 months before I bought, of course. You can also get some pretty good deals on used since a new model came out this year in parts of the country.

I'm sorry, I wandered off into Volt talk. Don't mean to derail a good OP.

ETA, my MPG was 173 for the summer. Neener-neener.

I wish the credit was payable.

I didn't mean to be rude or anything.

...will be the same, then they charge you more for Medicare because...it's cost went up. Hence, you actually lose money.

But you saved like $5 on gas throughout the year, that should totally count.

Local results, individual results may vary.

Plus some of it is what you don't pay attention to. My mother was great about complaining about things that increased. She noticed increases, but never decreases. By her reckoning, a head of lettuce had to cost at least $15, given all the only-one-direction price changes.

She also didn't notice when her electricity bill, gasoline prices, or natural gas bill went down. Again, it's a question of salience and perception filter.

For example: Recently I had to buy a bunch of eggs for a high school class. Another teacher said that must have been very expensive. I shook my head. Eggs are up over what they cost a year ago, but sharply down here from what they cost over the summer. The other teacher noticed the increase. She reduced her egg purchases. She hasn't noticed the decreases.

In the case of the government "basket", there are hundreds of items that people went out to price in a variety of cities, towns, and suburbs around the country. These were weighted. They compiled the info and it turns out that the cost of living was flat.

There are different "baskets" for calculating COLAs for different purposes. Perhaps 5 years ago there was a push to select a different means of calculating it, one that relied crucially on what seniors/retirees tended to buy, one that took into account changes in purchasing patterns given cost increases. It was determined that this would have resulted in smaller COLAs for most of the preceding 10 years, and (R) wanted the revision, so a "principled" (D) position was to stick to the current one. The process favored cost of living increases, and this was a good thing--results over process is what mattered. Now that means of calculating the CPI for purposes of Social Security gives the wrong answer, and so it's obviously a flawed tool that nobody could want. We said we liked the process when it gave us the right outcome; now we're stuck with the process we demanded as fair and equitable.

It was short sighted. In a democracy, voters can be short sighted.

The price of food is considered "too volatile" to include in the COLA calculation.

If you are struggling to live on just OASDI, you are not going to buy many plane tickets.

The results of another compromise.thanks,Obama for being so tolerant of republicans for far too long in your presidency.

Groceries are cheaper, gas costs less, about the same for power, water, etc. I've heard that rents are increasing but fortunately I don't have to worry about that.

Gas is less but two days after I filled up last Sun. it went up 10 cents a gallon here.

Just got our SSDI renewal for January. No benefit increase because the GOV has said our cost of living has not gone up. UGH.

It's getting ridiculously expensive to maintain it; have you priced tires or batteries lately?

Just a half pint of blueberries was over $5 this week. A plastic container if mixed fruit was about $7. Fresh fruit and veggies are really up there.

You can eat rice and potatoes and yams and beans for the main part of your diet and they still are pretty cheap. Banks were .59 a pound this week and apples were 1.49.

I go to Hen House every day because I can get a day old sandwich for 50% off and that's a good deal.