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Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streami
by scottLobster 4y ago
Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streaming services (will renew on a show-by-show basis), and food is getting so crazy I might start going to multiple stores to try and save money instead of my one consolidated trip to Wegmans.
I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-perishables, not because I'm a prepper but because I know it'll be so much more expensive next year as to be worth it.
Also my rent is up 6.9%, but that's because I locked it in for two years. Would have been 10.5% for a one-year lease, and that's on top of last year's comparatively conservative 4.5% increase.
And my salary is up a mere 4.5%, and that only because I took on stretch assignments at work.
- dmix 4y agoI'm doing the same (mostly just to buy a house) and I've been using YNAB to budget money: https://www.youneedabudget.com/ https://www.youneedabudget.com/ It's really good, knowing where you're money is going ahead of time removes so much guilt and anxiety.
- scottLobster 4y agoOh yeah, I use Mint for the same. It's really fun watching my cost-cutting measures getting eaten alive by inflation in real-time :) I also find myself slowly sliding down Maslow's hierarchy. I used to be focused on achieving my dream job, now I'm strongly considering work I don't like because it pays more (being the sole income for my family is a major factor there as well). "Good enough pay for awesome work" is not a viable objective at the moment. And I'm lucky to even have that option. Something's got to give. Thankfully we're starting to see some actual government investment in US industry for the first time in forever, but it'll take years for any results to bring down prices.
- dmix 4y agoYeah it's amazing how much you can accomplish just by minor things like not using DoorDash constantly and having caps on spending on electronics on Amazon. YNAB is much nicer than Mint IMO. Mint feels more like a toy. With YNAB you do something called "envelope budgeting" (just a digital version) https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-envelope-budgeting-1293682 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-envelope-budgeting-129368... I've found being obsessive with tracking expenses is a good way to lose motivation (like going to the gym) so it's good to have a simple pattern to get used to.
- swayvil 4y agoI'm feeling that Maslow slide too. Expect a really clever money-making idea to come along any time now.
- skinnymuch 4y agoHave you not heard of the wonders of NFTs?
- anotheracctfo 4y agoYeah its been wild seeing my grocery budget max out before the end of the month, despite having a good buffer a year before. YNAB has a great "cover overspending from" feature that got a good workout this year. Fortunately I got a raise so I used that to bump my food budget. Anybody who doesn't demand a raise in this environment is a fool.
- collegeburner 4y agoi honestly hate when everybody's answer to inflation is "just make a budget lol". i haven't used one historically bc i'm a pretty thrifty person but i decided to take somebody up on it and actually make one. you know what i found that could easily be changed? not a damn thing. like i'm a 20 something bachelor so basically my only luxury is buying new guns (which i don't do unless i have a lot of extra cash) and going out with friends (does not eat up much $). so am i supposed to cut like my 1 luxury and just be a machine who goes to and from work? aint like i got a bunch of streaming subscriptions or whatever to remove instead. i make my own coffee at home instead of starbucks and don't eat avocado toast... your move boomers, what's your solution now? anyway sorry for the vent/rant, but what we need to do is stop loose monetary and fiscal policy that transfers wealth to people who got assets like real estate and stock (boomers, the rich) from people who don't (young people, the poor). but nobody wants to do that...
- weberer 4y agoIf you live in the USA, a Costco membership is very worth it.
- hansvm 4y agoDefinitely true, but I'll add that you still need to do price comparisons. Even supposed staples like pasta are often substantially more expensive than at nearby grocers.
- LocalPCGuy 4y agoI don't buy a lot of pasta, so can't speak directly to that example, but in many cases if you compare like quality, Costco will tend to be cheaper or equivalent, I've found. Although maybe for some of the staples there just isn't really that much difference in quality. There is also the problem that some folks have (cough, me, yes, I'm talking about me) that even if I go into Costco for 3 specific items, I walk out with 5-10 at least. That's another place to watch for cost and try to be strict about sticking to a list.
- bastardoperator 4y agoWho doesn't need a bucket of guacamole? I jest, but Costco is awesome, they also have pretty good vacation packages.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoIts tough when you live in an apartment with no storage. You often are paying more because you dont have room for bulk. Costco is great if you have a garage or basement though
- gt565k 4y agoWhat I do is buy meat in bulk from costco and marinate and preseason then cut it up and vacuum seal it with a $30 vacuum sealer and sousivide bags from amazon. I can then stuff my freezer with ready to cook chicken, steak, fish, etc. I just take it out the night before to thaw in the fridge.
