Giuliani Clueless On Cost Of Bread Or Milk: I gotta admit--- so am I.

[trumad]

I go to the store--- I need Milk... I need Bread... I grab the milk and bread along with some other things... I buy it and go home. I'm guilty of not looking at the price of the milk or bread and I rarely look at my receipt. I'm not sure if it's a guy thing--- I asked my buddy if he looked at the receipt after leaving the store and he too said no. His wife and my wife said, hell yeah they look.

Now I understand that if you're running for public office you should know what things cost so that you can better understand the economy....but--- hey...I'm just as guilty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070410/giuliani-groceries

[seemunkee]

1. Same here

Certain things I just put in the cart. Lactose free milk is one of them and I don't usually buy bread. Other things I'll comparison shop but goddess help me I won't remember their cost later. I do all of the cooking and most of the grocery shopping in the family.

[trumad]

4. I'm not saying I shouldn't know

I'm just saying if someone popped a quiz on me now, I'd flunk. And I do the shopping unlike Rudy.

[hobbit709]

2. My budget says

You better look at the prices or something will get left behind at the checkout counter. I know what the price of everything is that I throw in the cart since I know just how much cash is in my pocket and it's usually under $20.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

21. Agree.

Currently I'm not in that situation, but when I was some years back, I knew exactly to the penny how many grocery items would fit into that twenty dollar bill. Back then luxury items were a gallon of ice cream or a bottle of wine, only after the necessities were paid for. People who run for office to represent all of us have an obligation to know the basics, and the price of food as compared to the average man's income is a real biggy.

[BlueGirlRedState]

3. I'm a woman and I don't know the prices either

I just take what I need off the shelf, I rarely look at the price and I would be hard-pressed to tell you want bread or milk costs. Besides, my husband takes the girls grocery shopping most of the time.

[terip64]

5. He is way off though.

$1.50 for a gallon of milk? $1.25 or $1.30 for a loaf of bread? That's crazy. That would mean you could go to the store with a five dollar bill and get 2 gallons of milk and a loaf of bread and have change. Maybe 20 years ago.

[trumad]

10. What is the price of a gallon of milk... $3.25?

[terip64]

18. I have to whisper this...

I buy raw milk so I pay EIGHT dollars. I know it is crazy, but I don't trust the milk in the store. I love to cook and you can't compare the product. I know my farmer and he has told me how to make ricotta cheese and butter and kefir. It is a way of life and very expensive but we don't each out much because I really worry about what is in the food supply. Why spend money and then worry about it?

But in the store if you go with organic and no hormones I think it is close to $5.

I am outside of Ann Arbor and so everything seems more expensive here.

[trumad]

23. How does raw milk taste compared to store bought?

[terip64]

26. It is truly unbelievable

I was never a milk person but I really love this milk. It is a totally different product. The cream comes to the top and I skim it off but I am sure that it is still pretty much like whole milk. The best thing about it is that if I am hungry and I have a glass of milk it will keep me for another hour or two. It is really satisfying even without the chocolate chip cookie. ;)

[sandnsea]

54. Used to be half price

There was a little farm up the road from us when we lived in MT where we got raw milk. It was always half the price of regular. Surprised you're paying more for it. Maybe you want to look around a bit more, don't know. Our milk in Oregon is $1.98 from a local dairy that the stores stock. Otherwise it's $3.00. My daughter buys organic, I think it's near $5. We have to drink 1% and once you're drinking that, well, who cares about anything else.

[eyesroll]

17. Store-brand white bread costs about that much around here (Milwaukee),

but milk's of course way more than that. And if you want bread with actual texture and nutrients, you'll have to pay more than $1.50.

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. Where I shop, milk is $1.99 and bread is less than a buck. n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

43. $1.99 for a gallon?

I pay that here for a half-gallon.

[lumberjack_jeff]

44. Family drinks about 6-7 gallons per week.

The local drug store chain (Rite-Aid) has it consistently for that price. At a monthly savings of $30, it's worth making the extra stop when grocery shopping.

[Demit]

6. I'm with you, actually. It's not like I'm not going to buy it b/c of the cost.

Bread, milk, if I want it I buy it. They're staples. Now, ribeye steak I look at the cost of. I do that Mary Tyler Moore thing of rolling my eyes and tossing it back, usually, but if it's on sale I let myself justify buying it as a treat. Ribeye steak I know the price of, LOL.

[trumad]

8. Oh yeah

The higher priced items I look at.... I look for deals for the Rib Eyes, etc.

