How's inflation affecting you?

Windigo said:
Well, I can also still buy what I want. But due to our high energy bill last year, we've had to make some changes if we also want to go out for dinner etc. Which we did. But by all means, we're very well off. The changes I made just made sure we could keep doing the same things as before.
Click to expand...
Another benefit for us is, we do live pretty cheaply apart from food a vacations. We don’t have a big social calendar, we don’t run out to this attraction or that festival every weekend (apart from Oktoberfest 😃).

Our cars are old and paid for, our house payment, compared to the national average, is laughably low, our furniture is decrepit, so about the only thing we spend money on is groceries.

I must admit, I do rather like cooking at home more (but don’t tell MrsT that!). There definitely was a time when we ate out almost constantly, and when we ended that, I began to appreciate how nice it was to skip the “where are we eating?” discussion and the subsequent running all over the place to get there.
 
Without being judgemental, or condescending, I find it slightly amusing when I hear people talking about " galloping inflation" and mentioning 10%, 15%, 20%.
The Venezuelan "government" gave up publishing figures in 2016, but conservative estimates of inflation ranged between 300 - 1,000,000% between 2017 - 2022. When inflation is that high,people don´t worry about "saving money" or "cutting back: you buy as much as you can, when you can, if you have the money to do so, and see how long you can survive. Just to give you an idea, I´ve often witnessed entire families going through rubbish bags outside large blocks of flats, to see if they can rescue a few scraps of chicken or bread so they can eat. I´ve known families (often single parent families) who can only afford to buy "Harina PAN" (cornmeal flour) and sugar, and base their diet on that: an arepa for breakfast, a mixture of sugar and water for lunch, and an arepa for dinner. I´ve been in supermarkets where I´ve found a kilo of butter for, let´s say, $5, next to the new arrival, at $10. Naturally, there are advantages to living in a tropical country, because heating bills don´t exist, often laws don´t exist,social services don´t exist. Brazil inflation, at one stage, suffered 70% inflation every month. Argentina is currently experiencing 80-90% inflation.
The difference between 3rd world nations and 1st world nations is the poverty levels, and the guaranteed minimum wage. In 1st world countries, minimum wages are guaranteed - and enforced. In 3rd world countries, they dont exist. You will also find that the "poor" probably represent 80% or MORE of the population, and by "poor", I´m talking people who maybe earn less than $100 a month, and maybe have to maintain a family of 4,5 or 6 on that wage.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Without being judgemental, or condescending, I find it slightly amusing when I hear people talking about " galloping inflation" and mentioning 10%, 15%, 20%.
The Venezuelan "government" gave up publishing figures in 2016, but conservative estimates of inflation ranged between 300 - 1,000,000% between 2017 - 2022. When inflation is that high,people don´t worry about "saving money" or "cutting back: you buy as much as you can, when you can, if you have the money to do so, and see how long you can survive. Just to give you an idea, I´ve often witnessed entire families going through rubbish bags outside large blocks of flats, to see if they can rescue a few scraps of chicken or bread so they can eat. I´ve known families (often single parent families) who can only afford to buy "Harina PAN" (cornmeal flour) and sugar, and base their diet on that: an arepa for breakfast, a mixture of sugar and water for lunch, and an arepa for dinner. I´ve been in supermarkets where I´ve found a kilo of butter for, let´s say, $5, next to the new arrival, at $10. Naturally, there are advantages to living in a tropical country, because heating bills don´t exist, often laws don´t exist,social services don´t exist. Brazil inflation, at one stage, suffered 70% inflation every month. Argentina is currently experiencing 80-90% inflation.
The difference between 3rd world nations and 1st world nations is the poverty levels, and the guaranteed minimum wage. In 1st world countries, minimum wages are guaranteed - and enforced. In 3rd world countries, they dont exist. You will also find that the "poor" probably represent 80% or MORE of the population, and by "poor", I´m talking people who maybe earn less than $100 a month, and maybe have to maintain a family of 4,5 or 6 on that wage.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I am very aware that we're not poor and I mentioned that a few times.
But I don't think it's amusing either because contrary to what you might think, there are people going hungry here too. I am not one of them, but people below the poverty line in this country are currently also surviving on one meal a day.
Poverty and inflation are never amusing to me. Not sure how you can think poverty only exists in 3d world countries. Sure it's worse over there but it's not nonexistent here.
The minimum wage also correlates to prices here, and it's too low to live on currently.
I donate to local food banks and charities because I am really concerned.
 
