This morning (Sunday) my son and I went shopping. Mrs Jarhead had a list of items for me to pick up and I had a few things I wanted to restock (olive oil and Gatorade), so my boy and I jumped in the truck and headed down to the local Shaws Supermarket.
As we walked through the canned goods isle I couldn’t help but notice that the cans were all a little smaller than they used to be while the prices were a little higher. Everywhere we looked it was the same: smaller packaging and either the same price or a little more.
It was more of a feeling than stopping to compare prices and figuring out exactly how much we’re getting screwed over these days. But there’s no question in my mind that inflation is here, whether or not it’s being reported. Yeah, yeah, they say “Inflation has only gone up 3% this year (or whatever) – excluding food and fuel.” Sure, I understand that they’re really trying to figure out what the money is doing by excluding food and fuel, but it strikes me as stupid every time I hear it because we -the people – are the ones who have to suffer through these shopping trips.
A few weeks ago Mrs Jarhead asked me to pick up a candy bar at the local movie store. We don’t eat a lot of candy bars, but I was happy to oblige her sweet tooth. I picked out a chocolate candy bar for her and it felt funny, so thinking it was defective I put it aside and grabbed the next one down. Same thing. I set that one aside and grabbed the next one and when it felt the same as the others realized that there was nothing wrong with the candy bar, it’s just that there was less candy in it now.
Sneaky Packaging
My favorite packaging story of all (forgive me if I’ve written about this before) comes from Walmart. Six months or a year ago I went into the store looking for a package of black socks. I forget what brand I was looking for, but found a package with six pairs of socks in it for the same price I’d seen a year or two before. I thought, “Huh, I was expecting to pay more because of inflation and the higher prices for cotton these days.”
Before throwing the socks in the cart I threw my eyes over the lettering outside the package and noticed that it said five pairs of socks, not six. I rubbed my eyes and looked a little close and still saw six pairs of socks in the plastic window. Then I realized what they had done. They took four pairs of socks and put them side by side, then took the fifth pair and split them up on either side to make it look like six pairs!
A less careful shopper wouldn’t have noticed until they got home. When I returned to the house I threw the package to Mrs. Jarhead and said, “How many pairs of socks do you see here?”
“Six,” she said glancing quickly at the package.
“Look again.”
She looked closer and couldn’t believe it. How’s that for sneaky packaging eh?
There’s really no point to this post other than moral outrage at marketers thinking we’re too stupid not to notice the little gimmicks they think we’re falling for. It’s not that we’re blindly falling for their clever little tricks, it’s simply that we need the food and will pay whatever price we have to in order to feed our families. I’d rather they kept the size the same and just jacked the price up, so I’ll know exactly what I’ve got in my pantry instead of recalculating everything down by a half serving. What a pain.
And have you checked out the price of beef lately???? I knew that the price was going to go up because of a drought in the Midwest, but it’s still a shock to see a steak going for $6.77 that would have cost about $4 last summer. Holy Cow! (Pun intended.)
Do you have any observations or stories about higher prices? Shout ‘em out below.
-Jarhead Survivor
Personal Observation: Sneaky Inflation Tricks
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39 comments
Yep, REAY big cornflake box & 3-4 bowls ‘o cornflakes and raise the price 1$. Me I’m thinkin’ this is our wake up, time to fixup the house, can some extra, check my stores . Prices here in the south east are going up so fast that 100$ gets 4 small bags ‘o grocerys at kroger, and its getting worse weekly. Yep, gas is still over 3$ , the local “boom” subdivisions are filling up with abandoned/forclosed houses & the TV tellin me ; “go back to sleep little brain , its all just a bad dream” . Ah well its like the movie line ” 2 day old coyote;its better than 3 day old coyote” Ray in Ky
Good grief. I’ve noticed the socks all shrink to kid size, but that’s a new one on me. Been noticing this for a while… I go by my ‘M&M Index’. lately it seems like even the “sharing size” bag of M&Ms has 1-2 tablespoons in it. And Campbell’s cans keep shrinking. And others suddenly have that “fashionable” tapered container…
This is the real reason that you might as well “hoard” (aka prep) – for whatever reason, they sure ain’t makin it like they used to. Makes me consider some SHTF predictions that say it isn’t gonna be a sudden disappearance of civilization, so much as the watering-down of it.
