Introduction
Mrs. Appalachian Irishman, in particular, and I may have to stop eating so much peanut butter. The analysis and conclusion will explain!
Greetings, fellow diners, and welcome to the 109th article in the humor topic section! Are you hungry for another article? Well, here it is! I thought about creating a new topic section called “economy” or “money tree,” but let's just stick with “humor.” Peanut butter is sticky, after all!
This article recalls one that I published last year. You may wish to go back through the mists of time to read August 2022 - No TN Sales Tax on Food Month (published 9-2-2022; article #352). This year, the Tennessee government granted another sales tax holiday on food. It was from August through October.
This article jells together our August through October record on food cost and sales tax savings. It then smooths the “butter and jelly” together in my analysis. The conclusion looks for something cheaper than peanut butter!
I hope that you enjoy this “peanut butter and jelly sandwich” article! You may need some milk at $4.99 a gallon to wash it down!
Our August-October Record
How did my wife and I fare for the previous three months this year? Let's see. The following is my record. The record is by month, date, location, grocery cost, sales tax saved (saved), and number of grocery items purchased.
August
Date/location Cost Saved # Items
08/02/2023: IGA, Knox $13.65 $0.85 3
08/04/2023: IGA, Knox $78.22 $4.89 19
08/11/2023: IGA, Knox $112.40 $7.03 21
08/17/2023: IGA, Knox $104.84 $6.55 25
08/24/2023: Food City, Kodak $11.68 $0.32 2
08/25/2023: IGA, Knox $115.18 $7.20 24
August total: $435.97 $26.84 94
Date/location Cost Saved # Items
09/01/2023: IGA, Knox $117.41 $7.34 24
09/02/2023: IGA, Knox $11.15 $0.70 4
09/04/2023: IGA, Knox $36.97 $2.31 11
09/08/2023: IGA, Knox $102.92 $6.43 25
09/15/2023: IGA, Knox $124.10 $7.76 25
09/22/2023: IGA, Knox $120.41 $7.53 26
09/29/2023: IGA, Knox $110.64 $6.92 25
09/29/2023: IGA, Knox $20.84 $1.30 6
September total: $644.44 $40.29 146
Date/location Cost Saved # Items
10/06/2023: IGA, Knox $123.65 $7.73 27
10/13/2023: IGA, Knox $73.61 $4.60 14
10/19/2023: IGA, Knox $105.30 $6.58 21
10/27/2023: IGA, Knox $115.00 $7.19 28
October total: $417.56 $26.10 90
For the past three months, we spent $1,497.97 on groceries. We saved $93.23 in sales tax. We bought 330 food items.
Analysis
The section above spread the peanut butter on the bread, so to speak. This section adds the jelly, as it were, by my analysis. Let's check the state budget and then our household budget.
Tennessee Budget
So, how much sales tax revenue did Tennessee lose? It's uncertain. I decided for fun to tell and then ask Microsoft's “Bing” (the so-called artificial intelligence) the following: “The TN sales tax on food is 4%. TN county sales taxes vary from 1.5% to 2.75%. Factoring those in, from 8/1/2023 to 10/31/2023, how much sales tax revenue did TN lose during the 8/1/2023 to 10/31/2023 TN sales tax holiday?” Bing's answer stated in part, “… we can estimate the amount of sales tax revenue that Tennessee lost during the holiday period [to be] … $330 million.” By the way, I don't know who the “we” are in Bing's answer, unless that robot has a multiple personality disorder! You may get a different answer if you ask “Bing” the same question.
From “The Budget, Fiscal Year 2023-2024,” TN Department of Finance & Administration (a 571-page online PDF document), I see that the 2024 fiscal year budget is $55.6 billion. The state budget is balanced, unlike the federal budget, unfortunately.
Bing's estimated sales tax loss during the August through October tax holiday on food divided by the 2024 fiscal budget is a loss of only about 0.5935%. That's a chump loss of revenue.
