I hear that! Fortunately, for me, when my son was just born - up until he was about 2 (I could've used it until he was 5) - I used WIC. I don't know if you have this by you. This covered formula (not specialty - but he didn't need that), milk, eggs, cheese, juice, peanut butter and cereal (both infant and other brands). Of course, mostly everything was store brand or "approved" brands. But it still helped when you consider what you're spending on diapers & healthcare among other things. Even if your child can't yet have the things you can buy with WIC, it's still healthy for you. The way WIC works is you go there with your child, get evaluated (weight, etc.) answer some questions about your income, etc. and every month they print out a stack of checks. Each check has a list of what you are supposed to purchase - like one week 32 oz. box of cereal, 1 gallon Milk and the next week it would list cheese, peanut butter and juice. If your child is an infant (as mine was at the time), it would list however much formula you could get (I believe Good Start was one of the approved brands and my son did well with that). Don't get me started on GAS! It's ridiculous what they charge around here. When Hurricane Katrina blew in, the prices skyrocketed (and I'm in the Northeast - nowhere near the areas that were hit). If I'm not mistaken, a lot of gas companies got in trouble for 'gouging'.