By Martha Morgan
The last time I went grocery shopping, I looked for soup bones but found they cost more than $3 and there wasn’t even any meat on them. I used to get better bones than that free for my dog.
It’s difficult for people my age to come to terms with today’s high prices and “shop till you drop” lifestyle.
Of course there’s little point in comparing current prices with the days when you could buy a loaf of bread for 6¢.
At that time $25 a week was considered a good salary, on which a man could raise a family and eventually own his own home. Now the average income in Canada is $24.40 an hour.
At this rate, if I’ve done my math correctly, bread should cost $2.34 a loaf, which is about right.
The trouble is, most pensions aren’t in that average income bracket, so it’s a good thing we have our experiences in the Depression and wartime to fall back on.
The government urged us to “make it do, wear it out, make it last” in order the help the war effort, while in the Depression our own effort was to do without or get it for nothing whenever possible.
If we had a garden we grew our own vegetables with seeds saved from the year before.
We didn’t spend money having our shoes resoled as long as we could get by with a piece of cardboard tucked into the shoe, and children didn’t expect clothes with designer labels. They were lucky if they got hand-me-downs in good condition.
We used old newspapers to wash windows and wrap garbage – paper bags were for school lunches, as was the waxed paper from cereal boxes.
We often had the same set of dishes as our neighbours because manufacturers were feeling the pinch too, and gave away dishes in boxes of laundry soap.
While we don’t have to resort to such cost-cutting anymore, the old thrifty habits are still there. I found some nice lean stir-fry beef for my soup, at the same price as the bones, and the soup was delicious.
