Inflation hits home..

The Sam's Club here is the same way. If the line is more than 5 or 6 cars from the pumps, I just go to the Wawa across the street for .20 more per gallon, for the exact same reason. I just don't want to sit and wait...

 

Ah left overs are the best! Lunch sandwiches and lental bean soup!!
I am the one who mentioned the mayo price. Each chain has a "generic" off brand like Shaws with it's "Lucerene" brand, Stop and Shop with its "Great value" brand. I did end up getting the off brand mayo for $5.49 I think?
Remember though even way before covid hit the packages got smaller so the sales meant nothing. Coffee that use to come in 14 ounces tubs were now maby 10 or 11 ounces.
The mayo I bought was 30 ounces also so not even a quart
Just look how much smaller oreo's are now.

I'm lucky that I have 3 to 4 big chain supermarkets within 10 miles of me. I don't usually go on a best buy spree of shopping. I do prefer the obviuosly the cheaper all around ones.
Now my girl drives me nuts, I am not cheapskate but she will buy already made salads and hand made fruit and yogurt cups for example for $5 or $6 each when she can make maby 7 or 8 the same way by hand for $5 just by buying the individual stuff..

 

The shipping companies did the same and then when gas prices dropped didn't drop the fee

 

This is one of those times when I'm happy to live in the frozen Canadian tundra. Food prices haven't risen as much here as some of you have stated. I check my local grocery store flyer every week for the best deals. Periodically find BOGO boneless, skinless chicken breasts, so I stock up. Currently have 8 family size packages in my freezer, which cost me less than a C note. I do pay a premium price for grass fed, hormone free red meat from a small local store as I lost my taste for the pink slim infused grocery store garbage years ago. Haven't dined out in several years, nor do I eat so called "fast food".

You should see my TP accumulation, all of which was bought at half the regular price.

Being semi retired and living on a somewhat fixed income means the likelihood of my buying another GS diminishes every month.

 

I thought politics wasn't allowed here?

 

As mentioned, I think that some companies are using “inflation” as cover to jack their prices out of sight. Yes, things are going up, but a merchant can adjust their margins to make the same net w/o gouging. But it’s easier to gouge under the cover of inflation.

I had to raise prices this year in my auto repair shop, but only to cover the costs of added expenses. Engine oil has gone at least 40% in the past year, and with oil changes already loss leaders, I had to raise the price of those for the first time in years. After about the 3rd increase in cost of oil in less than a year, I shopped it (oil) to a competitor, who was less. I told my supplier that I already raised my prices once this year, and I’m not doing that again, nor am I absorbing any more increases. So that leaves only one option, leave the price alone, or I am changing suppliers. They left the price alone.

One thing we have done to try to mitigate steep increases was to get out in front of it and buy a lot of stocking inventory. We’ve spent upwards of 20k on bulk oil, oil filters, brake fluid, coolants, and R134a. We bought enough R134a to easily finish out my career. Being a small shop in a small town, we value our loyal customer base, so re-investment in them we thought was the right thing to do.

 

I think most peeps here need some help in one way or another...not just Sean !

Glass houses......

Peace WildBill

p.s.....my whole beef of grain fed,grass fed,no hormone,no antibiotics Black Angus will be ready in june !

 

In my line of work which is Commercial and industrial hvac/r service new equipment is getting very costly and gard to get. This means prices are up considerably. Im one of the old world technicians that actually believe in repairing equipment instead of trying to upsell a customer to new "more efficient" units. Our company won't use the current economic market as an excuse to gouge customers and as a result we have more business than we can handle. I wish more companies were of that mindset.

 

I wouldn't say putin drained the swamp. Now he may well have filled the swamp with the bodies of his enemies, but not really draining.

 

Not going there.

 

Speaking of inflation, we are going to sell our house, should be able to get around 525K for it which is almost twice what we paid. It's a gamble but we are going to motorhome it until the crash. If it don't crash we still have a buildable lot in Nevada we can either build on or put a moduler on. We'll see wish us luck!

Bob H.

 

Well Bill… This is how my Angus cooked up tonight!

 

Hey, no porn on this sight. You are making my arteries hard.

 

YUMMY !!!!!

Peace WildBill

 

Planning to drive the motorhome until the crash? My wife drives the same way.

Selling a home for a big profit only results in true money in the bank if you downsize or move somewhere cheaper: my house going up in value is immaterial, as I never plan to sell.

The motorhome option is nice if it is your thing. You can make a lot of people envious doing that. Sounds cool.

 

Im right there with you and if you do the math there is more money to be made in service than replacement + you get a long standing customer until it really is time to replace the equipment. I also dont push the super high end stuff. More to go wrong and more $ to fix when it does.

Agree with you also. I have not raised my prices on most offered services in the 17 years I've been in business here. Some stuff I had to go up on just a little due to cost increases like Freon but overall labor is the same. I also dont charge a fee for just showing up. I'll troubleshoot the system and tell the customer what it will cost to fix it for free. If they want to know whats wrong that cost 89$. If I do the repair its flat rate pricing.

