CardsFan
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Estate taxes maybe? It is God's waiting room.
Glad you said it. This was my first thought also.
Estate taxes maybe? It is God's waiting room.
Another way we see higher prices without the price actually rising is when the makers shrink the package size. In the last 6 or 7 years, I have seen the number of cookies in a Keebler's package of chocolate chip cookies get reduced twice. The first time they redid the package from 30 cookies to 27 cookies. Then, a few years later they reduced it from 27 cookies to 24 cookies. That's a 20% reduction, taken together. Without raising the price of the package itself, the regular price in my local supermarket is now well over $4 a pound, and I stopped buying it unless I can find it on sale for under $4 a pound. With my diabetes, I eat very few cookies in one sitting compared to a few years ago before I was diagnosed.
Potato chips is another item whose regular price is now well over $4 a pound, even when on sale. And like cookies, the package size varies a lot so you have to watch the unit pricing stickers on the store shelves.
.Estate taxes maybe? It is God's waiting room.
I found it really cut down on my restaurant costs to not only avoid alcoholic drinks, but also to just have water with my meal instead of diet Coke. Restaurants seem to make a lot of money on whatever they serve you to drink. Even diet Coke seems to cost $2-$3 at most inexpensive restaurants and it is just not worth it to me.
That is a certainly a lot for state & local, presumably you enjoyed a higher income to help make up the difference. Most of the income tax free states we've looked into make it up on property tax, personal property tax (cars & boats) and or sales tax. And some add impact fees just for the privilege of moving to their fine state...
Estate taxes maybe? It is God's waiting room.
There is a limit as to how much I will spend for glass of wine, even at happy hour prices.
... at happy hour, one might find a $7 glass in my area. It's to bad really, HH has become so expensive that I don't go as often.
In So Cal even happy hour won't see wine glasses priced that low.
Glasses of wine are typically $8-10 around here; $6.00-$7.00 at Happy Hour.
... happy hour prices are less.
A bartneder once told me that Massachusetts is where Happy goes to die.What is this "Happy Hour" you all speak of? That is one thing we miss out living in Massachusetts!
I lived in the Boston area until 1989 and I remember when the happy hour ban passed in 1984. It was based on a belief that offering cheap drinks encourages more drunk driving. It's amazing that the law has been in effect all of these years.
What is this "Happy Hour" you all speak of? That is one thing we miss out living in Massachusetts!
Thank you. I definitely will, Im just at a loss as to how Florida supports itself
Happy Hour ain't what it used to be. I used to be able to get a seat in the bar area of a favorite restaurant, and for the price of a glass of wine have a variety of small treats to munch on - pizza slice, small BBQ chicken legs, cheese spreads, salad, veggies, and sometimes even a bit of dessert. All for under $10. Often well under $10. It kept the restaurant active and took in some cash during the slow pre dinner hours.
Today, HH has morphed into a costly expensive monster with more expensive wine, no free treats, and can easily hit $15 a person, more if you are hungry or want another glass of wine. Cheaper than a full dinner, yes. But not a good value. The owner may be Happy but I am not
Sometimes I can order off the dinner menu, split a plate with an attractive lady friend and actually get out for less than HH prices. !?!?!?!
Every time I cook at home I calculate how much the same meal would cost if we went out to eat. We do go out to local restaurants, mostly at lunch time and I like to look for the daily specials.
Well in Seattle, the city council wants everybody to make a minimum of $15/hr. So that means that the least skilled workers get $15, and a skilled cook or mix-master type bartender will get more. It is just impossible for a restaurant to stay in business for any time without high average tickets as even rents are being pushed up by the replacement of older commercial property that might have held restaurants by new building which is mainly apartments,
At least around here, the days of funky and cheap but good restaurants seem to be gone.
Ha
It’s the young and low-skilled workers who will be priced out of the market. “The loss of training opportunities caused by minimum-wage legislation is especially problematic,” the authors say. They also point out that the higher the minimum wage is compared with the median wage, the greater the “disemployment effect.” This is a real problem in the Atlantic provinces, where minimum wages are increasing rapidly, even though median wages are among the lowest in the country. Many mainstream economists point out that the income losses from raising the minimum wage are often underestimated.
Happy Hour ain't what it used to be. I used to be able to get a seat in the bar area of a favorite restaurant, and for the price of a glass of wine have a variety of small treats to munch on - pizza slice, small BBQ chicken legs, cheese spreads, salad, veggies, and sometimes even a bit of dessert. All for under $10. Often well under $10. It kept the restaurant active and took in some cash during the slow pre dinner hours.
Well in Seattle, the city council wants everybody to make a minimum of $15/hr. So that means that the least skilled workers get $15, and a skilled cook or mix-master type bartender will get more. It is just impossible for a restaurant to stay in business for any time without high average tickets as even rents are being pushed up by the replacement of older commercial property that might have held restaurants by new building which is mainly apartments,
At least around here, the days of funky and cheap but good restaurants seem to be gone.
Ha
Since we have started (last 5 years) not going out to eat, I sometimes do this. I find that it takes he edge off of not going out. Im trying to find the silver lining in the whole situation. In my old live when I was bring home 50K ,I budgeted 200 a week in going out. Not a real budget but thats what I spent on average. Now its maybe 40 a week, and thats only because I take the kids out for Fathers day dinner or some other holiday(Their Birthdays) and spend large amounts during those 2 or 3 times.
Did you mean "$200 a month" and "$40 a month"? Cause $200/week for your dining-out budget would've worked out to $10,000/year, and I doubt you spent that much just eating out at restaurants when you were earning $50K/year.... or did you?
in the old apt, if i put the mail on the kitchen table the whole place looked messy, it was that small.
Ralph? Ralph Kramden? Is that you?
I totally agree with you. But in my state,my property tax is $6300, my sales tax is 8.875 %. My water and sewer is 2 thousand bucks.
We're upstate from you a few hundred miles and we're paying over 6k a year in property taxes on a 3 bedroom townhouse.