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Last week was a hard week for us in a number of ways, mostly financial (for those who don’t know, that’s RevMrKnowTea’s blog). Our grocery budget took a huge unexpected hit. You ask how that can happen? First, we had a small emergency which required the grocery budget to take on an extra week. I go to the store weekly, sometimes I go for a two week run, but when I do I still have to go back at some point for some things like more milk, eggs, and anything that needs to be fairly fresh (fruits and salad). There are a large number of items/brands my son can not eat because of his allergies. The store where we do most of our shopping has removed organic items (mostly the store brand organics) from its shelves. As well as removing those items from its shelves it has also begun carrying fewer brands of anything. There used to be five different brands of canned peas, plus the store brand and the store brand organic. Now there are three brands totals, including the store brand. As a result of fewer options leading to less competition among the brands, prices have gone up as well recently. I do buy a large quantity of organics, but not everything I buy is. I check labels. If it has preservatives, MSG, or HFCS on the label we do not buy it. Those products result in too many migraines or Epi-pen uses or ER runs. So we stay away from those.
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