Our Budget
As stated previously, the bottom line for August through October is that my wife and I spent $1,497.97 on groceries. We bought 330 grocery items. We saved $93.23 in sales tax. That's an average sales tax savings of 6.22%.
So, how did we do on average? From “Tennessee General Assembly Passes Tennessee Works Tax Act: Legislation Among Largest Tax Cuts in Tennessee History,” TN Department of Revenue, 4/27/2023, I read the following: “From August through October 2023, Tennesseans will not pay tax on food and food ingredients sold in grocery stores. On average, each Tennessee family will save over $100 in taxes.” (The tax act, aside from the sales tax holiday on food, included reductions on franchise and excise tax and on business tax.) We saved $6.77 less than the baseline estimate. We tried! Of course, I don't fall for the sales gimmick fallacy of “the more you spend, the more you save!”
The previously cited article from 9/2/2022 stated that our two-person annual food cost in 2001 was $2,387.60, or $198.96 a month. In 2010, it was $3,149.59, or $261.80 monthly. Last year in August, the cost as stated in that article was:
Total 08/2022 human food cost: $459.87. ($3.74 / human food item.)
Total 08/2022 TN sales tax not charged/”saved:” $29.38 (6.38%).
For all of 2022, our grocery cost totaled $5,825.36. That's $485.44 each month.
Calculations from the last three months, August through October, indicate the following. The grocery cost for my wife and me averaged $499.32 a month. We were not charged a monthly average of $31.07 in sales tax. On a monthly basis, we bought 110 grocery items. The mean cost of each grocery item was $4.54.
A reader asks, “Are y'all buying too much of that costly and overly-processed junk food?” My reply is, “Thanks for the question. We buy fruit, vegetables, lean meat, juice, bread, and so forth. We buy very little, if any, overly processed or junk food. It's not healthy.”
If you can enlarge the following photograph, it shows the IGA receipt from 10/27/2023, when I bought groceries. The receipt includes two items, $8.57 total, for Molly, our “old puppy,” and three household items at $21.26 total. (We paid $2.76 in sales tax on those items.) The cost for 28 human food items was $115.00. We did not pay $7.19 in sales tax.
Aside from the eight-pack of 12-ounce bottled Cokes at $6.50, I don't see any junk. I drink about a half-bottle of Coke every day. Eight bottles last me a while. A 12-ounce bottle of Coke costs about 81 cents? Really? I can remember when a 12-ounce bottle of Coke costed 15 cents!
Can you see on the receipt the cost of the Jif peanut butter? I highlighted around it in yellow. Two pounds and eight ounces (40 ounces) of peanut butter cost $8.99! That's about 22 cents an ounce! How could an ounce of peanut butter cost almost a quarter?
If a tablespoon is half an ounce, then two tablespoons are one ounce. If I use two tablespoons of peanut butter to make a sandwich, then I've spent almost 25 cents! I didn't realize that before writing this article!
Conclusion
A reader asks, “Yes, your annual cost of groceries has been increasing, but hasn't your household income increased to match that?” The answer is, “Yes, it has, fortunately, by God's blessings and our hard work. I've done the math, however. I know that our annual cost of groceries has been increasing faster than our income.”
Based on an analysis of our financial records from 2001 through October 2023, I know how much our household income has increased. I also know how much our grocery bill has gone up. I did the calculations. From 2001 through October 2023, our grocery bill has increased 19.39% faster than our income. That's an increasingly larger slice of the budget.
Groceries are only one example of inflation. I haven't even calculated the increases in, for example, gasoline, electricity, propane, all other utilities, insurance (automobile, health, homeowners), medical care, and major purchases (e.g., deck replacement, automobile, appliances, etc.). All these expenses continue to take bigger bites out of our total income.
What could we do with the $93.23 that we didn't spend on sales tax? Should we stock up on peanut butter? No! My wife and I need to stop eating so much peanut butter! It's too expensive!
What could we stock up on that's cheaper than peanut butter? Do you have any suggestions?
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