[misanthrope]

7. He seems clueless here as well...

..."Giuliani said he did not recall seeing a Confederate flag during his day in Alabama _ even though there was a display of four Confederate flags flying beside the Capitol."

Maybe he was referring specifically to the version typically called the "battle flag of the Confederacy" and those were some of the various other versions, but it certainly sounds as if he wasn't being very observant.

[seaglass]

9. I'm a woman who grocery shops every week and I don't know

how much milk or bread is because it's a staple and for those 2 items we only buy a certain brand. (I'm guessing they are somewhere around $3.00 ea).

Many other purchases are bought/not bought depending on price for ex.I didn't buy soup this week because at 2.19/can that was too much. I don't need soup - I need milk and bread.

[seabeyond]

11. female here... no i dont look. but then i dont have to be concerned if i have the $

to cover it either. some of the stuff i buy, like yellow bell peppers, if i were to look at the price i would talk myself out of getting it. actually a lot of things. so i dont look at the price and then gripe when i see the total. i think it is more personality of character. i can see the anal personality paying attention, or the one that has only $20 to spend and getting close to the end total

[gollygee]

12. I'm female and don't know either

plus I buy organic milk so the price would be different from what was expected I suppose.

[hang a left]

13. Well since you are a male... we'll let you off.

Really though, the market has gotten soooo expensive. Good bread is 3$ a loaf and milk that doesn't have hormones is $3.50 a gallon or 6$ if you buy two.

Those bastards are not affected by the fact that the price to market has doubled in the last 6 years. The cost of food and utilities (ie GAS) is not even factored into inflation. It is all smoke and mirrors.

[TwilightGardener]

14. Not to defend Roody, but yeah, I don't pay attention to it either. I always

thought that was a dumb test of how a candidate is a "man of the people". They all probably have aides by now writing this shit down to feed to them anyway, so it's meaningless. But hey, if I'm middle-class and don't pay attention to prices, why the hell would a rich guy? Would JFK have known? Did he go to the supermarket a lot?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

25. I don't know about JFK, but I have heard Teddy itemize food product prices

in discussions of salaries of lower income people. I think it is very important for politicians who represent people of all economic groups to at least be aware of what they struggle with on a day to day basis.

[NMDemDist2]

15. i know exactly what I paid for bread and milk yesterday

$6 for 2 gallons of milk (on sale) and $2.99 for bread

but that's just me I guess :shrug:

[trumad]

22. A couple of weeks back they messed up on the price of my hamburger

I caught it before they rang it up--- but they charged me $280.00 for 3 pounds of Ground Chuck. I calmly called the manager over (who is a friend) and said, damn meat has gone up the last couple of days. She saw the price and almost fainted...too funny.

[NMDemDist2]

30. yeah, i think that could safely be called a mess up

:rofl:

[mondo joe]

16. Me too. NT

[Tyler Durden]

19. I must be really weird.

I don't walk into a grocery store without activating the "internal calculator" and the "sunday sale brain database."

I can tell you that last week, you could get milk at $1.88/gallon at Koger, $1.11 off regular price.

We buy the "PS" Autumn Grain bread, usual price $1.79/loaf, short dated: $0.99 (they had two of those and I bought both of them).

Progresso Soup was on sale 2 for $3, and I had a coupon I could double.

How do you people afford to EAT, for crying out loud?

[Marrah_G]

49. I was thinking the SAME thing

[brokensymmetry]

20. Ahh, but a better question is: Why do you not know?

Let me offer a supposition.

We (most of us, with exceptions duly noted) are
relatively affluent. Food is, by and large, cheap.
It is a small part of our budget. And milk and
bread are relatively inexpensive parts of the
budget - so we might notice the cost of high-end
steaks, but we won't notice the bread.

What if the affluence goes down while the price of
food goes up? What if the price of the bread and
milk were deeply significant - perhaps because that
price determined whether you would be hungry tonight?
Then you would notice.

Will such come to pass? No one knows for sure - but I've
bet that it will.

[trumad]

24. Very true...

[terip64]

31. In the meantime can I suggest that we spend just a little more on our food.

The food supply is really in trouble. Most of what we see in the store isn't really even food. If we spent a little extra and bought more organic stuff and whole grain bread and fresh fruits and vegetables then maybe the demand would force companies to produce higher quality food.

It is easier for me, I know because I only have one child left at home but if we can change the way we think about shopping for food. It can be a way to support our local farmers and companies that care about our well being and their employees as well.

