The price of milk

Posted by Thomas Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:41:15 +0000

So besides sweltering in my own apartment due to an air conditioner that I think is working much less optimally than it should, for dinner tonight, I decided that since I didn’t really want fast food, that I would just eat some cereal. Having just returned from two weeks traveling, I of course didn’t have any milk to speak of (well you might assume that I still had rotting milk in the fridge, and you might be correct, but I did have the foresight to throw the milk out before I left). Standing in line to check out with my one item of half a gallon of vitamin d, whole milk, the lady behind me asks me, “how much is the milk?”. Which is a perfectly valid question. You know like, maybe it was on sale, or maybe she’s wondering if the price of milk has gone up with all the transportation price hikes due to gas prices. I had no idea how much the milk was. I felt really bad for not knowing. There was this episode of West Wing, where the press secretary was making a point about how the other side was out of touch because they didn’t even know the price of milk, only to realize that they themselves didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk. The price couldn’t have made a bit of difference to me. I only care in so much that it would have been cheaper than buying a combo meal at <insert your favorite fast food place here>.

Sort of like the price of gas. I have to pay it, and there’s no real way for me to game the system to get cheaper gas, so I just buy it. I buy it at the place where I know it’s usually the cheapest (Kroger). But I did a few days ago look at my gas spending, and while I thought that it was a bit low, it looked like I’m spending $100 a month on it (over the last 6 months). Which seems odd because when I figured it before it was like $125, but that have been over a longer period when I had some additional commuting. Now I don’t have that, but it still doesn’t seem like that would account for the doubling of the price of gas and my cost per month dropping. If it is true, then it’s really a good sign that I don’t really need a new car for the gas. So, if that number is correct, and if the new car doubled the in-town mpg (which would be asking a lot I’m guessing), then the car payment would have to be like $50. Which I don’t think I’d want any car that came with a $50 monthly payment. :)

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