- antiverse 4y ago> fewer streaming services Pessimist's take: When thinking about what we trade our time for, TV shows (and films, to some degree) have always been to me an endless source of a time sink for relatively little return. Games, slightly better, more social in some ways, certainly more mentally engaging, but also parasitic of time. To concurrently pay for multiple streaming services is unfathomable to me, moreso right now where, as you point out, your expenses have ballooned and your salary can't keep up. You aren't the only one, and yet it's highly likely (anecdotal experience here) that your friends know more about the last season of a show than they know about how to prep for the looming days, as you are prepping. One would think there's better ways to have downtime than to tune out in front of a box, but these habits are difficult to break. (Cue the "They'll tell you" jokes.)
- ghaff 4y agoThat seems a rather judgmental take on the "right" way to have downtime. I'm sure some people subscribe to too many streaming services. I try to keep my eye on how much I use a given service. But I'm still paying way less per month than I did when I had cable TV.
- scottLobster 4y agoOn the flip side, it's a relatively cheap form of entertainment. $5-30/month and you get access to hundreds or thousands of hours of quality entertainment per service. And there are some awesome shows that my family legitimately enjoys watching together. It was nice having multiple options on a Friday/Saturday night without the overhead of having to think about subscriptions, because the services combined were the equivalent of one or two hours of my hourly rate a month, and we were in the black month-to-month. So who cares? Now my hourly rate doesn't cover nearly as much as it used to what with everything else through the roof, so I have to care, and I'm lucky to be in that position. Fun times.
- nirav72 4y agoI found having 3-4 streaming subscriptions is still quite a bit cheaper than cable tv or satellite. Also I get to watch what I want to watch when and where. Like many others, I cut the cord 3 years ago when I was paying $100/month for just basic cable with mostly useless channels or content that didn’t interest me. Now my total cost is under $50/month for a family of 4 for streaming subscriptions.
- xvedejas 4y agoI'm riding my bike a lot more to get places, rather than just for recreation; and it seems this is true for many around me as well.
- mirker 4y agoBut when you think about it, what’s the benefit of driving? For reasonably short drives you don’t save much time with parking in cities and you don’t get any exercise.
- xvedejas 4y agoAh, in my case this is mostly replacing buses, so really not the biggest monetary impact either. Still, I will try not to let the excuse to be more active go to waste.
- ununoctium87 4y agoRain
- kjkjadksj 4y agoSolved by rain coat and rain pants
- SoftTalker 4y agoSo you won't be wet from the rain, you'll be wet from your own sweat.
- sudosysgen 4y agoModern rain gear is okay on that side but at great expense.
- switchbak 4y agoI ride like I'm getting paid for it, but that's just not really the case yet. Though it'll be amazing when some real innovation happens. Even the highest end technical fabrics don't work very well when it's humid outside, which tends to happen a lot when it's raining. If you're actually working hard, you'll be covered in your own sweat soon enough. Given the choice i usually just go with the rain instead. Riding an ebike is a different matter, that's probably entirely doable with current tech.
- AlwaysRock 4y agoSo I know I can make 65 an hour with side jobs. I've got a few side gigs where I can set my own schedule and work those hours at any time. I could probably push higher if I wanted (75-100 an hour). When I need to pad my savings I cut some costs but mostly I just work extra hours in side gigs. I couldnt imagine its worth going to multiple grocery stores to compare prices. Shop at 1 store, pay more for some items, work an extra hour to make up for it. I'm building my career and getting paid instead of experiencing traffic, grocery stores at peak hours, check out lines, and loading/unloading food to and from the car/house for a second time. Does it really make sense for you financially to do that?
- scottLobster 4y agoI haven't fully priced it out yet, but Wegmans is middle of the road in terms of pricing for my area, depending on the item. Depends on what I'm buying week to week. We have discount grocers nearby that sell a crap-shoot of stuff the bigger stores are trying to get rid of. If going there before heading to Wegmans can save me $50-100/month after gas, for maybe an extra 30 minutes - 1 hour of time, would be worth it these days.
- 88913527 4y agoNot everyone is interested in performing side jobs, and comparing weekly ads and sales prices can be a 'fun' optimization problem. It's a more productive use of time than whatever the alternative would've been (social media, watching television, etc). Moderately large grocery stores have real web apps these days so you can get pricing data and track it over time. Combine that with the personalized deals / digital coupons and you can create your analysis for what's the best to purchase.
