Examples of current inflation - add yours!

[foxcreek9]

Just paid $31.55 for an 8 piece bucket of chicken, 2 sides and rolls at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Can't remember the price of my last purchase there, but I think inflation is hitting KFC.

Try Jewel's chicken, $8 (or less on some days) for 8 pieces.

 

[foxcreek9]

Bought these in the summer of '21 for $12.50 each, now are $48.50.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/General...RE-6FM2025-20-x-25-MERV-11-Replacement-Filter

 

[GenXguy]

I bought a furnace igniter a few years about for $22. Now, same igniter is $40 through same source via Amazon.

 

[Buckeye]

Cheapskate tip:

Walmart had pool bleach on clearance for $4. The active ingredient sodium hypochlorite is 10%, regular bleach is 6%, so the equivalent unit cost is $2.40 per gallon (if I did the math right).

We finally had to go to pool store chlorine (at least 10%) and get jugs refilled because the pool chlorine at Home Depot and Lowes just got outrageous. I think it comes out to about 2.40 a gallon from the pool store. Home Depot and Lowes got up to $9 a gallon. Crazy!

 

[Koolau]

When I get hamburger like that, the 'grease' is really water they have added (which is, of course, a ripoff). It boils off if you give it time.

At least "water" is listed as an ingredient when we buy hamburger.

 

[Koolau]

Try Jewel's chicken, $8 (or less on some days) for 8 pieces.

Or the bargain of the century - Costco still sells their whole rotisserie chickens for $5. MORE chicken than an 8 piece bucket. No breading either. No grease (other than from the chicken and some basting - I would guess.) YMMV

 

[Spock]

Tax time so all the numbers are in the spreadsheet.
Comparing 2019 (last full pre-C*vid year) to 2023:
Groceries up 31.7%
Home Insurance up 296.3% (67% this year alone)
Clothing up 193.2%
Phone up 44%
Water/Sewer up 36.6%
Energy (nat gas + electricity) up 21.3%
Dog bills up 318%
Combined up 58.9% National Debt up 46%

I don't put any weight into the "official" inflation numbers ("owner equivalent rent?", your phone bill is down because there are more features in your phone, etc) and see inflation as a money supply issue. Since there are no forecasts that show money creation slowing I don't see my inflation rate slowing. "Green" Energy transition is inflationary. Carbon/greenhouse gas reduction (separate from energy as it is reducing farmed acres, fertilizer use, livestock production) is inflationary. Wars are inflationary. Deficit spending is inflationary.


At this rate, my annual budget is going to go from $48K to $1.07M by the time I hit 90.

 

[Chuckanut]

The county has published the property tax rates for my city. My bill should go up by a cool $1000. Thankfully, a city sponsored initiative to raise taxes for a fancy new recreational facitly was defeated. That would have added another $300 to the property tax bill. (Plus one still would have had to pay a fee to use the new facility.).

 

[Fermion]

Our town wants to pass a school tax for technology upgrades.

They want $1 per $1000. It doesn't sound like much and will probably pass because people around here can't understand that that is a $300 increase in tax on their $300,000 home. If you were paying currently $3,000 in property tax, it is a 10% increase.


If they posed the question in the voter pamphlet a bit more honestly, like "This tax will increase your property taxes by 10%" I bet it would not pass.

 

[Gumby]

It seems honest (and obvious) to me. If your current mill rate is 10 ($10 tax per $1000 value) and you raise it by 1 ($1 tax per $1000 value) to 11, you're raising your taxes by 10%. Even if you did not quite grasp the concept of a mill rate, 10 to 11 is a 10% increase. You'd have to be almost willfully stupid not to see that.

Maybe your neighbors just value better school technology more than you do.

 

[Spock]

It seems honest (and obvious) to me. If your current mill rate is 10 ($10 tax per $1000 value) and you raise it by 1 ($1 tax per $1000 value) to 11, you're raising your taxes by 10%. Even if you did not quite grasp the concept of a mill rate, 10 to 11 is a 10% increase. You'd have to be almost willfully stupid not to see that.

Maybe your neighbors just value better school technology more than you do.

dunno about your neighbors, but say the phrase "mill rate" to mine and either their eyes will glaze over or their face will contort into a WTF grimace.
People are buying 80K-100K vehicles with $3000/month payments for 9ish years. Your level of math skills isn't the norm.

 

[FindingForward]

eggs seem to be trending back up at WM - they were much lower for a while. Read something about another bird flu issue

 

[Gumby]

dunno about your neighbors, but say the phrase "mill rate" to mine and either their eyes will glaze over or their face will contort into a WTF grimace.
People are buying 80K-100K vehicles with $3000/month payments for 9ish years. Your level of math skills isn't the norm.

I have confidence that every single one of the adults in my neighborhood and probably every adult I know would understand it.

