We REALLY have been spending more but getting less

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! I feel bad this turn poltical and got off track! Thanks for everyone who could relate.

What did you expect?

After Republcians win in 2024 we will have bread lines.

Buy whatever you can now.
Russia or North Korea 2.0 will be way worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our income increased recently from 240k to 330k but our spending has not increased since 2020 because we budget our income before the money hits our checking account. Budgeting works.

Even in low inflation years it'd be extremely remarkable not to see any increase in spending across four years. Given the substantial inflation in food alone of the last four years you are either not honest or you are scaling back (lowering your quality if life) in order to stick to strict savings benchmarks.

I don't really get the substantial increase in food, at least not now. It used to be high in 2021, but so many everyday food items are cheaper than in 2021 and equivalent to 2019 (I think). Just went to Trader Joe's and paid $1.88 for a dozen eggs...$2.39 for a gallon of milk. Pay attention to what is on sale that week at Safeway/Giant in terms of meat and other stuff. Also, love Amazon Fresh as they routinely give 20% off for Amazon Prime members and actually have great sales on different items.

I guess I have always shopped this way.

Your anecdotal experience is irrelevant. The data is crystal clear and is all over the internet if you'd bother to research it, both for official year to year inflation, and food inflation. Since 2019 we have had substantial inflation across the board, food, housing, cost of services, healthcare, insurance, car costs, materials, services in general. If you aren't feeling it, you are either clueless or in denial.

No one is saying there wasn’t substantial inflation. What we are say is that there wasn’t 100% food inflation, or even 50% food inflation. So posters who say they track expenses and their costs have double are probably being a bit disingenuous. In reality, food inflation was about 25% from 2019 to 2023. Under a normal inflationary environment, that number would be 8%.

Many individual items did double or go up 50%. You're probably not noticing something going from $3.50 to $7.00 because the mind doesn't register those kinds of increases. Other items have definitely come back down in costs from high spikes, like eggs. But all in all, food costs remain noticeably higher and, yes, 25% is noticeably higher, than a few years ago. Because most people have not had 25% salary increases. Nitpicking because it may not have gone up 100% is missing the forest for the trees.

For all the doubters: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inflation-consumer-spending-food-and-restaurants-disposable-income-2024/#:~:text=That's%20according%20to%20the%20latest,the%20highest%20percentage%20since%201991.

Then we haven't even gotten into the cost of services and buying new houses. Thanks to interest rates increases, if I were to buy my house today my mortgage would more than double!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

This. The problems with the wasteful Covid spending is just starting. Just wait until they have big trouble unloading short term treasuries…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

There was literally an article in a local media site written by a local reporter that priced and tracked common items in four different grocery stores in the same community in NOVA. He did this for weeks, interviewed the store managers, and determined that people who pay attention to prices are affecting grocery prices dynamically.

Grocery ADHD will cost you a fortune. Being an airhead is far more expensive than inherent inflation due to macro economics is.

If you blame all your personal problems on a political figure or give that figure credit when things go well in your personal life, you’re always one election away from being unhappy and whining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

Amazing, every word of what you just said was wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really? 225k HHI. We have switched to shopping at Aldi, which has made a huge difference. Other than that it’s fine.

You are extremely prosperous. Enjoy it.

What's your plan for next year's inflation? Switch to grasshopper protein?

Inflation is way down, and some inflation is a good thing - hopefully it’s stays about 2-2.5%. Last year the rate of price increases in grocery store was 1.3%.

DP, but I don’t really get your point. Do you think inflation is still at 9% a year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Blows my mind when people say they don’t notice inflation. I feel this has to be willfull ignorance/lies to support political agenda, they are very wealthy, or they just have never kept track of money so now no different. Also perhaps with stock market up some feel they can absorb spending instead of saving whereas I look at stock market and think we’ll reach our savings goals earlier - regardless, daily costs are way up and we are feeling it, OP.

NP- inflation is actually helping those of us who have savings. I am just in shock that I get money monthly now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

There was literally an article in a local media site written by a local reporter that priced and tracked common items in four different grocery stores in the same community in NOVA. He did this for weeks, interviewed the store managers, and determined that people who pay attention to prices are affecting grocery prices dynamically.

Grocery ADHD will cost you a fortune. Being an airhead is far more expensive than inherent inflation due to macro economics is.

If you blame all your personal problems on a political figure or give that figure credit when things go well in your personal life, you’re always one election away from being unhappy and whining.

Further to this point, 5 products are responsible for 30% of grocery store inflation: beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables and snacks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/02/grocery-price-inflation-biden/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

There was literally an article in a local media site written by a local reporter that priced and tracked common items in four different grocery stores in the same community in NOVA. He did this for weeks, interviewed the store managers, and determined that people who pay attention to prices are affecting grocery prices dynamically.

Grocery ADHD will cost you a fortune. Being an airhead is far more expensive than inherent inflation due to macro economics is.

If you blame all your personal problems on a political figure or give that figure credit when things go well in your personal life, you’re always one election away from being unhappy and whining.

Further to this point, 5 products are responsible for 30% of grocery store inflation: beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables and snacks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/02/grocery-price-inflation-biden/

Good article. I just paid an insane amount of money for a massive fish because my family loves fish, but we’ll be eating leftovers for two or three days.

