Dough rises, literally and figuratively, whether one is referring to bread or money.

I bought a loaf of white bread for a friend on Saturday at Food-4-Less for $4.28.

It’s something I do periodically.

I really don’t notice the price as I haven’t bought bread for myself at a grocery store for decades. Besides, I don’t pay for it per se.

This past weekend I happened to be sorting through an old box of books that included one I used a cash register receipt to mark a page.

The book was about California water issues, a subject that never fails to fascinate me.

But it was the receipt that was the “must read” this time.

It was from the West Yosemite Avenue Save Mart store back in August 1991.

Among the items on it was a loaf of bread for $1.21.

It was a different brand and I believe would have been a smaller loaf.

That aside, the price difference was $3.07.

It translated into a 253 percent price difference.

Although I wasn’t making minimum wage back then, the California minimum wage in 1991 was $4.75 per hour compared to $16.90 today. That reflects a 255 percent increase.

I was renting a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment in the Park Place complex on Crom Street for $445 a month at the time.

The same unit plan rents for $1,695 a month today.

The rental difference is 280 percent.

I was stunned the bread had increased as much as it has, but not so the rent even though the rate of inflation for housing, had I stayed put and continued to eat white bread, was higher.

It has a lot to do with housing payments that are the biggest monthly outgo that I have.

My mortgage payments coupled with property taxes and insurance have been fairly consistent over the years with modest increases.

The fact I do stories often about Manteca home sale prices and apartment rents saps “the shock valve” of looking at a cost change through the prism of 35 years is gone.

It is against the background of how inflation lifts up the base cost of everything including labor, but clearly not at the same pace or time, that the incessant whining from some quarters about the cost of Manteca’s new 46,000 square-foot police station breaking ground in the 600 block of South Main Street the first week in October needs to be addressed.

At first glance, $92 million does seem outrageous. But keep in mind that includes soft costs such as equipping the station and not just the building itself.

It also includes extensive security and earthquake upgrades.

We also often forget the bells and whistles that come with everything from new vehicles to new buildings today.

Basic white bread is still basic white bread after 35 years.

There are no improved crusts and no cutting edge changes in packaging.

It is still available in only one color.

No so much new housing, especially in California.

The quality and efficiency on items such as roofing materials, HVAC systems and even built-in appliances are in another league.

Solar panels and fire suppression systems are now part of a basic new home.

Even what we define as basic housing as individuals has changed. Formica counter tops are passe as opposed to granite.

A house with one bathroom is an aberration as opposed to being the standard as it was in the 1950s.

Average houses no longer fall in the 900 to 1,200 square-foot range.

One car garages? Today, a garage that can accommodate enough stuff to occupy the space of two vehicles is considered inadequate by many.

What you get when you drive a new car off the lot today than you did 50, 30, or even 20 years ago is more of the same.

Everything from more effective construction and materials to enhance both safety and gas mileage to interior passenger pampering that would make Corinthian leather aficionado Ricardo Montalban envious.

Most vehicles can “synch” with your phone that is actually a minicomputer that makes the first personal computer rolled out in 1981 — the IBM 5150 — seem like a combo Etch a Sketch and a crude abacus in comparison.

Yes, things are expensive.

But with exceptions like white bread, many things we buy and whine about the price of today are delivering more bang for the buck by wide margins.

The cost of living is often driven more by wants more than needs.

A family of four doesn’t need more than one bathroom. Families that size and larger functioned quite well in new homes built in the 1950s.

A home for a family of four with four bathrooms is a want driven more by convenience than practicality.

If you doubt that, think back in the Stone Age when parents and two kids woke up in the same house and managed to share one bathroom in order to get ready for work and school.