Reply to We REALLY have been spending more but getting less

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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%. [/quote]

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! 
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