Last edited:
Don´t get me wrong - I know poverty exists in Europe because I´ve seen it here in the UK. It´s not the "poverty" I find amusing; it´s the perception that high inflation is between 10-20% (and I´m not criticising you, I´m thinking more of the newspapers and the press in general). The BBC has been whining and whingeing and wringing their hands for the past 3 months about how so many people are going to suffer this winter because they won´t be able to pay their bills, won´t be able to feed their families and won´t be able to travel, etc., etc. and I think of families in Caracas hunting through the rubbish bags, whole families living on the street. At least to mitigate the situation, there are food banks, homeless shelters, social services and charities in the West. They might not be 100% effective, but at least they do something. Go to South America and people die on the streets .
 
karadekoolaid said:
Don´t get me wrong - I know poverty exists in Europe because I´ve seen it here in the UK. It´s not the "poverty" I find amusing; it´s the perception that high inflation is between 10-20% (and I´m not criticising you, I´m thinking more of the newspapers and the press in general). The BBC has been whining and whingeing and wringing their hands for the past 3 months about how so many people are going to suffer this winter because they won´t be able to pay their bills, won´t be able to feed their families and won´t be able to travel, etc., etc. and I think of families in Caracas hunting through the rubbish bags, whole families living on the street. At least to mitigate the situation, there are food banks, homeless shelters, social services and charities in the West. They might not be 100% effective, but at least they do something. Go to South America and people die on the streets .
Click to expand...
Yeah it's absolutely worse over there, but I still don't think the bbc is ' whining ' when people have little to no food to eat and need food banks. They're not dying in the street yet, true. But how long can this go on before that happens?
 
I think it's bad practice to compare ourselves to worst realities, because it doesn't set the bar for improvement. If you think about it, there are severely underdeveloped countries where people live in slums, children die of malnutrition and some people haven't had a hot meal in years. But if we compare ourselves to those examples we will always be thinking that we're better off than them so there's no point in changing the status quo.

There's never one day where I don't feel grateful that I was born in a country that is safe, stable, where food is easily available and healthcare is universal and cheap. But in many ways, Portugal is very undeveloped compared to other developed countries. And that's what we should be looking at, to the countries that are better off than us, so we can strive to be better and improve our situation. If we only look to those that are worse, we'll never be motivated to change.

And anything that makes people unhappy and diminishes their quality of life should be looked at and considered, be it not having food available at all or having to go to a food bank to get food.
 
Even here in "the land of plenty," the US, there is poverty. Some parts are worse than others. Texas is one of the worst for child poverty. The same is true for minimum wages. The federal minimum wage is a joke. You can't live on it. Some states have higher than the federal wage -- some a lot higher. Not Texas, but that's to be expected.

The North Texas Food Bank does a good job of getting food to people in need. They are one of my "pet charities."

CD
 
Windigo said:
But how long can this go on before that happens?
Click to expand...
A friend of mine, who was an eminent economist, wrote 37 books, was visiting professor at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, was once asked why Venezuela hadn´t gone broke. He replied : " Countries do NOT go broke". And the same applies to your question. There will always be some people (or many people, depending on the country) who will die on the streets. Drug addicts, people who, unfortunately, can´t get their lives together, etc., they might die on the streets in Europe, but they will be a tiny number, compared to the total population. TINY.
And yes, the BBC whines, whinges and complains all the time. If it´s a question of the bottle half full, or the bottle half empty, they will always go for the latter.
 
Windigo said:
We've coped by switching stores for most of our groceries, buying less meat and using a lot less gas and more airfryer or slowcooker cooking.
We're also using our car less and using less gas & electricity in general.
Click to expand...
We've changed how we shop moving away from weekly shopping.