The latest I hear is that “100% lemon juice” is mostly water and
that “extra-virgin olive oil” is mostly vegetable oil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSoVO-BHxIY
That’s the trick of the trade! Under weight packaging saves them money, keeping the price to be the same.
Walmart is the worst at sneak. We shoppers are trained that a red tag means clearance. Walmart is placing non-clearance items in their sale areas priced with red stickers. Walmarts system will print on the sticker “$5.00 was $6.97” if it is clearance… The non-clearance items will just have a price, no “was”.
Another trick I saw was on frozen pizzas. They had them on display, “Now only $1.25”. Problem was last week they were $1.00.
I hate dishonest marketing and I always have a nice fuss with a manager when I catch it. Usually ending with me telling them to enjoy putting up the contents of my cart.
My daughter really likes those individually wrapped cheese sticks, as do I (two of these and an apple make a pretty decent lunch for me). But the size of them are growing shorter, they are about 75% of their former length, while price has gone up at least a $1 for bulk package.
Same deal with the contents in the cans, same can size but less food inside. Frozen vegetables – I detect more ice than before, that might be subjective though.
Good post.
Ive actually gotten dear husband on board with LOOKING at what he is buying. We catch things like this EVERY time we go to the store, we have also started to see where the small size of something will be CHEAPER per ounce than the large size (crackers, cereal etc) its cheaper to buy two small than one big. One of my sisters is one of those “extreme couponer” types, if nothing else she is a constant reminder to watch what you are putting in the cart and pay attention to the pricing per ounce/each etc. We have started stocking up when its on sale (especially if I have coupons) and started paying attention more in the aisles, for instance, Safeway just “clearanced” out three flavors of Campbells Chunky Soups for half off – so when we bought soup, we bought the flavors that were $1.49 instead of $2.99. They were not the flavors we went in for, but for half off, we are over it. Groceries and household paper goods etc is something Ive really been able to stock up on SHTFwise, mostly due to gentle proddding from the coupon sister, who is “not a prepper”, but wants to “stockpile” like on the extreme coupon tv show (so really she is a prepper that doesnt want to be called a prepper). Another thing that has gone down in size, boxes of bandaids – used to have 20ct, now most are 15.
it’s one of a very few times where i’d say: there oughta be a law…
(i’m pretty sure there already is a law against what they did with the socks)
… and besides, we’re all just a bunch of dumb fatso’s.
we can’t be trusted to consume smaller portions, through our own choice.
IDC, while I appreciate the “there oughta be a law” sentiment expresed here, I hope the real take-away from these examples of dishonest marketing is that:
The responsibility for protecting consumers from scammers has, and always will, reside with the consumer him/herself.
Faith in government to protect us from wrong-doing will never fail to disappoint.
agreed.
X2…watch out for you and your own. It’s sad to say but, live life like EVERYONE is out to take advantage of you……simply cause truth of it is, they are. Kinda like the old X-Files one-liner ….”trust no one”.
“Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
I’m freakin’ out man!!
take some deep breaths, let them out slowly.
don’t eat any more mushrooms, except the kind you can get at the supermarket.
The packaging scam is not only in food and clothing…….
We have livestock, operating a small farm in east central wilderness Oklahoma. We noticed a couple years ago that one of the major livestock feed manufacturers had reduced the sacks of feed from 50 pounds to 40 pounds! The price was initially a few cents cheaper per bag, however, it was 20% less product!
I asked the stores about the change, some had noticed, some were totally oblivious to the change and some said it was because there were more women buying livestock feeds and it was easier for women to handle 40 pound bags.
That company had been our primary source for livestock feed until the bag size change……I refuse to pay the same price for 20% less product! Now the price is no longer a few cents lower per bag, it’s the same or higher than 50 pound bags from other companies.
