Examples of Inflation Easing--Add Yours!

[Qs Laptop]

This is meant to be a companion thread to the long running "Examples of Inflation" thread. I don't know how much traction this thread will get but I'll start us off...

I bought some 80% ground beef today and was shocked to see the price at $2.99 per pound. The usual price on 80% ground beef around here (Mpls/St. Paul) is $5.99 but sometimes is on sale for $4.99. I usually buy 85%, but prefer 80% for grilling.

It looks like the sale price tag was laid on top of another label. I don't care. All I know is this is what hamburger cost five years ago. Maybe we are on the way to lower prices in other groceries?

 

[pacergal]

I got a dozen organic brown eggs for $1.99 last grocery run.

 

[Jerry1]

I got gas for $2.99/gal the other day at the local Costco. That was nice.

 

[CaptTom]

Good idea for a thread. But, just like in the other one, there's no point in posting "sale" prices or energy prices. Far more interesting are the longer-term prices.

I'll give two trivial examples, but I think they're representative of how some grocery items were opportunistically priced, customers stopped buying, and the prices were eventually lowered.

One was the fresh bread that our local Walmarts sell. Not sure they all do this, but around here they have a section of their own "home baked" style breads. They were around $1 per loaf for years. During the price spike, they got up to almost $2. Then eventually around $1.75, then $1.49, and now a few of them are back to $1. Probably a loss leader, but it's surprisingly good bread and I buy it during the summer when I don't feel like baking my own.

Next was iced tea. I don't normally buy single-serving drinks, but I'd been buying an occasional 12-pack of diet raspberry iced tea for the occasional "treat." It's also popular at family get-togethers, given that we have at least one diabetic and some pre-diabetics. Price pre-pandemic was always around $6 at the cheapest stores, up to around $8 at the higher-priced supermarkets.

When prices spiked it quickly went up to $13 for a 12-pack virtually everywhere. No way would I consider buying at that price. Then, a couple of weeks ago I saw it on an end cap display for $8, along with the obligatory "price reduced!" banner. Then, the other day, it was back to its normal shelf location, still at the $8 price. Unfortunately they'd already pushed me to learn how to make my own diet raspberry iced tea, so now I'll only be buying it if I host a get-together, not for myself any more.

I strongly suspect these were both cases of customer demand dropping to near zero after doubling the price. It gives me some faith in humanity that people collectively voted with their wallets, and faith in free enterprise that the merchants responded.

Moral of the story is that there is good reason to take a stand on principle, not just "blow that dough" because you can.

 

[JoeWras]

Had concrete done last year. Got another quote for this year. Concrete guy's price was flat.

Now of course compared to 3 years ago, it is up 40%, but hey, one year at a time.

 

[Koolau]

I have not yet encountered a reduced price other than a "sale" or "loss leader" (as is often the case for my Diet Pepsi.) Gas IS down, but still WAY higher than I paid a couple of years ago but that usually happens after Labor Day. Energy has always been volatile, week over week and month over month.

SO, no. I have NOT encountered any actual price reductions. It does appear some grocery items HAVE ceased their weekly increases. I guess that would be more in the spirit of the thread - prices NOT going up as fast as, say, a year ago. I have seen that on grocery items like canned goods, bread and cheese.

Something I have noticed is our Kroger no longer handling as many varieties of similar things. For instance, I purchase something called "Western Dressing" and it used to come in (full calorie - ie, all the fat, all the sugar, etc.) and "lite" (which reduced fat and sugar) AND "fat free." Our Kroger no longer carries the "fat free." That probably signals that they are no longer catering to their customers as much - in an attempt to make extra profit by not stocking the slower moving items.

Saving shelf space for faster moving - higher profit - items is the other side of inflation though YMMV.

 

[FindingForward]

The item driving me batty are eggs....last few months they were on a downward price trend - almost back to pre-pandemic reasonable prices. Now in the past 3 weeks, shot back up to ridiculous levels - my local supermarket and walmart are actually charging MORE than during the highest inflation peak.

Darn things are more volatile than bitcoin & Nvidia. Not sure what the heck is going on.

 

[JoeWras]

Saving shelf space for faster moving - higher profit - items is the other side of inflation though YMMV.

I was reading CarDealershipGuy recently and he was pondering this about Ford Motor Company.

Basically, their dealers are screaming because they are getting inventory crammed on them. Supply is going up, and Ford is not providing cash incentives. Ford also has some quality issues, but that's only part of the equation.

The other part is "shelf space." The "faster moving - higher profit items" as Koolau said have suddenly turned cold. Ford made a deliberate choice to abandon sedans and smaller vehicles. It seemed to make sense when gas was low, credit was flowing, and so on. Just provide the big profitable vehicles and the people slurped them up.

Not so much anymore. There are many reasons that Hondas and Toyotas are still in short supply. Quality is only part of it. The other part is that these brands are still a place you can buy a sedan (Camry, Accord) or small car (Corolla, Civic). Ford and GM went AWOL.

The funny thing is this is an echo to the early 70s. History repeats.

So to bring this back to thread topic: Ford is easing by providing financing incentives and not raising prices, but the product selection stays firm on the high end, so there's not a chance for the loyal Ford customer to tilt to a more value product. Tilting to value products was a topic on the other thread and a way to "ease" one's personal inflation.

