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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

#41

Post by aprilthird2021 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #30
micromacrofoot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting pretty bad, I wonder where the floor is. A growing number of people are using credit to purchase groceries — buy now pay later schemes are also resulting in people putting ubereats on credit https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/business/buy-now-pay-late... ( https://archive.is/Cmzis )

It's important to note that using credit isn't purely an indication of struggling. A lot of those payment programs offer 0% incentives, and from a purely logical standpoint, the correct thing to do is put everything you buy on a 0% loan for as long as possible.

A negligible portion of people are executing this strategy of yours. Most can't afford what they are buying

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

#42

Post by pjc50 »

aeblyve wrote: post #16
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!

I would love to learn more about the unit economics of groceries. How is it that a small grocery store can sometimes provide things (much) more cheaply than a megacorporation? [0] If the latter was functioning well in a competitive market, I would expect their play to be on lower margins but higher volume. [0] Mostly I'm referring to offal TBF, which I think most firms are happy to make any money on at all.

The megacorp can provide cheap food, it just doesn't want to. In practice they adjust the margins in a data-driven way on individual goods.

UK supermarkets actually provide pretty cheap fresh produce, because the market is pretty competitive. I think the most ridiculous I've seen was a 1kg bag of carrots for 20p.

Many countries or locations do not have highly competitive supermarkets.

Oh, and there's both volume and self-discrimination effects at work. In my supermarket shopping in the Asian food section is often cheaper as they sell big bags of rice and spices, to more cost-conscious consumers. See also: Costco.

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

#43

Post by bix6 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #31
t1234s wrote: post #18

In the US insurance (of all types: car, house, health) is a major expense and only getting worse.

I'm a fairly well to do/employable person, and so is my wife. Together, we should be all kinds of financially stable. But the two largest costs to our finances are ridiculously outsized: Child Care and Health Care. We pay more for our children and health insurance / care, than our house + cars (+student loans) combined. These seem like two areas where intervention is not only possible but likely to help just about ev…

Curious where you live that healthcare is more than housing?

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

#44

Post by bombcar »

jvanderbot wrote: post #31
t1234s wrote: post #18

In the US insurance (of all types: car, house, health) is a major expense and only getting worse.

I'm a fairly well to do/employable person, and so is my wife. Together, we should be all kinds of financially stable. But the two largest costs to our finances are ridiculously outsized: Child Care and Health Care. We pay more for our children and health insurance / care, than our house + cars (+student loans) combined. These seem like two areas where intervention is not only possible but likely to help just about ev…

There's a "middle class dip" where one spouse working barely makes enough to cover the increased costs from child care and other incidentals (like eating out more often).

The poor either have a non-working spouse or get subsidized child care, and the rich don't know what a banana costs.

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

#45

Post by TechDebtDevin »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #7
TechDebtDevin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Huh? I'm guessing you didn't mean to reply to me?

You're talking about getting in a car and driving to a specialized grocery store to "save money". I'm saying you could also just by produce and save money.

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

#46

Post by deanmoriarty »

> About half the public identify the cost of groceries as a major source of financial stress.

And some other portion of the population, anecdotally much larger than what I would have thought, orders DoorDash/UberEats regularly, what a stark contrast.

I am in a good financial situation, but I still could never stomach the prices of those apps, $30-40+ for any item once one includes fees and everything. I recently got a promotion through my credit card that led me to take another look at DoorDash, and my local grocery store deli sandwich, which is already very expensive at about $10, would have been $25+ on there.

Yet it’s full of people using them, multiple times a week and for an entire family. I had coworkers casually mention that they spend $2k+/mo on DoorDash orders. It’s one aspect of the American consumerism that always baffles me.

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

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #20
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!

Protip #2: frozen veggies and fruit. Cheaper, supposedly healthier (flash frozen), easy to make, zero preparation, and never need to worry about it going bad.

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by siliconc0w »

languagehacker wrote: post #3

This does seem like "Sky blue and water wet" sort of reporting, but that's just because of the daft headline. When most people are challenged with affording the basics, that points to a severe economic risk. We've lived through a period of incredibly cheap credit due to where we are in the monetary cycle of the USD as a reserve currency. We sort of brought it on ourselves though, given the vicious cycle of buying che…

We could have used our position to offer healthcare and childcare for all like many less prosperous countries. Instead we started pointless wars, cut taxes for the very rich, and embraced a politics of grift.

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

#49

Post by Aurornis »

aeblyve wrote: post #16
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!

I would love to learn more about the unit economics of groceries. How is it that a small grocery store can sometimes provide things (much) more cheaply than a megacorporation? [0] If the latter was functioning well in a competitive market, I would expect their play to be on lower margins but higher volume. [0] Mostly I'm referring to offal TBF, which I think most firms are happy to make any money on at all.

> How is it that a small grocery store can sometimes provide things (much) more cheaply than a megacorporation?

I frequent Asian markets everywhere I’ve lived for certain ingredients, but not for my main grocery shopping.

For regular groceries I don’t think there’s any secret. The markets with extra cheap groceries are just carrying different products at different price points.

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

#50

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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.
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