Examples of current inflation - add yours!

[GenXguy]

McDonald's raised the spending requirement on their 25% off app deal to $6. So, you can no longer apply it to their $5 meals. So, that's basically a 25% increase in cost for their $5 meal through the app. I didn't really think it was even worth $4, but $5 is a non-starter.

 

[CaptTom]

I'm still not on board with the concept of "personal inflation."

How much I spend is highly variable. It depends on what I need, what I want and what I feel like buying.

No matter how I define the word "inflation," it always comes down to comparing apples to apples. Not comparing what I felt like spending this month to what I felt like spending some other month.

To stretch that analogy, comparing what an apple costs today to what an apple cost last year is relevant. Comparing how many apples I bought this year to how many I bought last year has nothing to do with inflation.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I'm still not on board with the concept of "personal inflation."

I am. In our case it is the difference in what we spend from year to year as a percentage, I do not track it monthly. I do not include travel or discretionary spending. It does include Healthcare (Medicare + Supplement) Food & Drink. For us it does not vary that much from year to year.

 

[MichaelB]

No such thing as “personal inflation rate”. Inflation is a general increase in prices across the entire economy.

If someone wanted to measure how they are impacted by inflation they would need to measure the cost of their standard of living, including income, and measure it across time periods.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

No such thing as “personal inflation rate”. Inflation is a general increase in prices across the entire economy.

If someone wanted to measure how they are impacted by inflation they would need to measure the cost of their standard of living, including income, and measure it across time periods.

Not as a general measurement, I agree. But how Inflation affects different households does vary. That is why I call it a Personal Inflation rate or my own household's inflation rate. For Example: When one is wo$king, what one spends is different from when one has retired, simply because one consumes more, eats out more, uses more fuel, buys more clothing etc. .. etc., at least we did. That is what I mean by "Personal Inflation Rate".

 

[braumeister]

Not as a general measurement, I agree. But how Inflation affects different households does vary. That is why I call it a Personal Inflation rate or my own household's inflation rate. For Example: When one is wo$king, what one spends is different from when one has retired, simply because one consumes more, eats out more, uses more fuel, buys more clothing etc. .. etc., at least we did. That is what I mean by "Personal Inflation Rate".

Call it what you like, but that has nothing to do with inflation -- it's just different spending.

Inflation is a gradual loss of purchasing power that is reflected in a broad rise in prices for goods and services over time. The inflation rate is calculated as the average price increase of a basket of selected goods and services over one year. (-- Investopedia)

 

[MichaelB]

Not as a general measurement, I agree. But how Inflation affects different households does vary. That is why I call it a Personal Inflation rate or my own household's inflation rate. For Example: When one is wo$king, what one spends is different from when one has retired, simply because one consumes more, eats out more, uses more fuel, buys more clothing etc. .. etc., at least we did. That is what I mean by "Personal Inflation Rate".

Call it what you like, but that has nothing to do with inflation -- it's just different spending.

I agree and would add looking at spending without considering income is misleading at best. Inflation affects both.

 

[GenXguy]

I'm still not on board with the concept of "personal inflation."

How much I spend is highly variable. It depends on what I need, what I want and what I feel like buying.

No matter how I define the word "inflation," it always comes down to comparing apples to apples. Not comparing what I felt like spending this month to what I felt like spending some other month.

To stretch that analogy, comparing what an apple costs today to what an apple cost last year is relevant. Comparing how many apples I bought this year to how many I bought last year has nothing to do with inflation.

Exactly. After reading a few in the past, I started to mostly just ignore comments about "personal inflation" for those same reasons as it always seemed to be about someone cutting back on things rather than the true higher costs due to high inflation. Buying fewer apples doesn't mean there's less inflation. Having more money in your pocket doesn't change the price of apples, either.

 

[CaptTom]

I agree and would add looking at spending without considering income is misleading at best. Inflation affects both.

I admit to getting a bit pedantic here, but at issue is the definition of the term "inflation."

Inflation is a metric. A measurement. There are lots of factors which influence it. Availability of raw materials, labor costs, transportation costs, manufacturing overhead, and, of course, supply and demand. Certainly wages are one of the inputs to that equation. But that's wages which the manufacturers, transporters and retailers have to pay. Not how much I earn.

Of course there's a good chance that what I earn goes up comparably with all those other workers along the supply chain, so there may well be some correlation. But not causation. The prices don't go up because I'm earning more, any more than the go down if I start earning less.

There is also some correlation with the supply and demand equation. If everyone's wages go up, demand may go up, which can lead to higher prices. And vice-versa. But again, the price of apples doesn't change just because I lose my job, or go up just because I have an extra $20 in my wallet that day.

In summary, whether you have more or less money to spend this year has no impact on what the rest of us pay for products and services. Only in aggregate will higher wages impact inflation.