 

[GenXguy]

I really am not seeing inflation easing. OP mentioned ground beef, but it used to be that the 85% was put on sale for $2.99 regularly a few years back.

Anyway, I ran across this good deal on 12 packs of pop recently. It looks pretty good, huh? Only $4.34 cents each, and if you buy 2, you get 2 free. So your net cost is only $2.17 each. Best price I've seen in a long time, so I decided to get it for once. Here's the catch. They range up double that at $8.69. I complained at the service desk and showed them this picture. They said they think it's an error on their part, but they reimbursed me so I got the price shown for the two I paid for along with the free ones, for the low $2.17 net price each.

I checked the price online after I got home, which appears to confirm that it was a pricing error. So, no, still pretty high inflation, but my assertiveness scored me a good deal personally.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Aren't prices going down examples of deflation? Prices going up at a slower pace or staying the same would be examples of inflation easing.

 

[GenXguy]

Aren't prices going down examples of deflation? Prices going up at a slower pace or staying the same would be examples of inflation easing.

You're going to have a mix of those things with inflation easing. Like in my example, most things are higher, so the lower cost I got on my good deal eases my personal inflation.

Who wants to read that the cost of bread didn't go up much since their last trip to the store? lol

 

[MichaelB]

I really am not seeing inflation easing.

Inflation easing is the absence of new price increases. The prices went up for a couple of years, but since have stopped increasing.

Inflation easing means the price right now is comparable to the price last year, not the low price 4 years ago.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Prices are still going up on groceries and other items in Reno. I was shocked last week that my 10oz bag of coffee went from 6 to 8. I bought a cheaper brand.

 

[Koolau]

Prices are still going up on groceries and other items in Reno. I was shocked last week that my 10oz bag of coffee went from 6 to 8. I bought a cheaper brand. -

Yeah, inflation is still ongoing. It may have eased (lower rate of change) but prices are definitely not going down - they're still going up.

 

[Spock]

Ha. I was just about to post in the other thread how 80/20 hamburger doesn't seem to really be 80/20 any more.
We're getting a lot more liquid in the bottom of the pan than we used to. Both a lot more fat and more water.

 

[CaptTom]

Isolated examples of individual product prices going down isn't deflation. I suspect that much of it is products which were opportunistically priced beyond what the market would bear, and the sellers are trying to find a price point that customers will tolerate. Note that these are often discretionary purchases like soft drinks and snack foods, where retail prices bear no relation to the actual cost of production.

 

[JoeWras]

I'm just glad the price of almonds stabilized.

Almonds are weird. They had a massive price rise before COVID and a blip up during the current inflation unpleasantness. Most of the increase was before 2020.

During this recent inflation, they did drift up, mostly on rumors of a California drought. But in the last two years, they have been stable.

Final consumer products actually drifted down earlier this year, but have been stable since. At least I have that!

 

[Lorenzo]

Yes, inflation is easing, and it's my understanding that economists would like to see it stabilize at a steady 2-3%, which they apparently deem a sign of a healthy, growing economy. It's also my understanding that true deflation, where prices decrease across the board of products and services, is considered undesirable because it can spiral out of control.

 

[Car-Guy]

I really don't watch prices that close but I did notice that fuel prices have been dropping. Regular was $2.75, Premium was $3.27 and Diesel was down to $3.05. Bought them all yesterday so it's fresh in my mind.

 

[GenXguy]

Inflation easing is the absence of new price increases. The prices went up for a couple of years, but since have stopped increasing.

Inflation easing means the price right now is comparable to the price last year, not the low price 4 years ago.

I know the difference, and I did clarify further in my follow-up post that it's not interesting to post about something that didn't go up in price much as a result of "easing", so I posted the example of the pop price decline, which was actually a sale and wasn't even a decline after-all, just a pricing sign mistake. lol But with inflation easing overall, you will have some prices drop while others continue to go up quickly. Hopefully we will see more easing across more products after the big ramp up. So far, insurance still leads the way for me with massive increases as of my last premium. So I certainly want to see some easing there.

 

[Teacher Terry]

One of my senior family members with no tickets or accidents saw her car insurance go up 500 in 6 months on a 2 year old car costing 25k and she lives in Elk Grove Illinois. It’s really shocking.

 

[Koolau]

I really don't watch prices that close but I did notice that fuel prices have been dropping. Regular was $2.75, Premium was $3.27 and Diesel was down to $3.05. Bought them all yesterday so it's fresh in my mind.

Yes, it's been kinda nice to see gas prices drop here lately. However, we've all seen energy prices jump on a bad day in the Middle East.

Oil production and usage are balanced on a razor's edge because we just don't (can't) store much of it (nor do we have enough refinery capacity - especially when one refinery goes down.) Any extra use or any lowered production is felt quickly and dramatically. Energy is a very inelastic commodity (price vs supply.)

 

[Chuckanut]

Here’s some significant disinflation. A bottle of pure vanilla flavoring in Costco had gone up to almost $20. Today Costco sells it for about $10.

 

[disneysteve]

Gas is back under $3 which is nice. And most of the COVID-related supply chain price hikes have returned to normal. Milk. Eggs (that was avian flu also).

 

[AudiDudi]

Heating oil 9/20/2023 = $4.93 - yesterday (9/6/2024) = $3.94. Not sure that is inflation "easing" or just the Saudi's lowering their price but it does save me a few 100 $$ for which I am greatful. The price is still up 23% since early 2021 though.