Voting with Our Dollars, circa 1946

Follow the money, they say, and truth will reveal itself. So as we wrap up this week of 1946, let's take a quick look at where we put our dollars back in the day.

When the charts below were compiled, a national mania for chicken had not yet spread across this country. Beef really was what was for dinner. Frozen meals didn't exist. There were markets, but supermarkets were a new phenomenon. In the weekly food expenditures chart below, you'll probably notice a few differences from your own budget.



I understand thrift and home economics, of course, but I've always been a bit mystified by complaints about food expenditures. Do you really want your dinner produced by the lowest bidder?

For a great number of us the answer is, and has been, "Yes! I'll eat the cheapest things available. Bring on the 99-cent menu!"

As oil prices increase, food prices will undoubtedly rise.

Will those prices rise to the percentage of income we see at the close of the 1940s (a'la the chart below)? Probably not anytime soon. In the postwar period of the late '40s, we faced the Malthusian dilemma and chose cheap and plentiful.