51–60 of 327 posts
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wages have gone up too
Not nearly as much as inflation. Groceries alone are up something like 40% in the last 2-3 years. Your and everyone else's wages have not risen that fast on the whole.
Calculating inflation is difficult for the above reason.
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I live alone and just realized I’ve been spending $1300/month this year on groceries. For one person.
325/week ?? You live in a big city? We spend that for a family of 5 but we don’t buy a lot of snacks….
As a parent with kids, I really don't know how folks are getting by with the prices of everything. I know folks who keep eating out, buying new vehicles, and even building new houses and I'm left scratching my head wondering how they afford all of this. I'm not saving nearly as much as I was years ago and I think my "lifestyle" has decreased post COVID (few vacations, eating out is a treat, gifts are for birthdays/ho…
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>IMHO vehicles are huge drivers of debt. There are almost no cars under $30k now, and the average sale price of new cars is pushing up near $50k. This is for bog standard stuff like Hondas and Fords, not luxury cars. I went on toyota.com and a base level corolla is only selling for $22,795. This includes a "Delivery, Processing & Handling" charge of $1,095. If for whatever reason you think that driving a compact car…
Exactly. It’s the SUVs and trucks that are suffering runaway prices. Driving a new Camry or Honda Accord is still doable
What I don't understand is this 2% price target. Prices could go up 10% one year, and well call it a success if next year we "tame inflation" by only having our prices go up 2%. Why can't we target to get prices back down? For those on a fixed income, this is money we lost forever. We expect (and see) some prices go down every year (mainly electronics) and it works fine. But god forbid the price of milk goes down a b…
What I don't understand is this 2% price target. Prices could go up 10% one year, and well call it a success if next year we "tame inflation" by only having our prices go up 2%. Why can't we target to get prices back down? For those on a fixed income, this is money we lost forever. We expect (and see) some prices go down every year (mainly electronics) and it works fine. But god forbid the price of milk goes down a b…
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Same. I make decent money and used to save thousands per month. Now I'm lucky to stash away high hundreds a month, but any expense like new brakes wipes that out. I wonder how in the world everyone else is getting by. Maybe we're all just smiling and pretending here...
I live alone and just realized I’ve been spending $1300/month this year on groceries. For one person.
That's for one adult eating 3 meals at home, 2 eating 2 meals at home, and 1 eating 1 meal at home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>IMHO vehicles are huge drivers of debt. There are almost no cars under $30k now, and the average sale price of new cars is pushing up near $50k. This is for bog standard stuff like Hondas and Fords, not luxury cars. I went on toyota.com and a base level corolla is only selling for $22,795. This includes a "Delivery, Processing & Handling" charge of $1,095. If for whatever reason you think that driving a compact car…
Goooooooood luck driving off a dealer lot with a $22k Toyota! Seriously, if you can do it then good on you! But back in the real world the on the lot availability of cars is abysmal and most makes are sold out for months of backlog. Like if you want a Toyota minivan it's something like a 2 year wait--unless you are willing to buy one on the lot with a $10k dealer markup.
What I don't understand is this 2% price target. Prices could go up 10% one year, and well call it a success if next year we "tame inflation" by only having our prices go up 2%. Why can't we target to get prices back down? For those on a fixed income, this is money we lost forever. We expect (and see) some prices go down every year (mainly electronics) and it works fine. But god forbid the price of milk goes down a b…
Governments are afraid of deflation (prices going down) because consumers can go into a holding pattern (stopping spending while waiting for prices to continue to decrease) which can cause the economy to stall out.