We are being taken to “slaughter” by sneaky manufactures combined with smooth talking spin doctors who can adjust and manipulate, WE THE PEOPLE!
And the sad thing is that statistics can be adjusted and twisted to create the appropriate results to make the economy look better than it is or the make a chosen politician look good in the polls to ensure re-election!
In our part of the USA(south central plains), the economy is in the toilet…….unemployment is high, the long term unemployed are so discouraged that they no longer even search for work….and gas prices and food prices continue to climb.
AND THE ECONOMY IS IMPROVING……..at least that’s what the media says!
SO discouraging in so many aspects!
I had not noticed the sock packaging change but it doesn’t surprise me at all….Thanks for being watchful and keeping us informed!
A year and a half ago deli ham in a plastic tub was $2.99 at Shop and Save. This morning it is still $2.99….however over the course of 18 months the contents have gone from 12 ounces to 10 ounces and now it is nine ounces. At this rate I can forsee the contents going to one ounce…..and instead of a useful tub that doubles as a tupperware container….your deli ham will come in one ounce pill bottle….all for $2.99 of course.
I have noticed a significant weight change for bagged dog food as well. You never used to see 37 pound bags.
Where I am located we have been paying over $6/lb for steaks for years, but now it is up over $8/lb. Beef is so outrageous that even seafood has been cheaper than beef for a long time around here.
I recently changed brands of chips that we eat because they advertise same size bag with no increase in price, but the weight has gone down 2 oz. You definitely have to keep track of price for oz. on most stuff because of the deceptive packaging.
I have noticed this on dog food too. Our “Fit and Trim” (gotta get it cause one o the dogs has pancreas issues) has went up in price and the bags have gotten lighter.
Speaking of the economy being in the toilet, have you also noticed that toilet paper rolls are cut about one half inch shorter, but the price has increased.
To follow that line of thinking, might as well reduce the size of my butt.
According to Bloomberg in NY, that’s the intent!
I know its a marketing ploy but in some instances I actually appreciate the smaller sizes. If you give me less junk food in the box I’m not going to buy more boxes, I’m going to eat less junk food. My favorite is the “dollar” menu at the fast food places. A “value” size burger and fries with an ice water is $2 and it fills me up without the extra 500 calories that the “value meal” would give me for 3 times that price.
I do all the grocery shopping at home. Since my husband is a chef he has seen the food prices go up also. Two years ago i spent $100.00 a week, now its $200.00 at least. I do coupon and buy in bulk when things are on sale. Last year an 8oz can of tomatoe sauce was 25 cents. Now it is 34 cents. I can’t stand it.
The instant oatmeal,peanutbutter,and their brand coffee all have oz. changes.(wal-mart)And what’s going on with mayo.That went up .50 the other day and it went last month too.
X2…watch out for you and your own. It’s sad to say but, live life like EVERYONE is out to take advantage of you……simply cause truth of it is, they are. Kinda like the old X-Files one-liner ….”trust no one”.
BTW. Dog food (dried) has ALL the nutrients a human needs to survive except vitamin C. May not be the best meal, but a meal that WILL keep you alive…..unless you happen upon survy. So when everyone is loading beans into thier cart, gert you food by the 40 lb. bag.
Wallyworld…sometimes the larger packages cost more per “unit” than two regular size. Canned tuna same size cans but less inside. You can notice the weight diff when you pick one off the shelf. They used to make about 4 sandwiches. Now you need two cans to do the same thing. It also seems grosser too! I’m adding a large pantry cabinet to my kitchen. Just stocking it with this months priced products will give me a five year return on my investment better than any CD and most mutual funds. Good preppin’ also. As for the dog food nutrition thing… Wash it down w/ pine needle tea. It’s got more Vita-C than oranges “they” say.
Coffee is still the same peak prices around a year ago, however, coffee
futures are less than half.
Since no one else has mentioned it, Ice Cream. Half Gallons are no longer, they are 1.5 or 1.75 quarts. And I’ve also noticed that ice cream no longer freezes as solid as it used to. They now have some way of fluffing it up to add micro air bubbles to it. Since it’s not sold by weight, most folks think that they’re getting softer ‘gourmet” ice cream, when in fact they are paying more for air.
