I remember when Coke went to a liter and a half bottle. The beginning of the end.

It's true of so many products. The weight keeps going down ounce by ounce.....and of course the price doesn't go down, actually just the opposite. It's a shame.Dottie

Recently a cookie product had a blurb on the shelf telling of its "improvements" ...

... but the store worker said it was about the same ... the price was the same ... but the illustration of the old package showed "750 grams" ... and the new one held 625 grams.

Rats!

But - though we'll be getting the same amount of electricity (unless we find ways to reduce our usage" ...

... soon we'll be paying more per kilowatt!!

The smart meters allow us a reduced price for usage from 10 - 7 or so (and weekends), of from 5.7 cents to 4.4 cents.

But semi-busy time will be at 8 cents/kwh. ... and prime time will be at 9.3 cents/kwh.

Rats - again!

Not much increased income, though.

ole joyful

Have you noticed that a lot of the old stand bys like 5 pounds of sugar are 4 lbs now...3 pounds of coffee...not necessarily...

Talk to my DH about saltine crackers. The crackers themselves are smaller and in the last box, the sleeves weren't quiet as full. He is livid!

Last summer one day I was talking to the Con-Agra rep and she was chuckling about the new sizing on a couple of the TV dinners. The mac-n-cheese was going from 12 oz to 8 oz. She shook her head and said "they think people won't NOTICE that big a change???" But as we talked about they want to keep the $1 price point for sales specials and rather than make it $1.25, they just cut the size. People are funny shoppers. There are price points that people will go to the alternate to avoid.

I wish people would understand more about pricing on things. Often the container can cost more than the contents! So you're often getting better value buying a larger one. I'm frustrated at the high unit price on the small canned goods, but understand supply and demand.

And people are so easily fooled. Whenever they change the shape of a bottle or container, count on it being smaller. But people often just grab and go or get fooled by coupons.

I haven't bought coffee for a long time but chuckled the other day looking that the coffee cans getting shorter and shorter! I often use the cans for different things so I do notice the size change. But alas, nothing I can do about it.

Will I pay more for less? Moot point. There's not many options! However, there are times I will pay more for less (unit pricewise), when I can't use up the bigger size. But I refuse to pay 69¢ for a "single serve" size can of veggies when I can buy a "standard" (larger) size for 59¢ or less! I'll throw the extra out if I can't use it and I hate doing it but common sense says I have to.

I walked out of a Hometown Buffet last night on general principles. They have "lowered" their meal prices but now they charge extra for the beverage bar. The price with beverage is about the same as it always was. Maybe 50 cents more.
I hate this type of marketing. I sent them an email.

I used to buy a can of tuna and have enough to make four tuna salad sandwiches, now I get two per can. I've watched everything reduce its size but keep its price. A pound of coffee is now 13 ounces, a one ounce bag of potato chips is now 3/4 ounce. A half gallon of ice cream cannot be found.

And the Kleenex is so much smaller now while rattling around in the bigger box!
But, I am glad to see "junk" food sold in smaller amounts, though not the same price that goes along with it. Corporations and politicians are now used to the idea that they can get much of the public to do/think just about anything with little effort. And there's my Hot Topic for the day.

Manufacturers know that most people are not fooled, but they just do it to keep their profit margins up. And many shoppers are wedded to certain brands and certain items, so they won't switch.

As Cynic posted, you have to focus on the unit price and shop by that; different sized containers are misleading--check the ketchup section next time; Heinz sure has some creative marketing folks. The container that fits nicely in the fridge door vs the one that's larger? What a price difference!

I'd noticed containers getting smaller and prices getting higher for a while, but the one thing that really irked me was the change for Edy's Grand light ice cream. I wish I had kept the very first container I bought, just to compare the size to today's. And it's called "light" because they pump AIR into the ice cream to replace some of the other ingredients (well, at least partly). We are paying MORE for AIR!

Shopping for toilet paper has become a real challenge.

The rolls come in so many sizes, and the width of the rolls has shrunk. Even the rolls that supposedly are the same size (such as regular or jumbo) have different numbers of sheets per roll.

