5 ms·

Covid lockdowns have a a lot to do with that too. People used to spent their money in restaurants, bars, cinemas, theaters, parties, festivals, massages, haird

Covid lockdowns have a a lot to do with that too. People used to spent their money in restaurants, bars, cinemas, theaters, parties, festivals, massages, hairdressers, and a bunch of other services. If you add lockdowns, many things happen: * people have leftover money, that they instead spend on "things"... and since they're used to using less services, this is also true for some time after the lockdowns * If you're stuck at home, you'll buy stuff that makes that nice... a better tv, a game console,... * Some lockdown policies directly affect your 'need for stuff' - school from home? Kids need their own PCs, you need to buy a scanner and a printer for them,... * People working from home also have more free time, and decide to do the long delayed house work and projects - so people buy more construction materials (also people want houses outside of cities, because it's nicer to be there during lockdowns), so prices of that go up too * and last but not least, manufacturers fuck up their orders, don't have stock buffers, and fail horribly

watwut 5y ago
I can confirm that lockdowns made our family save a lot more money then usual - despite us buying quite a lot of new stuff do to lifestyle changes.
- e-master 5y ago
  My experience supports that - on public transit alone our family saved more than 5k USD last year, it would’ve more than made up for any equipment I would’ve had to buy (turned out though that I already had everything needed to work from home).
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    because of remote work, I have to heat the house 7 days per week, instead of about 0.25*5+2=3.25 => that's about twice as much. Given the rise in energy cost, this will have a huge impact.
    - samarthr1 5y ago
      At the same time that is largely a problem of the colder areas. In more sane (temperature wise) places, that energy cost is negligible. Also, that assumes you are the only one (or the other person (s) in the house have very similar schedules) in the house. An assumption which if you have a house wife and a few kids, is largely invalid
throaway46546 5y ago
>Some lockdown policies directly affect your 'need for stuff' I think this was the root cause of the toilet paper shortage. People who normally spend a large portion of the day at the office were now spending that time at home. There was a popular viral video at the time of a man driving around on a forklift in a warehouse full of toilet paper laughing about the shortage, but it was all commercial toilet paper not what you would use at home. Anecdotally I noticed a correlation between the level of traffic on the freeway and the amount of toilet paper on store shelves. When the freeways were empty the shelves were bare and as traffic started picking back up the shelves started replenishing.
- mmarq 5y ago
  The causes of the lockdown shortages are cultural, toilet paper disappeared in Northern European and English speaking countries, while in Italy (and I think in some places in Spain) yeast could not be found.
  - djrogers 5y ago
    Yeast and flour were gone in the US as well (at least where I live).
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    yeast was hone in slovenia too... People were afraid they won't be able to buy bread, so they bought flour and yeast... then bought bread, and eventually threw away the yeast.
  - macrolime 5y ago
    Yeast also ran out in Northern Europe.
- consp 5y ago
  After the panic buy I've never seen a toilet paper shortage anymore. I therefore doubt your theory of correlation. Maybe it was so in the us but it definitely does not correlate for everyone.
eddyg 5y ago
You can easily see the massive increase in savings in data from the Fed (for the U.S., at least): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ysLo https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ysLo Typical growth in household checkable deposits/currency/savings deposits was around $500 billion/year during the mid-2010's. last year it was... $2.6 trillion
- bloopernova 5y ago
  $2.6T... good lord. I wonder whether it will level off at $500B/y again?

watwut 5y ago

I can confirm that lockdowns made our family save a lot more money then usual - despite us buying quite a lot of new stuff do to lifestyle changes.

e-master 5y ago
My experience supports that - on public transit alone our family saved more than 5k USD last year, it would’ve more than made up for any equipment I would’ve had to buy (turned out though that I already had everything needed to work from home).
- wiz21c 5y ago
  because of remote work, I have to heat the house 7 days per week, instead of about 0.25*5+2=3.25 => that's about twice as much. Given the rise in energy cost, this will have a huge impact.
  - samarthr1 5y ago
    At the same time that is largely a problem of the colder areas. In more sane (temperature wise) places, that energy cost is negligible. Also, that assumes you are the only one (or the other person (s) in the house have very similar schedules) in the house. An assumption which if you have a house wife and a few kids, is largely invalid

throaway46546 5y ago

>Some lockdown policies directly affect your 'need for stuff' I think this was the root cause of the toilet paper shortage. People who normally spend a large portion of the day at the office were now spending that time at home. There was a popular viral video at the time of a man driving around on a forklift in a warehouse full of toilet paper laughing about the shortage, but it was all commercial toilet paper not what you would use at home. Anecdotally I noticed a correlation between the level of traffic on the freeway and the amount of toilet paper on store shelves. When the freeways were empty the shelves were bare and as traffic started picking back up the shelves started replenishing.

mmarq 5y ago
The causes of the lockdown shortages are cultural, toilet paper disappeared in Northern European and English speaking countries, while in Italy (and I think in some places in Spain) yeast could not be found.
- djrogers 5y ago
  Yeast and flour were gone in the US as well (at least where I live).
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  yeast was hone in slovenia too... People were afraid they won't be able to buy bread, so they bought flour and yeast... then bought bread, and eventually threw away the yeast.
- macrolime 5y ago
  Yeast also ran out in Northern Europe.
consp 5y ago
After the panic buy I've never seen a toilet paper shortage anymore. I therefore doubt your theory of correlation. Maybe it was so in the us but it definitely does not correlate for everyone.

eddyg 5y ago

You can easily see the massive increase in savings in data from the Fed (for the U.S., at least): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ysLo https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ysLo Typical growth in household checkable deposits/currency/savings deposits was around $500 billion/year during the mid-2010's. last year it was... $2.6 trillion

bloopernova 5y ago
$2.6T... good lord. I wonder whether it will level off at $500B/y again?