$126.63
For one week's worth of groceries for 20 people!!! That bill would be $1,263.00 these days.
Can you imagine what the college bills would be?
I agree with you heathentart! I just saw this movie in its entirety today....lol!
shareYour figure is an accurate guesstimate - things do cost about 10 times more today than they did then.
I've just read Helen Beardsley's book (on which the movie was based), called Who Gets the Drumstick?.
(The answer to that question was wonderful, BTW.)
In her book she tells of all the ways she and Frank economized - on food, clothes, etc. That in itself was fascinating. I highly recommend reading the book to gain insight into the family. It's available at Amazon, but I found it in my library system.
God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
LIFE is still celebrated!
Old post, but I had to research this - besides, I just watched the movie last night for the first time in ages - friend gave me the tape.
According to my inflation calculator (on line) $126.63 - $784.64 in today's money, or $3138.56 per month! (and this was at the military A&P - (I think) Frank being semi-retired military (not totally, as he gets to go back to his ship) his grocery bills would be way less than at your standard Safeway or Kroger's - most likely even less than even Sam's or Costco.
I have to wonder how many refrigerators and deep freezes they had in their house!
My bet is all the kids didn't go to college - unless they started wangling for full scholarships early. Military benefits would help some, but not totally. I have a friend who's husband (military) died when her daughter was a baby. She got benefits, but nowhere near enough to support her withour her working - and they reduced when her daughter hit 16 - and she is going to a community college - not Yale or Harvard.
I came from a pretty big family...why did they buy 20 quarts of milk? Did everyone get their own quart? Ten half gallons would have been cheaper! (Can't remember if gallons were available back then.)
share$126.63 - $784.64 in today's money, or $3138.56 per month!-
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800.00 per week for food? Not all things correspond with the inflation factor, including some types of food. Some things for a family are much cheaper these days. Food bills can be slashed just by using the 99cent store
Just watched this movie last night.
The grocery store scene is kind of unrealistic...unless the store is miles and miles away from their house and they only go shopping once a month. I have nine kids, including some teens and adults, living at home, and no way to we need to buy 20 boxes of cereal at a time, or even half that.. We do buy 5 gallons of milk per week, so that works out.
Maybe the cereal was on sale. The way I save is to buy staple foods when they're on sale. It costs more at the time, but saves money in the long run.
They also may have been shopping for longer than one week. It's pretty inefficient in America, with all the large grocery stores, to shop weekly. A friend told me once she was taught in Home Ec to shop once a month and travel to several stores to take advantage of sales. It takes all day, I guess, but you save on cost and gas and time in the long run. You also learn to make do with what you have, until the next shopping day.
Winco for groceries, Target for paper products, PetSmart for cat food. That's it.
shareRemember-they have 20 kids!!! It seems realistic to me!
I don't feed trolls--I eat them(for breakfast!!)
Jay
Maybe some of them went bad and got thrown in prison or something.....meh.
shareI know! My, how times have changed.
As for college, I'm wondering if his military service would help with that. Like kids of vets can get cheaper car ins. and such through USAA.
Tuition at California public universities actually use to be very affordable. That all changed over the last 20-plus years.
shareIt looks to me that 4 or 5 of those kids were old enough to get some part time employment.
I told you a million times not to talk to me when I'm doing my lashes!
As a cost-saving measure, the family applied for and received restaurant status that allowed them to buy groceries in bulk.
share