 

My concern is that at least for a while (maybe a long while), real estate will continue to rise in price. I doubt that even if you invest every penny of that $525,000 in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, you will be able to get the kind of dividends or interest that will equal what that money would yield invested in real estate, and that yield will be taxable. I have a mutual fund that has averaged 11% return on investment since 1983; up until I retired, I reinvested every penny that it yielded, and it hasn't come close to what I have made in real estate. For the record, I am not in the real estate business - the bride and I have owned five houses over the years and we have made real money on the four that we have sold. Our present house has been appraised at twice the price that we paid for it six years ago. We have put some money into it, but we are probably close to $200,000 ahead. Selling a house here in sunny SW Florida is not a problem; just yesterday a local TV station reported that the average single-family home is on the market for 13 days.

 

Inflation happens when money is too easy to get. People borrow more because it's cheap. It doesn't cost much to borrow money. So that means the people who have it want more back to accommodate the extra risk. The poor run into trouble, so governments rush in with more borrowed money to help ease the crunch. Governments running huge deficits and being faced with huge interest or loan payments are very motivated to see money lose value as that allows them to pay on the loans and remain solvent. (This is how Canada turned around a debt crisis in the 90s, let inflation take care of the payment and consequences to the public be damned) This in turn results in a huge transfer of wealth from the taxpayers back to the governments. As you can see it's a vicious circle; and who gets left holding the bag? The people who actually generate wealth and money, the working middle class. We all have too much to lose so we just carry on and pay, and pay, and pay...

Money has lost most of it's value compared to when the whole world started to abandon the gold standard back in 1913. Prior to 1913, it was very difficult to borrow money or generate wealth because for every dollar created, it had to be backed in raw gold. It was getting to the point where there was not enough gold, so to borrow or create more was very expensive and difficult, not like today where a 12 year old can get a credit card. That's about the time when the Fed finally got it's act together and approved the Federal Reserve which finally put a halt to constant bank failures and huge recessions. Prior to that point, many local banks issued money and all too many overextend themselves and fail, resulting in people losing their live savings and more. The Fed system and with one central source printing money stopped all of that. They lost control of it again in 1929, which resulted in a lot of new laws regarding stock markets and financing. But it still doesn't stop the fact that greed still motivates bankers and politicians to be short sighted and make mistakes. The band aid fixes that they then implement do nothing to the overall picture, just lessen the short term pain. In the meantime, a dollar is only worth about a tenth of what it was in 1971 when Nixon decoupled the US economy completely from gold, which is why a new pickup is worth $100,000 nowadays.

No one has learned anything from the Weimar hyperinflationary period of 1922-23. If the current cycles continue and the Fed doesn't clamp down and drive up interest rates which will in turn drive up the value of money by making it scarce again, a new pickup will be $200,000 in 5 years. So all of you who are thinking that you're making great gobs of money off of real estate or stocks, think again; the average return on most stocks is around 4-5%, well below the real inflation rate, and your house values are also subject to be skewed, - if your house went up 20-30% it will take you that much and then some so to replace it once you sell it.

You're not winning.

 

I suppose that you can look at it that way, but when I step back and look at our $700,000 + house (paid for) our cars, including my two toys (paid for), very low cost great medical care, and earning a comfortable income without my having to do any paid work whatsoever, all I can say is "what a country". We have our problems, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

 

Not sure... It's a 97 SC version.. Beth was driving it last summer, and it was exhibiting a rough idle.. so much so that she left it running, with her Mom sitting in it, as she did a few quick errands. She had owned it for about 6 months, and it ran great. She parked at her Mom's place in the cities to stay overnight, as was planned. In the morning it was a crank/no start situation.

We had AAA tow it back to the shop here, and I just took a quick look at it.. No codes, and the quick checks of Air, Fuel, and Spark showed no issues. It will start with some effort, but runs for all the world like it has a plugged exhaust.. Anyone who has ever dealt with a vehicle with a restricted/plugged exhaust knows what I mean.. idles fine when first started, but when you try to accelerate, it just flattens out and then dies..

I have not ruled out a sensor issue, but at this point in time, have not spent enough time on it to do anything but raise more questions than answers. I pushed it off the the side, as I was busy with customer work, and she had acquired a second vehicle, so it's repair was not time critical. And soon it disappeared into a snowbank.. I will be pulling it into the shop, to diagnose and repair it, so I can start running errands in it. Fun car to drive, decent mileage, big enough trunk to haul some stuff. Probably won't be till after the nats, as I am just stuffed with things to do before then.

I was informed that Beth actually has a Sam's club membership. I guess I knew that, but had forgotten.. So we stopped by yesterday, as we were in town visiting some friends for lunch and afternoon bar bingo.. Yes, I am well aware of the various packaging schemes out there, especially with Walmart/Sam's club.. Everything we bought, I verified as a better price, on a price per item basis, regardless on how it was packaged. Stocked up on everyday use items, that we usually picked up at the local Walmart, and saved some money..

JW