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I went grocery shopping over the weekend and sticker shock hit big time.

Grapes used to be 79 cents a pound, and they’re now $2.49 a pound. Shrimp was often $5.99 a pound, but those little crustaceans are now $8.99 a pound.

Looking at the prices, I once again marveled at our mom.

She made sure her seven children had three meals a day, and we weren’t rich.

Her Saturdays were spent shopping for the week, and we usually went with her. We’d start out at Globe, a discount store like Wal-Mart, where we’d get what we absolutely had to have.

Then it was a trip to the day-old bakery store. We liked that stop because there were usually doughnuts or pastries on sale, and she’d let us slip a package or two in the buggy.

The last stop was to the meat market, a place we hated.

It was a bare-bones butcher shop with cement floors and smelled of bleach. But the prices were low because the meat cuts were usually the tougher ones. Our mom is an excellent cook, and she had a way of baking a chuck roast so it melted in our mouths.

Mom usually tackled grocery-store runs alone – less chance of extras ending up in the basket.

None of us felt neglected, we were never hungry, and we never thought we were living on a shoestring.

During these inflationary times, I am thankful to the people who taught me how to be thrifty and for the tips I’ve learned along the way.

My grandmother taught me how to cut up a chicken. While shopping this weekend, a small package of chicken thigh-and-leg sections was $9.50. A whole chicken was $6.

I knew I was a little rusty when it came to slicing up a chicken, but I thought I remembered enough to cut the chicken into approximate pieces. In the end, the cuts weren’t clean, but I could tell a leg from a wing, so I scored that a success.

Cajun cooks know a pot of red beans and rice costs less than $10 and can feed a crowd for days. Jambalaya is also a cheap dish because I use the leftover chicken for the meat.

Family gatherings weren’t just for barbecues – it was also trading time. With so many cousins, we’d swap outgrown clothes back and forth because there was usually someone younger or older who could use an extra pair of shorts or jeans.

I didn’t have the money to buy what was in style when I was a teenager. One summer, my Grandma Marguerite taught me how to sew. Patterns were 75 cents and material was about a dollar a yard.

This weekend, I thought I could pass that skill onto my eldest granddaughter. I looked up sewing patterns online and was shocked. Patterns were $15 to $20. Even more insulting was I’d have to print out the pattern at home using my own paper.

Fabric is $9 a yard, and that’s just your basic, plain cotton fabric. A dress usually requires three yards of fabric, plus thread, zippers and buttons and we’re now up to over $60 for a dress.

I think I’d rather teach her how to bargain shop at the resale and thrift shops.

There are some areas where I won’t compromise.

I won’t buy single-ply toilet paper.

I’ll spend the extra money on Kraft macaroni-and-cheese.

There’s no substitute for butter.

The best investment I can make is in something my Aunt Domina claimed didn’t cost a dime – elbow grease. That’s a product you can use any time.

Denise’s email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com.

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