- adamisom 4y agoThe elephant in the room for any analysis like "It's a more productive use of time than whatever the alternative would've been (social media, watching television, etc)." is that, y'know, maybe people need to find good uses of their time other than working. But that sounds elitist so nobody says it. Doesn't make it any bit less true.
- nradov 4y agoBuying extra meat when it's on sale and storing it in a chest freezer is probably the best "investment" that most families can make. It usually has a higher ROI than buying stocks or whatever. Even during inflationary times, retailers occasionally end up with excess supplies of some cuts of meat or advertise loss leaders to boost store traffic so you can buy a lot if you have freezer space to store it. Just be careful that your freezer has a reliable electrical supply. The National Electrical Code has required GFCI protection on garage outlets since 2008 and those can occasionally fail and trip off for no reason. Ask me how I know...
- banannaise 4y agoYou should also have a high-rated chest cooler ("marine coolers" are great for this) in case of power outages. Move the freezer contents to the cooler, pack with dry ice, place in a cool shaded area, do not touch. It will stay frozen for close to a week.
- hunterb123 4y agoOr pull your generator out and power your cooler and other essentials. Much easier than trying to get and find dry ice in an emergency.
- bialpio 4y agoWhere does one normally find dry ice in the US, even when there's no emergency? Is it a commonly stocked thing?
- User23 4y agoGrocery stores usually have it, you just have to ask someone.
- banannaise 4y agoFairly common in grocery stores. Regular ice also works just fine, but dry ice is arguably better in freezer applications because, while it doesn't last as long, it is much colder.
- inflationish 4y agoJust read about the inflation trimming. It is one of the ways the government make inflation to appear lower than it is, making people happy. In US, the 31% of the goods with highest inflation are excluded, but only 24% of the goods with lowest inflation, making the inflation appear much lower than it is.
- datlife 4y agoWhere do you get the lists of "goods with highest inflation" and "goods with lowest inflation?
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThe link at the top of the page is a good start.
- kshacker 4y agoThen that should hurt them when inflation reduces, no?
- readthenotes1 4y agoHow? If they're always excluding 7% more of the goods whose prices rose more, the trimmed CPI will always be lower than the CPI-U, which some people say is always lower than what people actually experience. The entitlement adjustments made based on trimmed CPI will always be less than the inflation even the gov't admits people are experiencing.
- spoonjim 4y agoTrimmed inflation is a better measure than non-trimmed for goods with substitutes. Bacon going up 1000% in price is not as bad as all food going up 5% in price because you can just stop eating bacon, but you can't just stop eating.
- Gareth321 4y agoYes but now you don't get to eat bacon and you're eating tofu bacon instead. You're still alive, but are you really living? More seriously, that quality of life decrease is now completely ignored. I think it's worth acknowledging that it's happening.
- ajross 4y ago> not because I'm a prepper but because I know [meat will] be so much more expensive next year Want to take that bet? There's absolutely no reason to expect inflation borne of energy costs and trade disruption to continue. Remember (and so, so many people fail to understand this) that inflation is a year-over-year metric. The report today showing a drop in the "inflation rate" is actually showing an instantaneous decrease in absolute prices (fuels, primarily, like the ones needed to ship the meat you bought because you thought it was going to be expensive). To wit: It is very likely that what you've done is stuffed your freezer full of meat you purchased at a price maximum. Also, just because I have to ask: you're so concerned about prices that you're willing to make major changes to your lifestyle. But... you didn't even consider things like "eating less meat"?
- jollyllama 4y ago>Want to take that bet? GP literally did when he bought the meat.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoHunt a deer or buy a cow, have a butcher process it, then store the processed meat in a freezer. You can have meat for a full year for your entire family at a low cost. You can grow hydroponic lettuce, indoor tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, etc. There are many good resources to learn. It's also a past time that will teach you one thing or two. Then, if saving time is what you are looking for... robot vacuum, mop, and a all-in-one cooking appliance (e.g.: Thermomix) can help.
- edmcnulty101 4y agoDon't even think about trying to buy a car.
- ffggvv 4y agohttps://twitter.com/jessefelder/status/1557405859986038785?s=21&t=2z-TjDj04Lo9K55pOOsrOQ https://twitter.com/jessefelder/status/1557405859986038785?s... 'Grocery prices were up 1.3% in July from the prior month and rose 13.1% in July from a year ago, the fastest annual pace since 1979.'