That’s ok. Waste is bad for the environment no matter what inflation is doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

There was literally an article in a local media site written by a local reporter that priced and tracked common items in four different grocery stores in the same community in NOVA. He did this for weeks, interviewed the store managers, and determined that people who pay attention to prices are affecting grocery prices dynamically.

Grocery ADHD will cost you a fortune. Being an airhead is far more expensive than inherent inflation due to macro economics is.

If you blame all your personal problems on a political figure or give that figure credit when things go well in your personal life, you’re always one election away from being unhappy and whining.

Further to this point, 5 products are responsible for 30% of grocery store inflation: beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables and snacks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/02/grocery-price-inflation-biden/

I have not read the article, but from what you have posted it appears to be entirely pointless and misleading. The impacts of inflation aren’t impactful over weeks, it’s months and years.

For example I started budgeting and shopping at Aldi in 2021. From when I started shopping there I have seen the following prices rising significantly over 3 years.

Bread $1.75 to $3
Raisins $2.50 to $4.50
Milk $3 to $4.75
Cheese $1.75 to $3
Apples $2.50 to $4
Spinach $1.75 to $3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our income increased recently from 240k to 330k but our spending has not increased since 2020 because we budget our income before the money hits our checking account. Budgeting works.

Even in low inflation years it'd be extremely remarkable not to see any increase in spending across four years. Given the substantial inflation in food alone of the last four years you are either not honest or you are scaling back (lowering your quality if life) in order to stick to strict savings benchmarks.

I don't really get the substantial increase in food, at least not now. It used to be high in 2021, but so many everyday food items are cheaper than in 2021 and equivalent to 2019 (I think). Just went to Trader Joe's and paid $1.88 for a dozen eggs...$2.39 for a gallon of milk. Pay attention to what is on sale that week at Safeway/Giant in terms of meat and other stuff. Also, love Amazon Fresh as they routinely give 20% off for Amazon Prime members and actually have great sales on different items.

I guess I have always shopped this way.

Your anecdotal experience is irrelevant. The data is crystal clear and is all over the internet if you'd bother to research it, both for official year to year inflation, and food inflation. Since 2019 we have had substantial inflation across the board, food, housing, cost of services, healthcare, insurance, car costs, materials, services in general. If you aren't feeling it, you are either clueless or in denial.

No one is saying there wasn’t substantial inflation. What we are say is that there wasn’t 100% food inflation, or even 50% food inflation. So posters who say they track expenses and their costs have double are probably being a bit disingenuous. In reality, food inflation was about 25% from 2019 to 2023. Under a normal inflationary environment, that number would be 8%.

Many individual items did double or go up 50%. You're probably not noticing something going from $3.50 to $7.00 because the mind doesn't register those kinds of increases. Other items have definitely come back down in costs from high spikes, like eggs. But all in all, food costs remain noticeably higher and, yes, 25% is noticeably higher, than a few years ago. Because most people have not had 25% salary increases. Nitpicking because it may not have gone up 100% is missing the forest for the trees.

For all the doubters: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inflation-consumer-spending-food-and-restaurants-disposable-income-2024/#:~:text=That's%20according%20to%20the%20latest,the%20highest%20percentage%20since%201991.

Then we haven't even gotten into the cost of services and buying new houses. Thanks to interest rates increases, if I were to buy my house today my mortgage would more than double!

Actually, most employees wages increased by more than 25%. it just didn't increase for all income groups equally. High dollar worker's incomes did not increase percentagewise as much as middle and lower class.

https://dqydj.com/individual-income-by-year/

A worker earning $200K in 2019, experienced a 4% increase in wages
A worker earning $100K in 2019, experienced a 11% increase in wages
A worker earning $50K in 2019, experienced a 41% increase in wages
A worker earning $30K in 2019, experienced a 64% increase in wages

[Anonymous]

I guess all the trolls on this thread forgot to take Econ 101

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess all the trolls on this thread forgot to take Econ 101

A math teacher recently said something like this to me recently.

I’ll say that again. A math teacher.

Of all jobs, you would think a math teacher would understand balancing equations and how to calculate compound interest, which is as complex as the math in Econ 101 is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when the government incessantly prints money that’s backed by nothing

Not only that, it's Bidenomics at work. INflation always surges during democratic presidencies. Everything is out of control. OP, I agree with you. Groceries, in particular, have become obscene

There was literally an article in a local media site written by a local reporter that priced and tracked common items in four different grocery stores in the same community in NOVA. He did this for weeks, interviewed the store managers, and determined that people who pay attention to prices are affecting grocery prices dynamically.

Grocery ADHD will cost you a fortune. Being an airhead is far more expensive than inherent inflation due to macro economics is.

If you blame all your personal problems on a political figure or give that figure credit when things go well in your personal life, you’re always one election away from being unhappy and whining.

Further to this point, 5 products are responsible for 30% of grocery store inflation: beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables and snacks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/02/grocery-price-inflation-biden/

I have not read the article, but from what you have posted it appears to be entirely pointless and misleading. The impacts of inflation aren’t impactful over weeks, it’s months and years.

For example I started budgeting and shopping at Aldi in 2021. From when I started shopping there I have seen the following prices rising significantly over 3 years.

Bread $1.75 to $3
Raisins $2.50 to $4.50
Milk $3 to $4.75
Cheese $1.75 to $3
Apples $2.50 to $4
Spinach $1.75 to $3

The internet is so cool. Anyone can search on the Aldi website and see that you're a liar. https://new.aldi.us/