 

[Car-Guy]

List price for Turbo Tax Deluxe 2024 (now available) went up another $10 this year to $80 but you can get a $10 discount if you buy it today from TT. I'm sure there will be plenty of ways to get it cheaper in the coming weeks/months.

 

[iloveyoga]

I've noticed going out to restaurants really seems to be getting uncomfortably expensive lately, so I looked back a few years. Chart shows spending (yes high, always been a pastime we enjoy) and I added % increase YOY. We may start cutting back, or not - BTD?

View attachment 52369

I love your chart.

 

[JoeWras]

This is a fun post. Don't take it too seriously. Sports and entertainment inflation is on another level (Taylor Swift?), but is also very discretionary.

A Redditor created a chart of the beer inflation at our local NHL arena. Arena beer inflation is out of control!

Source: r/canes reddit

 

[Jerry1]

Got a dose of shrinkflation today. A cereal I buy went from 14 ounces per box to 12.2 ounces. Interesting is that I didn’t notice until I got home and noticed that the box was a different size. So, that’s about a 15% increase, but hey, the box fits in the cabinet a little better.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

Got a dose of shrinkflation today. A cereal I buy went from 14 ounces per box to 12.2 ounces. Interesting is that I didn’t notice until I got home and noticed that the box was a different size. So, that’s about a 15% increase, but hey, the box fits in the cabinet a little better.

I have noticed many/most packages of food items we buy are much larger than actual food inside of them.
Large Box of cereal is a good example.

 

[Surewhitey]

DW went to lunch with a friend to a new place. She said they had a "service fee" and then a choice of 15-18-20% tip. She wrote on the receipt "seriously?"... She's usually not this person, but she found her tipping point (pun intended).

Sam's is officially my veggie spot with the recent trip to Kroger. Their sale prices were for less veggies and more expensive than Sam's...

 

[Closet_Gamer]

We're closing in on the end of our first RE year . Knowing that we're transitioning to living off the nest egg rather than growing it, we decided to be very deliberate about understanding how we performed against our budget this year. Yesterday I really dug into the results.

There were lots of puts-and-takes, but a few items shocked me...

1 - Food. Hard to fully tease out what was inside of a Walmart/Sam's purchase, but we know we buy a lot of food there. Best guess: food was +50-75% versus our expectation. The other day I pulled a $4.50 dozen eggs off the shelf and shook my head but really seeing the full-year impact was breathtaking.

2 - Tolls. We do a lot of driving to/from family and our beach house. We also still pay for the tolls in our daughter's cars. Still ... $1750 on road tolls last year. OMG.

3 - Car maintainance. We have older cars so more maintainance is expected ... and that little two seater in my garage is not cheap ... but car service for the other 3 cars was still over $3K.

We did better than we expected on utilities, insurance and healthcare. And the "shopping" line simply needs some inspection.

Overall though ... inflation really smacked me in the face in a tangible way.

 

[JoeWras]

Bummer. My AT&T internet bill just went up another $5. This is after a $5 increase last June, and another $15 before that over the previous year. So, $25 over 2 years.

I am irritated at this 40% increase.

 

[More Cowbell]

In December 2023, I bought a 4-pack of Belgian chocolate gift boxes for $19.99 at Costco, so $4.9975/box. November 2024, the Belgian chocolate gift boxes now came in a 3-pack for $15.99, or $5.33/box.

Forrest Gump’s mom was right: Life is like a box of chocolates!

 

[Hyper]

For months now I've been looking for a used light duty pickup. We haul a lot and the SUV is just not cutting it. PIA actually. I know what the prices have been averaging yet this past week or so, for some odd reason, the prices have significantly jumped. Near double! I have no idea, not have I heard a reason for this. I actually thought with the holidays, I might find what I'm looking for at a decent price. Looks like I'll be looking for a lot longer!

 

[JoeWras]

Used car prices, especially those a little older (4+ years) have been surprisingly sticky.

Thousands of pickup trucks were trashed in the southeast storms. Not only that, people who didn't have pickups want them in order to help with their rebuild tasks. I suspect that could be a factor in the blip you are seeing. Even a regional issue can bubble nation wide.

This pickup truck demand thing is based on anecdotes from my friends and family living in NC and TN, and not something authoritative. Finding a used pickup in NC is a very difficult task right now.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I think inflation is going to be higher in 2025 so decided to stock up on items I use daily or frequently. I went on amazon and ordered a year’s worth of paper products, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, 6 months of toiletries and 4 months of coffee. I figured if I’m wrong it’s not a big deal as this is all stuff I use all the time.

I was going to fill the freezer with meat but changed my mind because nv energy is turning off the power if it’s windy because of the fear of wildfires. They never used to do that. They used to do regular maintenance instead but since it was bought out they wait for things to break instead.