By changing our car insurance we were able to save about $270 between the 2 vehicles. We moved away from a dedicated insurance company to a supermarket insurance company who do vehicle insurance. One of the things they offer is 10% off your shopping once a month if you buy insurance through them. Get more than 1 insurance product with them and you'll get more than 1 lot of 10% discounts. (Both vehicles are insured on the same policy to save money, so we only get the 1 lot of 10% discount. )

The first month we used it we saved around $20 because we were shopping in our usual manner, weekly for everything.

But we had a chat and realised that we could save much more if we moved over to a monthly shopping trip for non-perishable items and that week's perishable items. They cap the savings at $50 a month which totals $600 annually if you can get the maximum each month and you get to pick which shopping trip it applies to. We leave our monthly shop to the first shop after pay day which is the middle of the month with my husband's work.

They also offer another option with the reward points you get each time you shop (I only spotted this offer at the weekend). You can pay an annual fee of $60 (or monthly $7) to triple your reward points and get another shopping trip each month with 10% off.

This year our points total has us at $470 saved so far, to use during December (you can collect the points for Christmas shopping or get $10 off as you save then up). Not all of those points will get tripled, only the stuff that isn't on the extra points for buying this product this week stuff, but it will easily exceed $60 a year... and you'll get another 10% off each month. So if I plan it correctly and only go as far as $500 for the monthly shop (this month's shop was $660 after discounts, so it won't be hard) I can save up to another $50 a month in theory. It will need a little thought and possibly changing to a fortnightly shop, but I reckon we could save around $75 a month using the 2 × 10% and save more for Christmas using the reward points, probably somewhere around $600‐$750.

We don't tend to shop around in different shops that much unless it is an item we know we can't get from the supermarket. If something isn't available we just cope or change whatever meal is affected. We don't just go to another supermarket. (We don't really have that choice because the options are Aldi (neither of us like it) or Costco (we're not members so don't get the discount and hubby doesn't like it).

Otherwise, we tend to use fresh herbs from the garden and I try to grow stuff in the veg plot, not always successfullywhen native wildlife eats anything you plant....

I will have to investigate the extra rewards program ($60 annually) some more and see if it is worth it. I can go back many months of shopping to see if we could benefit from it because we get electronic receipts, so I carb just open an app on my phone and see what we've spent this year or last year, etc and base it on that.
 
I buy non perishables whenever they're on sale, so I can have stock. Then I but non perishables as I need them. So I end up shopping every week, but some weeks I buy lots of stuff and other weeks just a couple things.
 
“Guys, that’s $20 for crudités, and that doesn’t include the tequila. I mean, that’s outrageous. We’ve got Joe Biden to thank for this.”

Quote from Dr. Oz, con-artist and candidate for US Senate talking about inflation.

CD
 
Well I don´t know much about inflation, but I do know when I´ve been ripped off. After an 8 hour flight, I really needed a beer, so stopped at this place for an IPA. Didn´t ask the price, because even in London, which I consider way more expensive than NY, the most expensive pint will cost you about £6.50. These guys definitely take the biscuit and should probably be locked up for six months with nothing else but warm Miller´s Lite.
Add the obligatory tip (why the tip? She pulled a pint, that´s it) and the total came to over $17.

IMG_20221108_214336_168.jpg
 
karadekoolaid said:
Well I don´t know much about inflation, but I do know when I´ve been ripped off. After an 8 hour flight, I really needed a beer, so stopped at this place for an IPA. Didn´t ask the price, because even in London, which I consider way more expensive than NY, the most expensive pint will cost you about £6.50. These guys definitely take the biscuit and should probably be locked up for six months with nothing else but warm Miller´s Lite.
Add the obligatory tip (why the tip? She pulled a pint, that´s it) and the total came to over $17.

View attachment 92323
Click to expand...

As someone who spent ten years traveling 100-plus days a year, all I can say is welcome to the world of airport food and drink. It isn't really about inflation, as airport food and drink has been way overpriced for quite a while. It is about having a captive consumer. At least the food choices have improved at many airports. It is still expensive, but at least it is good.

CD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom