Small packages

We are getting used to less all the time.  Less cash in our wallets, especially! We realize that higher fuel prices has been translating into higher prices on everything else.  If it has to be transported to wherever we buy or consume it, that is going to cost more, therefore what we buy has to cost more.

Everyone is conscious of the increases in price at the pump (one friend in Florida said theirs went up to $4.75 this week!), and at the grocery store.  We make fewer trips in the car these days, and conserve by running all our errands in one trip.  Police departments and utilities are concerned because their budgets don’t allow for these higher fuel costs…and that is going to mean taxes and utilities calling for an increase.

Just this week I noticed that ice cream is shrinking, too. Some time back, Breyers and the other big producers went to smaller containers, 1.75 liters instead of 1/2 gallon.  Since the containers looked the same, I guess they hoped we wouldn’t notice.  Last week I saw these containers are now 1.50 liters…but the price hasn’t changed.  So we are still paying more, but I guess we aren’t supposed to notice.

Today a friend sent me an article about the shrinking size of bars of soap, another effort at cost-cutting by manufacturers.  But they make an interesting point: it takes a certain quantity of a product for our households to operate.  So having these things reduced in size means we have to buy more of them to get the same end result…and that means more packaging and waste to deal with.

Somebody needs to give these manufacturers a clue…