Electric vs propane

[Stormin Mormon]

I ought to check some time, just for fun. I'm sure NG is cheaper than electric, so there's no real choice of changing.

[Stormin Mormon]

Plenty. and the generator dumps a lot of heat from the combustion.

[trader4]

The furnace only takes about 300W. Get a grip.

[HerHusband]

Is that just for the gas? Any idea what you pay for electric on top of that (for lighting, etc.)?

Still, that's not bad for a house twice the size of mine.

When we built our house in 2004, we moved from a 750 sq/ft mobile to a 1500 sq/ft house on the same property. Despite doubling the floor space, our electric usage actually went down because of better insulation and more efficient appliances. I've been able to decrease that slightly by switching to LED and CFL lights, and reducing the power consumption of my computer equipment. It's not an earth shattering reduction, but every little bit helps. Of course, then I fire up my 5000 Watt garage heater and burn up all of those savings. :)

These days our grocery bills are easily our biggest expense. It's crazy how expensive food is now. We spent over $800 on food in January for a family of three, and that doesn't include meals we ate out. Makes our electric bill seem cheap. :)

Anthony Watson

[Stormin Mormon]

Someone a couple days ago assured me the inflation rate is 1.6% I think he wrote. Who's mistaken, here?

I have also found food going up, rapidly.

[trader4]

Food is only one part of the CPI. If unique forces are hitting food, eg diversion of crops to ethanol, then food prices could be going up a lot more than the CPI. Another thing that's going to cost everyone some money soon is the FDA forcing label changes on food. Main new things:

Bigger font for the calories Separate line item for "added sugar" Change serving sizes, eg ice cream will go from 1/2 cup serving to 1 cup.

Cost to the industry? $2bil

The changes aren't bad in themselves, but we all know it's not going to do a damn thing. Anyone that's interested in eating right, there's plenty of info there to figure that out already. Anyone who doesn't care, isn't going to change their ways because the font is bigger. And back to the issue of rising food costs, when the manufacturer has to change the packaging label, it's also an opportunity to go ahead and make the package smaller, if they were thinking about maybe doing that at some point. And I'm sure you've seen that. Instead of raising prices, a pint is no longer a pint, it's a 14 oz container, etc. So, if I was a food manufacturer, I might use the label change as a good opportunity to put through a hidden price increase. Someone has to pay for the label changes.

[Bubba]

Exactly!

Besides, if the food is processed and requires an ingredient label, it's essentially junk food anyway.

And if the FDA wasn't controlled by the food industry, there would be GMO labeling as well.

[bob haller]

the california drought even with a sudden storms will skyrocket food costs, most veggies are grown in california

[RobertMacy]

The price of food is so high that recently when a thief stole groceries out of a car, the thief had committed 'grand larceny'. What made the owner of the car really angry - the thief broke the glove box!