 

[GenXguy]

eggs seem to be trending back up at WM - they were much lower for a while. Read something about another bird flu issue

Yeah, I mentioned that a few weeks ago in one of these inflation threads that eggs were going back up.... since that was something people mentioned had dropped in price as if inflation was over. But eggs were a special case.

 

[Fermion]

I have confidence that every single one of the adults in my neighborhood and probably every adult I know would understand it.

Ours do not. (probably because they were educated without these new technology upgrades)

I jest, but the other day I was talking with a neighbor a few blocks away about snow load and they had no concept of how to calculate surface area.

These people see $1 and they are like...I can afford $1.

 

[foxcreek9]

Or the bargain of the century - Costco still sells their whole rotisserie chickens for $5. MORE chicken than an 8 piece bucket. No breading either. No grease (other than from the chicken and some basting - I would guess.) YMMV

Yea, even in Maui, where we got one for 2 meals.

 

[Gumby]

We can usually get three meals out of a whole roast chicken. We also save the carcass in the freezer until we have about three of them and then make and can a few quarts of chicken stock. It's one of the best deals around.

 

[Koolau]

dunno about your neighbors, but say the phrase "mill rate" to mine and either their eyes will glaze over or their face will contort into a WTF grimace.
People are buying 80K-100K vehicles with $3000/month payments for 9ish years. Your level of math skills isn't the norm.

I have confidence that every single one of the adults in my neighborhood and probably every adult I know would understand it.

You are most fortunate.

Our public school system is roughly tied with the worst in the nation. We have one political party (since Statehood, essentially.) Tell someone that they will have more union j*bs and they'll approve anything - including the RAIL - likely the biggest boondoggle in USA history. $10,000 for every man, woman and child on the Island - before operating expenses.

We currently pay 0.5% sales tax (called general excise) on virtually EVERY ('xcuse me, every) purchase AND service JUST to begin to pay for a little bit of the Rail. Since it's off-topic I'll stop here, but for those interested, here's a good video that puts the Rail in perspective. If you do watch it, let me know if you still trust your friends and neighbors to spend YOUR money. YMMV

Oh, and there's also this:

https://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Art...-rail-ridership-still-paltry-cost-now-72-each

 

[Chuckanut]

We can usually get three meals out of a whole roast chicken. We also save the carcass in the freezer until we have about three of them and then make and can a few quarts of chicken stock. It's one of the best deals around.

+1

What I don’t understand is how, as I roll my cart to the back of the store on my way to the rotisserie chicken, all that other stuff jump of the shelves and into my cart.

 

[5Miler]

+1

What I don’t understand is how, as I roll my cart to the back of the store on my way to the rotisserie chicken, all that other stuff jump of the shelves and into my cart.

DGF suffers from that same condition.

OTOH my super power is the ability to enter a store intent on a purchase and be able to leave the store within minutes with only my targeted item or items.

Clearly, I am not a recreational shopper.

Oh, unless I'm going to MicroCenter.

 

[GenXguy]

OK Dollar Tree had the bleach. It wasn't right with the other cleaners. 64 oz. for $1.25.

 

[CardsFan]

OTOH my super power is the ability to enter a store intent on a purchase and be able to leave the store within minutes with only my targeted item or items.

Clearly, I am not a recreational shopper.

That's me! I don't like "shopping". I know what I want. I get it. And I get out.

 

[USGrant1962]

We can usually get three meals out of a whole roast chicken. We also save the carcass in the freezer until we have about three of them and then make and can a few quarts of chicken stock. It's one of the best deals around.

I wish we only had 3 carcasses in the freezer!

We do make stock, but a couple of roasted chickens a month yields more carcasses than we can use with just 2 of us.

 

[Koolau]

+1

What I don’t understand is how, as I roll my cart to the back of the store on my way to the rotisserie chicken, all that other stuff jump of the shelves and into my cart.

Yeah, I set a personal record yesterday of $550 in the cart at checkout! What the heck happened. I went for salad - not even a chicken.

 

[Sunset]

I have a PO Box; we've had a big issue with thefts from mail boxes in the past few years in my area- they even "fish" for mail left outside the Post office in the blue boxes. My residential mail box contains spider webs and a hand-written note from the carrier declaring it "vacant".

So... it started out at $120/year for the smallest box. I just got the latest bill; it's now $200/year, billed semi-annually. I can't remember if I got it 3 or 4 years ago but let's be kind to the USPS and assume it was 4. That's 14% per year for what's essentially "self-service". And of course most of my incoming mail is bulk-rate junk mail that I discard before I even leave if it's not something that needs to be shredded, like a credit card solicitation.

We use a locking mailbox at our residence.
Since we empty each day it would be hard for someone to steal from it.
When we travel we either hold the mail or "move temporarily" to a relatives house.