I must have missed something - could you fill me in on the back story?

It was under 50% more. Our 2 pound loaf of bread is now 1 1/2 lb. and costs more. I goofed....

Oh, so they are trying to pretend it's the same size bread loaf, but it's actually smaller and costs more. Cheaters!

I think the center of a toliet paper roll is much bigger now. I know the roll is narrower. I happened to have an old roll and measured them. The sheets are about 1/2 inch narrower.

I don't think they are bragging about that either.

I can't use my paper towel holder in the kitchen any more, the roll diameter is much larger and the towels just unroll by themselves, I first accused the cats. I wonder if the 1000 sheets toilet paper still has 1000 much narrower sheets?

There hasn't been a pound can of coffee for years. first it went to 13 oz, now I think it is 11 oz.

Sorry....toilet paper sheets are not narrower...
My old house has an old porcelain TP roll holder set into the wall....and the new rolls fit as tightly as it ever did....and I have lived in this house for 40 years.
But I am making my home made loaves smaller these days!
Linda C

I've noticed on Scott brand toilet paper and some cheaper ones that often about 1/3 inch away from the cardboard that the paper will come out in three ply in other words it unrolls with three sheets instead of one

The paper on some toilet rolls is definitely narrower, especially in resturant and like Target restrooms.

Have you noticed that packages of processed meats have gone from a pound to twelve ounces? Bacon used to always be sold by the pound, but not anymore. Hot dogs have dwindled to eight per pack and buns don't always match the number of weenies anymore. Packaged egg noodles and pasta are sometimes twelve ounces, sometimes a pound. You have to watch if using them with dishes you've cooked in case it affects the finished product. Bags of raw potatoes now have a new price point at eight pounds. Why eight? It makes it more difficult to do price per pound calculations in your head, that's why.

Most of the markets I frequent do have unit prices on the goods. But, only on the regular price. When sales hit they don't list a unit price........ever!

That the goods packaged in larger sizes do not necessarily reflect a price savings? I buy staple goods like sugar and flour in large packages like twenty five pounds, and noticed that long ago it was often more cost effective to buy several smaller bags.

That by changing the name of the product just a little, you may be buying something with added ingredients? Fruit juices become fruit drinks or cocktails. Ice cream becomes frozen dairy desserts. Cheese becomes processed cheese foods. Frozen hamburgers ready for the grill becomes grilling patties. I read the label on five different packs of frozen 'burgers' last week when shopping. Only ONE of them was 100% domestic beef. The rest were beef from numerous sources like Mexico, Canada, Argentina along with domestic beef. Several had added ingredients like soy meal, beef paste, and one of them had crushed beef hearts included. Not that there is anything nasty in those products, but it's a way to make them cheaper to produce and if you don't read a label you may be eating something other than what you think you are. Is it surprising that so many people find it harder to control their weight anymore, especially if they presume the calories in a prepared food are similar to those they'd prepare themselves from scratch?

Due to DD's allergies, I had to read labels 40 years ago. Yes, I carried a small magnifying glass, because some were printed too tiny to read without it. Among the things the labels don't tell you: those juices with 'cocktail' or 'drink' in their name aren't pure juice; some can have as little as 3% juice, the rest is water, preservatives, coloring, flavorings and/or sugar in some form. Mostly, that isn't distilled or purified water being used, so I wonder what else we are drinking instead of pure juice?

I carry a small calculator, too. While most stores are very good about unit pricing, I have noticed that occasionally the price on an item may hve gone up for a week (or several), before the unit pricing label on the shelf reflects the change; this seems to happen most often when it's a change in the package size rather than in the price. Okay, stores are skimping on personnel, so they may just be too busy to get around to changing the shelf markers, but I wonder how much money people have spent thinking they were buying the best deal.

And speaking of unit pricing, how many of us actually compute the cost of having to buy two 13-ounce cans so as to have enough to use in a recipe that calls for 16-ounces? I have a freezer and have learned that most of those left-over ounces can be frozen for future use, but it's still a PIA...

And that bread? At least the half-pound shrinkage is noticeable. The other day, I looked at a loaf of multi-grain and saw that the 'two-pound' size was 28 ounces. Not by my math, it isn't.

Sometimes I think the manufacturers are really making an effort to confuse the savvy shopper. A local store has 9 brands of TP. Within the brand name are such variations as 'softer', 'stronger', 'quilted', 'basic', with or without aloe, scented and unscented, and of course a choice of colors and sizes [regular, double, triple rolls]. To select one roll of paper, you may make 90 or more yes/no choices. No wonder so many shoppers grab the nearest package with the most noticeable label!

A few years ago, a dish detergent brand came out with a "new easy to hold bottle" Same price, and same height bottle. Top and bottom the same size as the old bottle.

BUT, the new easy to hold feature was a smaller center section that reduced the contents by two ounces.

Yeah, same price per bottle, not same price per ounce.

I find myself using the "calculator" function on my phone fairly regularly. I don't remember the details, but when trying to figure out how to buy my Viva paper towels the other day (these tricks are especially annoying when you're already brand loyal anyway) I noticed that one of the square foot labels on one of the multi-packs I was considering didn't add up at all. In other words, they've made things so needlessly confusing that even THEY don't know what size is which anymore.

I'm still "ticked" about my Dove ice cream bars...only three in a box instead of four! I've found some other bars that are nearly as good. Suppose they'll notice I'm not buying as many?

Just today, I realized that the blueberries that have always been sold in pints--16 oz.--are now in 11 oz. containers. If I hadn't looked carefully, I would have thought I was getting a good price for them.

With fruits, the old "pint" (quart, peck, bushel) measurement was a volume measurement. The change-over to showing the actual ounces in the container is a boon for those who comparison-shop.

OTOH, if you make jams or jellies, it doesn't matter whether the store sells by volume-pints or weight-ounces, you'll still going to have to eyeball the box and guess how much to buy so that there is enough fruit to make "2 cups of mashed strawberries" (or whatever the recipe is calling for). For a few years, I tried weighing the '2 cups mashed' but I quickly realized that the fruit's growth climate affected the water content too much to make the mashed-weight a reliable indicator. Nowadays, I just shrug, eyeball the basket and then buy half-again more than my guess; the extra goes into shortcakes or flan or tarts.