One Hundred Dollars

I used to do the grocery shopping. My wife took over that responsibility, for two reasons:

1) She loves going grocery shopping

and...

2) I'm apparently too stupid to buy the right stuff (this is a fact).

When I used to grocery shop, I NEVER paid attention to the price of anything. I just put the items into the cart and checked out with my credit card. Done. Easy.

Now, I do indeed the do the shopping for anything we buy online, but that is usually only one or two items at a time. I'll notice the recent price increases, cringe, buy it, and move on.

When my wife comes home from grocery shopping now, we'll put the groceries away and I take the receipt, and record it on a spreadsheet that I maintain. The total amount is freaking ridiculous for two people, but I just silently say "Jesus Fucking Christ" to myself, record the receipt on the spreadsheet, and move on.

Yesterday, all of this hit me a bit differently:

I went out and did some shopping. Here's what I bought:

Two 40 pound bags of water softener salt
One small 25 pound bag of ice melt
One small 12 pound bag of dogfood

I came home and recorded the receipts.

One Hundred United States Dollars in total.

$100. For basically nothing.

We're feeling this impact badly here in this house, and I don't know how people are making it out there.

No kids here to feed, just us. How are larger families doing it?