Cost of everything is going up

If you look at it from a SHTF standpointm it matters little what it cost now. ANyone who can produce their own will be considered wealthy to those who can not. We are going the homesteading route for many reasons, but quality of food, not supporting government clobal food corps, not supporting factory farming and teaching our daughter and future family about the value of food, health and money. I work, own a business in the richest zip code in the world, and it is fairly insulated from many of the woes, but the areas around us, and where I live, is not. We want to be sure we will be able to raise our own for all the reasons listed above, and food cost is one of them. It doesn't matter if bread is 6 dollars a loaf if 90 percent of the people around you only have 2 dollars to spend. Either food will rot, the price will come down to meet demand or cities will riot....look at Europe.

We make most of our own bread now, can food, buy on sale everything ("organic", still), make our own cheeses and yogurts from a local goat lady and buy local honey which we use alomst exclusivly for our sweetners. When we get oour acres we will be doing all from the farm and as much sustainable farming as possible. I also get to buy feed at wholesale due to the pet food companies I buy from for clients...so that helps.

The costs are going up, even seasonal cost more now, but Whole Foods is still as busy as ever...either people are doing better then they lead on or people are really not paying attention.

Well... that is true compared to other countries.. but in the same aspect wages are quite different too. I do realize more than most considering my DH is from England, ad we compare a lot of differences between the two countries.... being I make just over minimum wage, and if I worked in the UK I would have more benefits than I do here...even though the cost of everything is a little bit higher, they make more than me. Plus we must take into consideration that the UK has free health care which causes a big difference in all the cost of living differences I am sure if you added health care into the US equation it would make the differences a lot closer than anyone thinks.

You might want to check this out.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...United+Kingdom

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Yes I have looked at ... but it still does not put health care into that equation if you really look at it ... they pay higher taxes on everything to cover the cost of the health care. If someone was to get in my family in the US I would be wiped out.. and if it happened in the UK I would not be ...because I pay for it in all the extra taxes on everything.. I am also the only one in my family born in the US all of my family lives in Canada... Yes other countries do pay more for everything from being taxed, but the overall difference comes down to health care.

How is your income compare to ours? The Canadian money is going up in value while the value of our dollar is falling.

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Thanks for posting that link Tracy, that really is a handy tool and I've added it to my favorites list for future reference. Very interesting comparing prices around the world.

Something that really surprised me, although I already knew that the costs of things in America overall are so much cheaper than other countries in the world, was the average price of an ordinary loaf of bread in America costs more than in most other places. That was something I would not have expected and I can't help wondering why bread is more expensive.

Tracy, your gasoline is cheaper than here. Right now we're paying $4.35 for a gallon of regular gas and $4.62 for premium.

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Canadian dollar is pretty much at par with American. Current exchange rate today is $1.00 Canadian = $0.9913 American.

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I just wanted to apologize for my little snippity post I didn't mean for it to sound like that........... Please do accept my apologizes ...

I have noticed this, too. I wonder what the wages are like in Canada and Europe versus the United States? That would give us all a fuller picture.

ETA: Ah, I see a comparison of that on the link in post #63 by Tracy. Very close. I wonder if the highly litigious environment in the US means we pay out a lot more in insurance than one would in the UK or Canada? And I mean various insurance policies outside of health insurance, e.g. auto, homeowners, liability for home and/or small business, etc.

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That is extremly cheap -- $200+ is the norm

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Ok, I said I was out of touch.

So $200 - is that a week? and for 1 child?

So give me a guesstimate of what kind of wages a woman/man have to make to be able to pay that kind of day care?

I know I was paying 160 a week and that was for 1 child .....9 yrs ago
I was basically giving my whole paycheck to the daycare..... The only money I made was in tips.....

Do they have grocery coupons in Canada?

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At those prices, how does one have any left for other things?

Many women will put their kids in daycare and break even on the costs if their job includes health insurance but their husband's does not. So basically the women work for only health insurance while someone else raises their kids. If they're not doing it for the health insurance then many are actually going in the hole but don't realize it or some do but say they would go crazy if they had to stay home with their kid(s).

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Yes, we get coupons for all kinds of things, groceries, household goods, clothing, tools, home & car services, etc., etc.,.... all the usual stuff .... they are available online, by flyers or packages delivered in the mail, and weekly in-store newsletters with coupons. There is no such thing as food stamps or WIC in Canada though.

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Just out of curiosity, what type of welfare system does Canada have? I assume there is some system in place to feed the hungry?

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Don't think for a second we don't pay for health insurance in Canada.

We pay dearly, through our taxes, which are stupidly higher then the taxes you pay in the US. Not only that, our health system sucks. My wife has spent a half hour every morning for the past week on the phone trying to get doctor's appointment for our young children. "Free" health care is great, except that you can't get an appointment, and so can't actually get the health care your taxes are paying for.

I'd move to the US in a second if I could.

Pete

Trust me, no one goes hungry in Canada by fault of the government. Our welfare system is so generous that most participants find it more lucrative to stay at home sucking on the public teat then to find a real job. Those of us that work bear the burden and pay insane tax levels.

Unemployment should hurt. The hurting should be enough motivation to make the unemployed find a job. That is not the case in Canada.

Every level of government in our country is running massive deficits. That is despite the fact that we probably have more natural resources then any other country on the planet and despite the fact that our dear American friends provide protection and security for those resources at no cost to us.

We should hang our heads in shame.

Pete

This is a short run down of the social assistance programs - some of them vary from province to province.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_welfare_in_Canada

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