Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott O
No prices are not cheaper up north...you count highest TAXED cities, NYC, Boston...your response says it all...you mean the greedy companies that employ everyone? Typical retired person comment...
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I'm not retired. I still work. I'm newly transplanted down here, and I know what my grocery bills were in 2018 in Connecticut compared to what they are now in Florida. Prices here in the Villages are ridiculous. Even something as basic as a pound of ground chuck is insane. In order to get the best prices, every week, I have to go to 4 different stores, and take advantage of their rotating sales, and buy mostly store-brand. If I need a particular item that is only sold at one store, and that store charges more for everything else, that's a trip to a store for ONE item only.
Gas, time, effort, mileage on my car (or golf cart) all add up. Where I used to live in Connecticut, I could get everything I wanted at 2 different stores, each within a mile of each other. I could walk to one of them, and it was a 5-minute drive to the other. Quality foods, brand names for most items, specialty items that I usually got were also usually on sale or had coupons.
My usual weekly supermarket trip in Connecticut was $55. My usual weekly supermarket trip in Florida is $70.
Doesn't seem like much - but neither does a $1.44/hour raise from $8.56 to $10/hour. It basically covers the grocery bill increase, and the added cost of gas, time, and mileage to buy them.
And that doesn't even start until next September. The $15/hour doesn't start until September 2016 - almost 7 years from now.
By then, who knows how much it'll cost for just the basic needs in Florida?