Do These Items Fit In Your Budget Anymore?
The age of inflation has led to people rethinking their consumption habits as of late. Let’s take a look at all the things people are beginning to reconsider.
Pre-Ordering
Pre-ordering used to guarantee owning the hottest items the day of release and saved time searching through stores. Now, supply chain issues and unreliable companies make pre-ordering a big bummer.
Pre-Ordering
It’s seeming to become somewhat of a scam, with companies often profiting from limited pre-order versions without delivering the full product. Is it frankly better to just go to the store?
Olive Oil
Olive oil is essential for good home cooking. After all, cooking with the more common vegetable oil instead leads to less tasty food.
Olive Oil
That being said, people are having to make decisions as olive oil has, in many cases, doubled in price. You’ll probably want to buy in bulk if you can, before prices get even crazier.
Gym Membership
Gym memberships vary in price, but people are likely finding themselves avoiding so-called elite gyms like Equinox. Frankly, having a membership at one of those gyms has always been more about status than exercise.
Gym Membership
Discounts can be offered at certain locations to students, seniors or low-income people. It’s important to exercise, so don’t be too snobby to just go to the local YMCA for it.
Streaming Services
The streaming revolution of the pandemic was relatively short-lived. For one, Hollywood, plus their friends Silicon Valley and Wall Street, invested so much money into “content” that people had far too much to watch, leading to nothing standing out.
Streaming Services
Eventually, consumers came to realize they didn’t need Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, MAX, Paramount+, Apple, and Peacock. At that point, it almost makes sense to just get cable again.
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Live Concerts
Obviously, Taylor Swift has received a lot of press lately, as it feels like people have had to mortgage their homes to afford tickets to the Eras tour. That being said, she’s not alone in overcharging for shows in this day and age.
Live Concerts
A big reason for concerts becoming far more expensive post-COVID is that inflation has led to flagrant shipping costs. It’s become increasingly difficult for smaller acts to pull off European tours for example, as the profitability chances have shrunk amidst them.
Potato Chips
It’s hard to imagine potato chips ever falling out of fashion as a junk food. That being said, issues with inflation have made consumers pretty unhappy.
Natan Machado Fotografia Gastronomica, Pexels
Potato Chips
Though, maybe the issue isn’t simply inflation but what people refer to as “shrinkflation”. The term refers to putting less of the product in the container or big as opposed to just overcharging.
Cable Television
The popular term for getting rid of your cable subscription is “cord-cutting”. More and more people are finding themselves doing it in the belt-tightening era.
Cable Television
Admittedly, you can basically stream everything nowadays, but getting rid of cable impacts your ability to watch live sporting events. You might want to head to a crowded sports bar to catch the NBA finals.
Eggs
Eggs have been the flashpoint item in the age of inflation. President Trump, for example, ran pretty hard on lowering the costs of eggs during his successful campaign last year.
Eggs
Eggs are particularly valuable food items too to anyone who’s carb-cutting or bodybuilding, as they provide much-needed protein for doing so. They’re also staple items in many everyday dishes, so they’ve been a painful object to see being raised in price.
Sporting Events
Getting nosebleed seats for an unpopular baseball team might still be a good option for families, but virtually everything else is getting far too expensive. Don’t even begin to consider what seeing a top-shelf NBA or NFL team will cost.
Sporting Events
Tickets are one thing, but also factor in parking and concessions when thinking about expenses. Frankly, you might have a better time just inviting a lot of people to your place to watch the game
Computer Graphics Cards
Computer graphics cards were once affordable, but now are quite expensive due to high demand. Tech enthusiasts who used to build custom PCs are being forced to rethink things.
Computer Graphics Cards
Sadly, tech people are finding themselves abandoning their favorite methods. For some, buying a pre-built PC has become cheaper than building one, reversing what were previous cost savings.
Soup
If you were someone who needed food quickly and cheaply, then soup was considered a perfect option. But that concept is now starting to go out the window in the age of inflation.
Soup
It seems like we’ll have to figure out a new, cheap, and quick alternative if soup keeps going up in price. How’s the market value of ramen looking right now?
Fotografia de Alimentos, Unsplash
Organic Milk
Milk snobs—those who enjoy, say, almond or soy—have noticed that organic isn’t what it used to be. Meaning it’s gone up in price anywhere in the range of $0.50 to $2.
Organic Milk
If organic keeps rising in price, the option is either to stoop to the level of whole milk or rather try to make your own at home. Well, the latter might at least produce some fun experiences.
UberEats
UberEats was a nice indulgence we all particularly enjoyed during the pandemic, but lately, people are rethinking it. Do we really need the exorbitant “service charge” for something we could just call the restaurant directly for?
UberEats
At least people easing up on the UberEats orders is leading them to cooking at home more. The effort you put into that is personally rewarding, alongside the money you’ll save.
Cereal
Another victim of inflation that’s rankled many people is cereal. It doesn’t matter if it’s a super sugary brand or the healthy alternative; they’ve all noticeably gone up in price.
Cereal
Of course, cutting back on cereal isn’t always the worst option, if we’re being honest. With most being a considerably high source of sugar and carbs, you can help get that keto diet going by dropping it.
Gas
Dating back to the Oil Crisis of the 1970s, gas has been a resource with the ability to deeply affect people’s lives. After all, if it’s too expensive, how are you getting from place to place?
Gas
Recent political contexts have led to this being an even more complicated question, with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine leading to increased prices in the United States. Additionally, the alternative of driving an electric model like the Tesla now has a whole other can of worms attached to it.
Frozen Pizza
Don’t feel like overspending on a Domino's or Papa John's takeout pizza order? Getting a frozen one used to be a cheap alternative to doing so, but some are thinking otherwise now.
Frozen Pizza
If frozen pizza were a little more consistently good, maybe people wouldn’t be up in arms about the price going up. It also always feels like the frozen section at the grocery is stocked with the worst brands now.
Buffalo Wings
Many have liked to blame millennials for killing companies like Hooters. That being said, those kinds of institutions have to take some of the blame when it comes to that.
Ildar Sagdejev (Specious), Wikimedia Commons
Buffalo Wings
Buffalo Wings, which are the food item to represent restaurants like Hooters, have noticeably become more expensive in recent years. So, price points pushing people away is the true culprit of their decline.
Magazines
Magazines still seem to line the shelves of countless drug stores, but they certainly don’t hold the sway they once did. A freelancer writing about a high-profile celebrity back in the 90s, for example, could count on a payday in the upper five figures.
Magazines
Despite lower sales, magazine publishers have felt the need to raise prices instead of lowering them to increase readership. The fact of the matter is that they’re probably more expensive to make than ever.
Car Washes
Going to the car wash was not just an easy alternative to doing it yourself, but also kind of fun. Who, as a child, wasn’t at least a little amused by the experience when tagging along with your parents?
Car Washes
That being said, the car wash is yet another thing that’s been going up in price. Frankly, people are turning to the nitty gritty work of just doing it themselves.
Greeting Cards
We don’t want to feel insensitive and not buy a greeting card for someone else’s special occasion. Yet, with card prices going as high as $7.99, people are wondering if there are maybe alternatives.
Greeting Cards
So, your options come down to either hitting up the dollar store for a cheaper one, or getting a little creative. After all, you can always make your own card.
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