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Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

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Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#121

Post by whatamidoingyo »

schrectacular wrote: post #78
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #4

Protip: look for an Asian market in your area for food. I get an entire shopping cart full of food for $60-100 and that lasts for ~2 weeks. When I go to Publix (or any other grocery store), I get like 2-3 bags for $60... Discovering the Asian market has been one of the best financial things to happen to me. Although I'm not really sure how their prices are so low. If someone could answer, that would be awesome!

My local Asian grocer does one key thing I know of to save/make money: lots of the workers live in a local dorm that he rents and are fed with leftovers from the bakery and nealy spoiled produce.

Smart. The one in my area also has a restaurant and they also sell baked goods. I think they're definitely doing well for themselves.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#123

Post by morkalork »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #50
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #4

Protip: look for an Asian market in your area for food. I get an entire shopping cart full of food for $60-100 and that lasts for ~2 weeks. When I go to Publix (or any other grocery store), I get like 2-3 bags for $60... Discovering the Asian market has been one of the best financial things to happen to me. Although I'm not really sure how their prices are so low. If someone could answer, that would be awesome!

The produce quality is often a bit lower. But in the last 5 years, all the grocery stores at least here in the Seattle area have had produce degrade, and they are pretty much the same as H-mart with higher prices.

Something unique to the city I'm in is there are some stores that only sell produce. I have no idea how they make it work economically other than locations with cheap rent and being an outlet for distributors but they manage to to have better quality and prices than grocery stores.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#124

Post by rkomorn »

v5v3 wrote: post #75

There are times when I have been broke and just meant I ate more plainly. 20kg sack of rice is cheap and lasts a while. Flour is cheap. Eggs are cheap Potatoes Canned tuna Etc A lot of those who complain about groceries could swap out what they would rather have until times improve.

> A lot of those who complain about groceries could swap out what they would rather have until times improve.

People can certainly complain about having to change what they eat because, even though they've had no changes in their lives (eg job / income / expense changes), prices have increased substantially.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#125

Post by epistasis »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #76

I did some math a while ago on this topic: 40 million Americans live below the poverty line of $15,000 per year. [1] Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) is around $54 trillion. [2] If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. Here’s the math: 2.5% of $54 trillion = $1.35 trillion $1.35 t…

Wealth and income are stocks and flows, respectively.

We definitely have the means to make life less stressful for everyone without inconveniencing this with massive wealth seriously. But that would mean doing things like building apartments next to detached single family homes in wealthier neighborhoods, which those people think would be a serious inconvenience.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#126

Post by mikae1 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #112
phyzix5761 wrote: post #76

I did some math a while ago on this topic: 40 million Americans live below the poverty line of $15,000 per year. [1] Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) is around $54 trillion. [2] If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. Here’s the math: 2.5% of $54 trillion = $1.35 trillion $1.35 t…

I know you said net worth and not income, but honestly, that's what taxes should be at least partly doing.

Yup, isn't that what raising the tax in progressive way would do?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#127

Post by Ylpertnodi »

v5v3 wrote: post #75

There are times when I have been broke and just meant I ate more plainly. 20kg sack of rice is cheap and lasts a while. Flour is cheap. Eggs are cheap Potatoes Canned tuna Etc A lot of those who complain about groceries could swap out what they would rather have until times improve.

>20kg sack of rice is cheap and lasts a while. Flour is cheap. Eggs are cheap Potatoes Canned tuna. Where i am canned tuna hasn't gone up in price, but there is considerably less of it in the can, and noticeably more seawater.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#128

Post by bsenftner »

self_awareness wrote: post #116
phyzix5761 wrote: post #76

I did some math a while ago on this topic: 40 million Americans live below the poverty line of $15,000 per year. [1] Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) is around $54 trillion. [2] If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. Here’s the math: 2.5% of $54 trillion = $1.35 trillion $1.35 t…

> If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. For a day. A lot of people below the poverty line would spend all the money on trips and luxuiry goods. And would be right back where they've started. Also, the question is why would anyone want to work, if you would be given money for free even if you don't w…

[flagged]

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#129

Post by emushack »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #90
bawana wrote: post #29

According to https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... 1 out of 7 US inhabitants have food insecurity. And this is a govt website likely to underestimate the statistic

I have a bit of a gripe with this "food insecurity" metric. The stat comes from people reporting that they have felt hungry without having enough food to satiate their hunger. Totally makes sense at first pass. But here is the rub, obesity is out of control in the US, and it is especially bad in poorer populations. So now we have two conflicting stats: Poor people are food insecure while simultaneously being overweig…

Wow. I'm at a loss for words with this comment.

So, in case you aren't from America, you might not know this: the food that is the cheapest also happens to be the food that is the least nutritious. Americans who are poor cannot afford fresh vegetables, fruit, meats and gym memberships. They can afford cheetos.

It is quite the spurious correlation to say that obesity causes hunger. Just wow.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#130

Post by Epa095 »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #93
chvid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not.

It's unintuitive how, but it probably would cause prices to go haywire.

It could, at least temporarily. But there is no reason to belive it won't stabilise again.

Increased demand without increased production will increase prices. But then producers will follow, and production will increase, and prices will stabilise.

Increased tax on the rich and distributing it to poor moves a tiny bit of the combined 'voting power' we have over production as consumers to the poor, so there will be slightly less luxury cars produced and slight more food.

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