And don’t get me started on 1lb coffee! It seems that 13oz now constitutes a pound. In the 1960s we called that “The new math”.
I do all the shopping so hubby had no understanding of why I complained so much about groceries. He was in sticker shock a couple of weeks ago when he finally went shopping with me for a full-on shopping trip. Even with coupons he couldn’t believe how much everything was and it was the first time he looked at packaging in forever. He kept asking if I had the right thing because he remembered the packages being bigger. He makes more than he’s ever made and yet we have less. Ha! and we’re not even talking about how much utilities have gone up. ~~~sigh~~~
Who woulda thought a story about blacks socks would be sad and funny at the same time? Nice post, JS!
Your right on with the subtleness of the marketeers. A box of brownie mix used to make quite a bit of brownies. Now it barely covers the bottom of the baking pan.
The prices are going up slightly and the sizes are going down.
Joe
the metric system is evil and unamerican . Its another way to make you pay more and get less .
TR;
Not again, just reference the metric/standard/imperial equivalent chart for volume/weight/distance and after a while it becomes second nature. Because I’ve spent a considerable amount of my adult life in third/fourth-world rat-holes it had to become second nature and if every one’s prediction of inflation equals smaller sizes, then the United States of America is certainly well on its way to rat-hole status. I recommend the following for reference
http://www.metric-conversions.org/metric-conversion-table.htm
not buying that argument . First off , it is unamerican . The globalists want everybody to convert ………but guess what , globalism is like communism …it doesn’t work . We as a nation and a people do best when we dont try to be like everybody else . Next they are going to make you pay for gas by the liter and not the gallon and charge the same amount per liter .
Please forgive me JS, I feel like arguing .. :)
I agree there is a conspiracy, there are boatloads of them (always have been.) But as a physics major, I have to heartily disagree with you. The metric system makes sense. We weren’t born with 13 fingers or 6 toes, we’re patterned in 10’s. So our thinking is colored by 10’s. Try it this way – how many meters in a kilometer? 1000. How many feet in a mile? 5280. So whats 5 km in meters? What’s 5 mi in feet? Any way to drop the terminological complexity of the imperial system makes mathematical work easier and clearer for MOST physicists that I know. (A few are hangers-on, they have memorized #s and want to show off their memory :] )
I still use miles, and yards and lbs and inches, and 1/16 inches and ounces, and … but I believe the metric system just makes more sense. I guess this is one time where an idea that’s part of a conspiracy makes sense.
I agree with you. In the military we measured everything in meters and kilometers. I still measure my pace count at 100 meters even today.
The only thing I have trouble adapting to is weight measure.
like diplomats that have been in country way too long ……..they need to be swapped out before their loyalties get …………confused . English system has worked and is our way …………medical and science students learn latin for their professions ………doesn’t mean we should switch to latin as a language .
its also the easiest way to screw the consumer by not using the english system .
I have worked in the grocery industry for 13 years. Either as a manager of retail pricing, or shipping/receiving manager. If you look at the big picture, you can see why this is happening. We aren’t earning more than we used to. If our budget for groceries a year ago was $100/wk, its about that or less now. Keeping prices relatively stable, while lowering the unit prices, keeps those items selling. If the price was raised, and the size stayed the same, it has been shown to make the difference between someone buying the item, or not. Companies would rather keep prices the same, lower the content, and keep selling the same amount of units, rather than raising the cost and loosing unit sales. As this is my “thing”, I’d advise 2 ideas: 1. Learn to read unit price tags. Its a simple formula that is price/weight (or count). Use this, and not the price alone, to figure out if you are getting what you thought. 2. Skip national brand items! I’ve found that, at least in our store, private label brands cost less, contain more product per unit, and in many cases taste as good or better than the national brand equal. Also, try to shop on Monday afternoons for discount/clearance deals, but Fridays for regular items. Most stores change prices over the weekend, so Fridays get your regular items before the prices change, and on Mondays to see what items are being phased out at 50% off on clearance deals.