MEDIUM RARE

Inflation is a slippery eel. You cannot pin it down. For one thing, down is the wrong word, because inflation means prices moving upwards. Unlike the law of gravity, what goes up doesn’t come down.

Inflation is almost a physical law of nature, and it’s here to stay, except when you refer to seasonal goods and the law of supply and demand. Technically, however, it’s money chasing after a limited supply of goods. In the National Capital Region, where the daily minimum wage is tagged at ₱610, the question is, how much of that amount is lost to inflation?

Every consumer has their own answer. It would be simpler to ask, how far does ₱1,000 go? That’s more than the minimum wage; even so, is it enough to sustain a family of five? I asked three women, one of whom is unmarried, to calculate how they spend their blue polymer bill, which won an award for its design a few months ago.

N, married, childless, replies in, shall we say, wholesale terms: 16.6 kg of rice (three weeks ago), or two bowls of ramen, or 10 kg of dog food, or a driver’s fee for one day.

T lives alone, estimates ₱1,000 will buy her, at Divisoria prices, 10 full meals for 10 days. Lunch of salted fish, fried rice. Plus siomai and bibingka, fruits and veggies, tinapa, boiled corn, plus transpo. With ₱40 left for her piggybank. Outside of a Divisoria mindset because she’d like to indulge her gastronomic taste “once in a while,” she’d have to spend ₱900 for claypot rice, Majestic ham and whole wheat bread. For pennypinchers, she recommends a carinderia lunch at ₱60 and fried lumpia at ₱25.

P, a single mother with two kids (and two maids), calculates ₱1,000 will cover one kilo of pork, a one-kilo chicken, vegetables and condiments. She did not say how many meals or days those ingredients ought to cover.

Can two live as cheaply as one? To the contrary, a two-income (Mr. and Mrs.) household is not typically easy to maintain at ₱1,220 a day; what about rent, Meralco, water, fuel, taxes? “When the feast is finished and the lamps expire,” will the lovers see how the arithmetic works out in real life?