My receipt from 2005 compared to now: ‘I was shocked’ | money

My receipt from 2005 compared to now: ‘I was shocked’ |  money

She stood there looking at her for a moment. When Clarice van der Woude, 47, was cleaning her house, she found an Aldi receipt from 2005. She emailed the receipt to our editors. “Of course everyone is talking about it now. Everything is more expensive. And yet what I saw shocked me. Eighteen years later, in times of high inflation, we compare grocery prices to today’s prices. For one product, there was a 424 percent increase.”

“We were cleaning up,” van der Wood says of her discovery. “Things we no longer need can go. We found a box of paint remover. We bought it for a purpose, but never used it. I kept the receipt for warranty purposes. I paid €9.99 for it at the time. I wanted to sell a tool Paint removal at Marktplaats, so I looked up how much it costs now.”

The same paint stove is no longer sold, but similar private brand appliances cost about the same or slightly more. “In the end, I sold it for eight euros,” Van der Woude says, laughing. Only 2 euros less than the new price eighteen years ago. Then she couldn’t resist comparing the rest of the receipt. “Of course everyone is talking about it now. Everything has become more expensive. However, I was shocked by what I saw.”

Compare: 2005 and 2023

Van der Woude bought a number of products that she had also purchased eighteen years ago. “But they no longer have some products,” she says. “The chicken fillets I bought at the time came from the fridge. Nowadays you can only open kilo boxes from the fridge. I make portions of that myself and then freeze them myself. Back then I paid €5.49 and now €9.79. I don’t think the difference is that bad “

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In terms of percentage, other products stand out more. “Pre-baked rolls, for example. Back then, six baguettes for 22 cents, now 79 cents. A bottle of ketchup from Aldi at the time was €0.45, now €1.09. But the butter products really took off. In 2005, I paid €0.32 for a can of ghee, and now it costs €1.19. That’s a 272 percent increase. And it’s even worse for bread and frying butter: 17 cents then and now 89 cents. That’s a 424 percent increase!

“The main reasons for this are of course inflation and increased costs,” says Babs van der Stack of the Consumers Association. “Think of the increasing costs of raw materials, energy, transportation and labor. No doubt everyone has heard that.” So nothing new, but a shopping receipt like this makes this very tangible.

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On the left is an Aldi coupon from 2005, on the right from September 2023.
On the left is an Aldi coupon from 2005, on the right from September 2023. © Clarice van der Woude

Salary rose less quickly

Van der Wood also listed her salary from 2005 and compared it to today’s salary. “My salary has increased by 104 percent. I have changed employers several times. So I don’t know if this is a normal increase in eighteen years. That is why I included the current collective labor agreement of my employer at that time. If I had not changed jobs and moved up the “With higher levels on the same scale, my salary would have increased by only 26 percent. Obviously it pays to change employers every now and then.”

shrinkage?

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However, there are also products that have not become more expensive. “Potatoes still cost 99 cents,” says Van der Woude. “Will the contents of the bag get smaller? Unfortunately, we can no longer find out.”

If there is less quantity in the package and the price does not decrease, we call this shrinkage. “Consumers are very upset by these kinds of deceptive price increases,” says van der Stack. “We think manufacturers should be more transparent about this. When we ask why they made the packaging smaller, they give all kinds of reasons. For example, that the packaging is more sustainable, or they want to prevent waste, or that costs have increased. But we want them to.” To inform consumers more clearly on packaging that the content has been modified.”

Buying behavior has changed

So Van der Woude’s salary rose less quickly than some grocery stores. Has she changed her purchasing behavior over the past 18 years? ,,certainly. For example, we no longer buy slices of cheese, we buy a block. Also, no more grated cheese, we grate it ourselves and you can freeze it just fine. My kids really love cucumbers, and we now grow them ourselves. “It’s going well and the kids are having a lot of fun too.”

Additional tax on plastic

Also new are the surcharges on plastic. “Nowadays, I don’t buy shakes anymore, but I bought these to compare. In 2005, I paid 25 cents for that, now 55 cents. But that includes a 5-cent surcharge on plastic.”

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Van der Stack: “This arises from the European Directive, which aims to reduce the impact of disposable plastic on the environment and to reuse and recycle more plastic. It is not a tax, so supermarkets do not have to pay it to the government, but the intention is to spend it on sustainability. “We can’t say if they actually do it. But you could pay a higher surcharge for plastic in one supermarket than you would in another supermarket.”

Aldi receipt from 2005.
Aldi receipt from 2005. © Clarice van der Woude

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