Did We Run Out Of Cows??

BigBlockTank wrote:

tomkaren13 wrote:
We can't imagine how we would feed a family. Even coupons are not as good now. We are thankful for pensions and Social Security. But wonder if there will be a cost of living increase this year. Even tho the cost of living has gone up.

I'm retired USAF, and work for the DoD (USAF too) now in civil service. We haven't had a "real" cost of living allowance in 5 years. We've had small percentage raises. I'll always take a raise and not complain, but that small seems hardly worth the work to institute it. It's hard to keep those ends meeting when cost of living goes up 7% and we get 1% raise.

I really feel for the younger generation these days. I guess like us, they'll survive too....

While we are not retired and may be considered "young" to many by being in our mid 40's, we don't feel sorry for most of the younger crowd. The younger crowd doesn't want to work, but they want things. They want to do all they have to do, just to get by. We have a son that's almost 24 yrs old and he's the same way. While he has a fulltime job and lives on his own (with a room mate), he barely gets by. And we know this because we get a call ever so often about needing some money for gas or food until payday. I guess most parents deal with that. He works fulltime, but I don't even believe it's 40 hrs. No matter what you tell him, or any other younger person, if you need X amount of money to survive, then you need to make more than X! That might mean two jobs....or a better paying job....or get rid of some stuff and don't expect too much. There seems to not be much desire/pride in many of the younger folks today. You don't have to be rich. Just support yourself. And stop complaining and go out and do something about it.

The lack of rain has also been an issue. Farmers couldn't feed their cows so they sold them and without rain in our "bread baskets" it's only going to get worse, not only milk and dairy, but veggies are also on the climb. Remember years ago when we had $5 heads of lettuce. It may just get to that again.

My wife and I are on SS and there have been few bumps in that. One of the things that comes back to bite us is the high increases in Medicare co-pays in the past few years.
The government has played games with cost of living for several years now. I understand that gas prices aren't part of the equation and while that might not be crucial to retirees, it can be hard on families with two working and often really hard on people living in rural areas.

tomkaren13 wrote:
We can't imagine how we would feed a family. Even coupons are not as good now. We are thankful for pensions and Social Security. But wonder if there will be a cost of living increase this year. Even tho the cost of living has gone up.

I'm retired USAF, and work for the DoD (USAF too) now in civil service. We haven't had a "real" cost of living allowance in 5 years. We've had small percentage raises. I'll always take a raise and not complain, but that small seems hardly worth the work to institute it. It's hard to keep those ends meeting when cost of living goes up 7% and we get 1% raise.

I really feel for the younger generation these days. I guess like us, they'll survive too....

For the 3 of us, we budget $100/week. We don't do coupons, but we do shop for most of our stuff at Aldi. We probably average more like $75/week. And that includes our lunches. Not very mepany breakfast's though as we don't each breakfast that much.

We can't imagine how we would feed a family. Even coupons are not as good now. We are thankful for pensions and Social Security. But wonder if there will be a cost of living increase this year. Even tho the cost of living has gone up.

Butter here that was on sale for 2/$5 on 8/8 is now 2/$7 on 8/27 - same brand.

$4.99 a gallon here!

We just made a cross country trip via New Hampshire to Washington and back and stayed off the freeways for the most part...and let me tell you of the 8000 miles, Ill bet 1500 miles was planted in corn. We saw corn planted in just about every state with the exception of Idaho and I'm sure someone there also grows it. I was amazed and I'm wondering who could eat all that corn, and then I remembered ethanol and animal feed and corn oil and high fructose corn syrup and the list goes on.

We've decided to help the Kids buy enough property, to raise a couple of beefs and a dairy cow and some chickens. I wish I had taught them when small how to farm a little and raise stock. They will have to learn and to understand care of the stock and garden comes before vacation etc. Thee is quite a bit, of money in raising cattle now, even for someone with just a few acres. times have already changed and I'm not certain where times will go from here. If you have your home paid for an can work a little, on your own ground you can do fairly well.
Dad and Mom did not rise us on a farm but I spent most summers and other times with Grand Mother and some time on large farm and orchards in Indiana. It doesn'ttake a genius but it riequires effort or work.