I commented to my husband the other day that grocery prices seemed a little high lately. I hadn't noticed much of an increase in the prices of either food or clothes since I graduated from undergrad in 1992 so this latest punch upward caught me off guard. I wasn't suprised, then, to hear on the radio today that wholesale prices have had their highest increase in, what?, almost 15 years (just about the length of time since I graduated).


The grocery item that initially shocked me into noticing the problem was a loaf of bread. Not anything especially exotic, just your standard whole-wheat with what my husband refers to as "nuts and twigs". Price at my local Giant? Over $3.00. $3.10, to be exact. And it looked smaller, too. I swear that this same loaf of bread cost about $2.50 not too long ago. I didn't buy it.


Over in the baking aisle I bought three five pound bags of flour for .99 each. Each bag has the potential to make me four and a half loaves of bread (with the addition, of course, of some yeast, water, wheat germ, and a few other sundry things). I figure that making a loaf of bread might cost me about $1.00, up to $1.15 if the flour isn't on sale. So I've got some yeast proofing as I type. It simply is not worth paying more than double to have someone else do the work for me when the cost differential is so great (and, I might add, the opportunity cost is low: I stil have a good time in the kitchen, even if it's not the most glamour-filled work in the world, still have good time for talking with my kids, still have the satisfaction of eating some decent bread and it's not like someone is paying me tons of money to spend my time elsewhere).


I've found a solution to the bread thing. But I'm a moving target. I work at home, have my kids with me and how I spend my days is largely up to me. I can run out to pick up some wheat germ if I've run out without explaining myself to anyone. I can take a delivery of some great new King Arthur product. I can set my bread machine in the morning, if I want to go that route, and have bread waiting for us at dinner after I've done swim lessons, story time at the library, art class and stopped at the playground. It's pretty clear to me that although I've found a solution the answers aren't so simple for most.


So it seems that Alan Greenspan has finally found the inflation that he's been looking for all these years. I wonder what happens now. Let 'em eat cake?