Observations About August Money: Up Again

Blame it on the maple syrup.

We're not big maple syrup consumers. We only use it on pancakes, and maybe, maybe, I make pancakes once every five or six weeks. 

Maybe.

The large jug of Ohio maple syrup that a good friend gave me for my birthday three or four years ago lasted a long time. But all good things come to an end, and that includes maple syrup. After years of pure maple syrup, I was not going back to "pancake syrup with real maple flavoring." 

One jug of maple syrup: $17.00. 

August in Ohio is when sweet corn hits the market or, in our case, the parking lot. A friend from my high school years (we were in 4-H together almost a half century ago) posted on Facebook two weeks ago that they had just picked 40 dozen ears of sweet corn and would be selling it out of the the truck at a small shopping plaza that morning.

Three dozen ears: $12.00.

Two weeks later, just Monday in fact, she posted that they had just picked the grandchildren's corn. 

Another three dozen ears: another $12.00.

So right there is $41.00 of food purchases which are either extremely seasonal (the corn) or extremely rare (maple syrup). The corn amortized over a year comes to $2.00 a month. The maple syrup, amortized over two years, comes to 71¢ a month. (It's even cheaper over three years!) I can live with that kind of extravagance. 

By the time I add up all the food purchases ($235.60) and add in the household items ($18.06), we spent a whopping $253.66 in August. Some of those food dollars included some larger ticket items (olive oil, coconut oil), which, like the maple syrup, will not need replaced for  several months, but it is what it is. 

For the year, we are averaging $227.81 a month. 

Not what I had hoped for after a low-spend July, but pretty much what I have predicted for Covid-19 shopping. One high month (only one, I hope), one low month, repeat. It is interesting to see what gaps appear at the market. Canned pumpkin is almost nonexistent. So, apparently, are canned beets according to my good friend Margo, but given that I have made zero purchases of canned beets in my life, that one doesn't impact me. Ground cinnamon is hard to find at times. Fruit has stayed high, even summer melons. (I'm hoping the fall apple harvest will help bring down those prices.) On the other hand, there will be LOTS of zucchini and corn to eat all winter long in this household. Looking at my garden, I predict the zucchini will go on merrily until we get a hard frost. 

A few years back, a reader commented, somewhat kindly, somewhat tongue in cheek, that maybe I was a tad obsessed about tracking my food purchases and maybe I just needed to lighten up. Clearly I ignored that advice as I have gone on tracking our purchases ever since. Loooking ahead to 2021, when I will be retiring, not drawing social security right away, and living on a greatly reduced monthly income, watching these food dollars will become critical. So I do not regret the tracking. 

I'm not even making predictions for September...