I think I'll have to devise a computer program to determine which is really the best buy!

Another 'trick' they use is creative packaging. Like the package looks the same, but the bottom is concaved so from the outside it looks to be the same size, but there is less product, another one is the bottom of the container is extra thick, taking up more room so the bottle or jar holds less. They get trickier all the time. Dottie

In the beginning I didn't notice the smaller sizes, but it seems like EVERY time I open a package it's NOTICEABLY smaller, almost to the point where it is laughable! I thought I was eating more for a while! Wondering how the bag of "whatever" got used up so quickly.

And then it was screwing up my recipes! A few times I made Rice Krispy Treats for the church bake sale. Twice they didn't come out right-too dry and crunchy?? What?? How do you mess those up? Well I finally realized the marshmellow package got smaller!! I was using the "whole bag" as the measurement, so I added a few more this time and voila-perfect!

I also try to check unit prices to see which is a better buy. Unfortunately, with my kids they like one thing one day and not the next, so I hate to waste the extra and I may buy a smaller can.

It isn't as if we have a lot of choice in the matter, but it does anger me that they think I am stupid. And like Theresava says, it really makes me mad when they screw around with my recipes. Especially my old ones, a lot of my gram's are "a large can of peaches" or similar measurement.

I notice - the only thing I can live with is smaller Coke - especially in the 6 or 7 oz. glass bottles - that is when it tastes the best. Hate the taste in the big bottles and I am a true Coke fan. joyfulguy - I - and my one neighbour were the unlucky recipients of one of the trial 10,000 smart meters that were originally installed. In my opinion, no one should have had to pay higher rates during peak times, until every single person had had a unit installed. My neighbours have everything electronic going 24/7 and people coming over to do their washing and play their boom boxes. Yet here we are, just the 2 of us and our dog and we have to pay higher rates at peak times just because we have a smart meter?? The only good news to offset the bad - is that we have an electricity contract with Direct Energy which works for and against us, depending on the hour we do things, but I am glad we have it. And one thing for certain, I am not about to go to bed with the dryer and dishwasher going - or put them on when I go out. Way too many fires. The firemen at our local station frequent the same grocery store that I do and they agreed - as did the dishwasher and dryer repairmen. Re toilet paper when you see the 4 packs of toilet paper they are so small it is laughable. I was at Costco last week and they had the double rolls of Cottenelle I think it was on sale - but many people asked why the packages contained the single rolls - they didn't - they were the "new" double rolls. I also use Heinz Ketchip (daintily on the side) - and yes, the smaller, upside down, fridge friendly versions do cost a lot more and it happened sort of all of a sudden. I am now back to the bigger bottle.

Ditto to everything above.

I don't want to pay more for less, but I would gladly pay more for what it used to be, size or weight, rather than have to accommodate the changes. Recipes shouldn't be tampered with! And have you noticed that the cardboard tube for TP is not as wide as it was?

The public is not as dumb as the companies think we are. So keep the size to what we are accustomed to and raise the price; we will buy it!

How much has some company paid to refit their machinery to make the smaller cans, wrappers, etc, and I'm sure we end up paying for that also.

Aarrgghh.

Sue

I don't miss coke. I do like Pepsi. At a local restaurant, though, I do like the cherry coke flavor.

I would not mind smaller servings on most things in restaurants. It seems to me we are on an oversize serving jag in this country.

Dial soap no longer "bar" shaped and about 1/3 less in size but it's the only soap DH will use.
Try making green bean cassarole with an old recipe. None of the cans are the size in the recipe.
I though I'd be smart and switch to Crystal light instead of soft drinks, but CL changed their packaging and upped the price. I drink more water now.

I noticed the TP rolls being shorter too.There didn't used to be space between the roll on the holder now I can put two fingers between them. I have to buy it more often now.

At my grocery store,they marked down the BIG boxes of breakfast cereal because the new boxes coming in were smaller. :0)

Pretty soon when I unload the groceries onto my kitchen counter, they will look like a bunch of 'play' groceries that my grandkids used to use when they played store. Mixes will be the size of the ones my DD used with her Easy Bake Oven.

Shirley