カリフォルニアってとにかく物価が高くて暮らしにくいところと思っていたけれど、たまには”安い”ものもあるという”うれしい”発見をしました。なんといっても野菜にくだものが安い！とくにフルーツは種類も豊富。それに、肉や魚も案外安い。加えてブランド製品、たとえばトーマスのベーグルやダノンのアクティビア・ヨーグルトでさえ、前にバージニアで払っていた値段に比べるとかなり安いように思います。今日買い物に行って、カートいっぱいの食料を買ったけれど、シャーロッツビルならば軽く120ドルは払っている分量なのに、なんと79ドル！
カリフォルニアの消費税は7.25％でこれは全米でもちろん一番高い率。ついでに書くと、ミシシッピ、ニュー・ジャージー、ロード・アイランド、テネシー が7%で次ぎ、その後ワシントン、ミネソタ、ネバダが6.5%。テキサスとイリノイの6.25%が後を追います。バージニアは5%。カリフォルニアの 7.25%はどうみても高すぎだけれど、うれしいことに非加工食品には税がかかりません。普通多くの州が食品は非課税としていますが、バージニアは課税する数少ない州のうちのひとつ（食品の消費税は2.5%)。ウエスト・バージニア(同4%)とテネシー(同5.5％)が同じような州です。つまり、ここでは食品の元値が安いうえに非課税なので、とても安く感じるようです。
Everything is expensive in California, right? Well, that is at least what I believed until now. But to my surprise, there are couple of things I found so inexpensive in comparison to the price level I am used to in Virginia. First of all, it's grocery. The fresh produce is abundant and very reasonable. Other items like meat and fish are very reasonably priced, too. Even brand name products, Thomas Bagels and Danone Activia yogurt for example, are much cheaper than the prices I was paying in Charlottesville, VA. Today I went grocery shopping and purchased a full cart of food, for which I would be easily paying $120 in Virginia. The total was only $79.
In California, the sales tax rate is 7.25%, which it THE highest in this country. For your info, the second highest is 7% of Mississippi, New Jersey, Road Island and Tennessee, and then 6.5% of Washington, Minnesota and Nevada, followed by 6.25% of Texas and Illinois. Virginia's rate is 5%. California's 7.25% is gross by any standard, but they do not tax "unprocessed food items," thus I rarely pay tax on food I buy. Actually Virginia is one of the very few states that tax food (2.5% on food), along with West Virginia (4%) and Tennessee (5.5%) . Here in California, the prices are low to start with and there is no tax on it, so going grocery became my favorite activity.
