Holy Moly! I Spent Eight Bucks on Butter!

I’ll get right to the point: I spent eight bucks on butter.

With all the news stories about the rising cost of food, I thought I’d check my most recent grocery receipt and see how I fared. My eye went straight to a $7.99 charge. For Horizon Organic Unsalted Butter. BUTTER!!! Four sticks! This is insane! It had to be a mistake.

I told my mom about it and she was appropriately aghast. She called me on her cell phone later that day. She was standing in the dairy aisle at Publix. It’s true. $7.99 for butter. If I had chosen a different organic brand, I could have gotten four sticks for $5.49. And, of course, I could have saved more money by buying non-organic or the store brand. It’s only butter. These days I hardly ever use it. I enjoy a grilled cheese every once in a while, and while I’m at it I usually cook one up for my daughter as well. But I’m not baking toll house cookies or whipping up recipes from the Barefoot Contessa. Not that I don’t worship the Contessa now and forever, but I’m looking ahead to summer and the reality that I will be donning a bathing suit.

So shame on me for not being a more careful consumer and checking the price before I tossed the butter in the cart—I take responsibility for my foolish actions.

But, still, something’s seriously whack here.

The rest of my receipt is full of charges that don’t seem as outrageous, but that are higher than I’ve ever paid before. A box of Life cereal is almost five bucks. A small bag of dog food is $11. I remember when the same size bag was $8.50.

This is bad for everyone, because everyone eats. Some city-dwellers don’t own cars and don’t have to faint at the gas pump like I do, but the cost of food impacts everyone. What about families who are already on the verge of losing their homes due to the mortgage meltdown? What about single mothers living paycheck to paycheck? What about families where the breadwinner—there’s an apt term—has been laid off?