[trotsky]

32. Very true.

Most of us are quite fortunate. I'm not wealthy, but milk and bread are not items that I worry about the price of. I do know the prices I've been paying recently ($3 for milk, $2.29 for the bread I like) but even if they were twice that I could still afford them and not worry about it.

This just means that Rudy doesn't do his own shopping, and really, how could he? Like he's got the time. I can't imagine any of the Democratic hopefuls buy their own groceries either.

[hang a left]

33. Dude...that time is here.

You obviously don't shop. And yes we are affluent as well, I guess. I refuse to pay non sale prices for select pieces of meat. I just cannot bring myself to do it. I will buy rib-eyes when they are on sale. I will buy top sirloin when it is on sale and ask them to grind it for me. Or any other meat for that matter. Marketing has really gotten expensive. And people that don't normally shop for a family really don't realize it. Really and truly my grocery bill has doubled in the last 6 years. It is very expensive to eat "affluently". I can't even imagine what it must be like for less fortunate. It is cheaper to eat at the 99 cent menu at Mac Donalds or Jack in the Box, they all have the dollar menus now.

To feed a family of four at home it costs about 30$ a meal for dinner. If you include a decent cut of meat, a salad, a veggie, and a starch. Breakfast and lunch are cheaper of course.

It is a sad place that this country is in. I guess everyone should send a thank you card to the White House.

[SemperEadem]

36. well said

one will not care to know until they have to care to know if they don't want to go hungry that night.

[Marrah_G]

52. I'm already there.

I don't see anything changing for quite a while unless Prince Charming comes riding in on a white horse whisking me away to his castle. So until then, like alot of the working class-lower class, I just stretch every dime and tell myself it's not as bad as my Nana had it, raising 6 kids alone in the Depression.

I've come to realize we are a spoiled country. When I say spoiled I mean that we complain about things being hard when they could be alot worse. Poor here isn't like being poor in a 3rd world country. Toddlers arent walking naked in the streets, literally dying of starvation. When it comes down to it we humans can adapt to whatever comes along. We find a way to make it when things get hard. When it seems to hard I think of my Nana and how she would still manage to keep a pot of soup, made from whatever scraps were around, on the stove. She would send my mother out everyday to bring some to one nieghbor or the other that she felt was worse off then they were.

If I can say one thing to many of you. Those who shop without looking at prices, those who have relative affluence, take the extra time and effort and save some of that money, because you never know when you might be that person deciding on electricity or food.

[Ilsa]

27. There can be huge variance in price. I can spend 59 cents on a

full loaf of thin sliced white bread, or up to about $1.80 for a loaf of mixed grain or whole wheat, no preservatives. Generally speaking, the more preservatives, the cheaper an item is because it has a longer shelf life. Milk varies in cost depending whether it is organic, etc.

Still, whether it is a loaf of bread or the cost of rent in a clean area not torn apart by crime, Candidates need to know what it takes to simply get by in the US.

[bullwinkle428]

28. I pay $3 for a half-gallon - I'm one of those lactose-intolerant

people that can't handle the regular stuff, and I go through close to a gallon a week myself! :grr:

Bread? Yeah, I buy the special extra-fiber infused whole wheat stuff, so I know exactly what I pay for that as well...makes you wonder how some of these guys would survive if they truly had to live independently for even a week!

[Tracer]

29. It actually doesn't matter to me what the price of ...

... bread and milk is. I'm going to buy them anyway.

But ... and it's a big but ... almost everything else I buy is scoured for the best price/sale price.

The two of us are not big eaters, but I can barely get out of the grocery store under $100 per week.

[Missy M]

34. I am a female and I too have to admit ....

I don't look at the price of bread or milk so would not be able to answer the question.

[AuntPatsy]

37. Not knowing only proves you know without a doubt you can afford it.

as can he, I am quilty of the same. Have no idea.

[unpossibles]

38. I always look at prices when I shop

but then I am a cheap bastard, mainly because I spent years trying to rub two pennies together so to speak.

I don't know the price of milk though, but I do know the price of soy milk. ;)

[SemperEadem]

39. perhaps Giuliani needs spend a month living on minimum wage

(like "Supersize Me" filmaker Morgan Spurlock did on his cable series) so that he can have an understanding of what the vast majority of the people in this country have to deal with. Nothing like being pridefully ingorant.

[RaleighNCDUer]

40. It's not a guy thing, it's a middle-class thing.

Not knowing the prices of groceries just means that you are comfortable enough to know that you can afford the basics.

There are households that have to base their menus around the foods they can afford, and if eggs are up this week, they go for the week without eggs. They know the price of milk, because they have to figure if they need a gallon or if they can get by on a half gallon.

If you are at that comfort level it is completely understandable - but for a politician to be unaware of where 50% of his constituency is, is unexcusable. It's just a bit of basic homework - in fact, he could simply ask an intern who would, almost assuredly, know those numbers of the top of his head.

[trof]

41. Milk: dates, yes. prices, no.

You KNOW you gotta look waayyyy in the back of the case for the jug with the farthest out 'good till' date.
;-)

[trumad]

42. snarf

Milk dates are important to me.... LOL

[Marrah_G]

51. Hahaha..... a gallon barely lasts 2 days in my house

And that is with me yelling not to drink the milk every five minutes! I never look at dates....price kills me though.

[WinkyDink]

45. I've got some milk and bread to sell to many of you.....;)

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

46. I didn't always check

but I've been trying to manage my money better recently, as well as eat better, so I actually have a "budget" now. Since I've been watching, I've noticed some strange price comparisons. I can get a burger and fries with a coke for the price of one container of strawberries. Or, a large pizza (admittedly not a good large pizza) for the price of a pack of fresh assorted peppers. Eating healthy sucks.

[Marrah_G]

47. As a single working mom every cent counts

Milk runs 3.49-3.89 in the supermarket- Good bread in 2.50-3.00- plain white crap bread in .99

If you shop carefully you really can save alot. The really crappy thing is that with todays food prices ever rising and wages staying the same there is less opportunity to spend on the good things. For us it is mostly chicken and whatever vegetables are on sale and rice. I throw in red meat when I can find it for a good price. I'd really love to buy organic but unfortunately it's no longer in the budget.

I don't think any politicians have a clue what life is like for the working class. They can walk in and buy whatever they want, or rather their housekeeper can. They've never had to feed there kids ramen noodles or spagetti for a week because there wasn't anything left after paying the utilities bills and food just has to wait until the next paycheck.

Or searching the house for change just to put gas in the car.

Let them come live MY life for a month and they would have a WHOLE different outlook on the American Dream.

Costs me an arm and a leg to feed 3 teenagers....most nights I'm just glad if there is something left over for me to have for lunch at work the next day.

[kineneb]

53. living on SSDI- same deal

Two people living on $1238/month.
That is it.
Got to watch every penny.
We get the free food hand-out at the beginning of each month.

Good milk (Clover) runs $3.89-4.25/gallon.
Cheap bread=$.99.
Eggs (Clover, again)= $2.85/doz.


Hubby is unable to eat many foods as a diabetic dialysis patient, so I try to buy good milk and eggs. A rare treat is for him to eat out and get a grilled ham & cheese sandwich. I try to take him out at least once a month, if he is healthy enough; no telling how much longer he will be able to go on these little outings.

[skippysmom]

48. I do

If only because the prices of things like milk and orange juice have been skyrocketing, at least around here. Milk is close to $4.00/gallon, and a gallon of OJ is $5.00. I buy them anyway, but the rising price of food is something we should all pay attention to.

[Marrah_G]

50. Yeah OJ sucks

I went to pick up a gallon for my daughter yesterday when she was home with a cold. It was almost 5.00 a gallon. I ended up buying the frozen orange juice for 2.99 store brand, enough to make a gallon.

[LSK]

55. its usually $1.99 for a gallon where I buy it

Does it matter if its fat-free milk?

:shrug:

[trumad]

56. Rudy wasn't that far off.

[AspenRose]

57. A half gallon of organic 2% milk is around $3.50 here.

We don't eat much bread, but I like cereal for dinner sometimes.

[Beaverhausen]

58. Do you realize how fortunate you are that you buy it at any price?

and how many families have to shop around to save mere pennies on each item just so they can eat that week? To me, that is more the point.

[BronxBoy]

59. Me too....

Which is why my wife doesn't let me shop.

I guess the big difference is that we aren't going before the American public pandering to them about how we understand the "common" man. And all the time being so goddamn rich that the price of milk and bread is really irrelevant to me.

[Jed Dilligan]

60. I stopped paying attention and started again

It was the transition from being

young and ultra-poor (I ate a lot of weird meats like neckbones and prided myself on being able to make a meal for less than one dollar)

to being less young and not as poor (I used to get off on just getting what I wanted and not worrying, after all the years of worrying)

to facing the dawn of middle age and being almost middle-income and thinking maybe I should actually try to save some money instead of just being happy to have some.