rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

I get frozen chicken breasts from Costco and I’m not sure even they’re $1.99 a pound.

This feels like it's 2012 and we're back in the Marilyn Hagerty thread showing lex how to cook and cook cheaply.

I just love that Josh thinks he's a super shopping genius for buying chicken on sale - why didn't everyone think of that??

sorry i was too busy feeding my daughter a Doritos and Twizzler smoothie

Now that you mention it, ums:

https://i.imgur.com/AF8YgNl.jpg

haha wow was only $65 a bottle!

https://us.empirical.co/pages/empirical-x-doritos

I admit to getting a little faint when I got a Coke and a large fries the other day and it cost $11

again where are you shopping??? this is not average pricing

I was at Pete's, a local supermarket chain. There are a few supermarkets more or less within walking distance of my house, and there are always sales, which was my point. Those items I mentioned were just random items I saw on sale, and sure, I can always find options that cost twice as much, but the things I found were practical, priced reasonably and took no effort to find.

I admit to getting a little faint when I got a Coke and a large fries the other day and it cost $11

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel)

Thanks, Brandon!

Costco roti chicken at $4.99/3lbs is an amazing value IF... you are prepared to deal with Costco (+$60 annual membership).

There are a few supermarkets more or less within walking distance of my house

Tbf, this makes a world of difference.

Josh - did it occur to you that everyone doesn't have multiple super markets within walking distance and that most people look for sales and the lowest price available on products? or just you?

you sound like someone posting about how they saw a poor lady buying too many frozen pizzas with her food stamps

Aimless, ugh at the extreme couponing people. There was a whole reality TV show about people with a basement full of stuff like shampoo and drain cleaner and rice pilaf that they had no intention of using, they just wanted to get attention for how much they'd "saved."

You didn't generally see the extreme couponers buying basics like spaghetti and vegetables and toilet paper and milk and cereal, it was outlying stuff like mouthwash and instant coffee.

I can feed my family okay on wok stuff, homemade pizza, pasta with vegetables, rice and beans and such. A sale or a coupon to get a frozen TV dinner entree is not enticing and is not a path to either financial or physical health.

xpost I literally said that food deserts are the problem. It's not inflation, it's people being ripped off by places taking advantage of them.

Beef and pork are incredibly cheap in Montana but chicken and eggs are not.

xpost

I thought those people were "doing it wrong" unlike you

There was a whole reality TV show about people with a basement full of stuff like shampoo and drain cleaner and rice pilaf that they had no intention of using, they just wanted to get attention for how much they'd "saved."

have to admit it was pretty nice when we lived in a two-family and the downstairs neighbors were into that craze and they just had a huge stockpile of stuff in the basement that they said we were free to take whatever there were multiples of.

"if the economy is bad for you, that's a skill issue" is not a winning message folks.

they just need to get good at shopping

I wasn't suggesting that "Americans are bad at money" should be Biden's pitch, but was just stating a fact.

"If the economy is bad for you, that's because you're a big fat lard with no impulse control," tho, how does that play?

I.e. The Whale

I thought those people were "doing it wrong" unlike you

People getting screwed by a lack of local stores are not doing it wrong, they're being done wrong. But that's not inflation at work.

Like, those stores are predatory no matter the state of the economy.

many places in America have a Dollar General and maybe a gas station mini mart, and that's it

Adequate nutrition should not be a luxury product for the select few, I think we can all agree on that, yes?

Josh in Chicago at 12:54 19 Jan 24

Just got back from the grocery store, actually, and I maintain that if your bill is considerably more than you're used to, like substantially, you maybe are doing it wrong. The only significantly inflated prices I saw were junk foods. Cookies, chips, that sort of thing. Breakfast cereal. But there were plenty of fruits and vegetables and proteins on sale. Head of cauliflower, $0.89 each. Gala apples, $0.89 a pound. Whole wheat sandwich bread loaf, $2.99. 18 pack of eggs, $4.99. Chicken breasts, $1.99 a pound. 12oz of bacon, $2.99. With tax, that's maybe a little over $20 for enough food to feed a family more than a few hearty breakfasts and at least a couple of dinners, not even accounting for pantry staples that last a long time. I'd say the headaches (and costs, direct and indirect) of food deserts hit harder than inflation in this case.

what did the first part mean Josh?

also to assume people don't know that their regular grocery shopping has gone up or not over time is so arrogant

xp The extreme couponers that I knew were selling the items that they got at flea markets.

xpost I think some wires have been crossed here. I was originally responding not to the idea that prices have gone up - they have - but that they've gone up $100 a cart. Per what you clipped, I meant that if you *do* have a local supermarket, then it's not that hard to shop within reason, and afaict prices are not totally unreasonable. That's not arrogance (I don't think). But I concluded by saying "the headaches (and costs, direct and indirect) of food deserts hit harder than inflation in this case." That is, if you *are* stuck with no local supermarket, or only a Dollar Tree or mini mart, then you are likely being taken advantage of. But that's not due to the fluctuating state of the economy (as such), it's due to the lack of an alternative. Which I guess is more micro-economic.

I'm pretty frugal while grocery shopping, but will happily spend $60 in a bar without thinking about it

I can walk to three grocery stores and I know how to read price tags. But I confess I have no idea what an apple cost six or eight or ten months ago. I can certainly see that I used to be decently solvent and am currently fucking broke (not poor, broke - there's a difference).

https://i.imgur.com/i9NvJQu.png

wonder where they do their shopping

Sorry, Josh, but you have been declared today's ILX Villain. Try again tomorrow.

My 2023 grocery spend was up 6% from 2022, which was about an additional $17.58 week.

At this point my vote is to prevent an 8-1 SCOTUS and little else.

100% this- although I would add that another general election loss could be what finally demolishes Trump’s political career.

Regarding SCOTUS, the maddening thing now is that we have to hold not just the presidency but also the Senate in order to make any headway there. And with the way voters tend to try to balance power between the Executive and Legislative branches, who knows how often we’ll have that scenario after this term? It feels like the stars have to align.

Carne, perhaps you already know this but presidential families do in fact have to pay for their own personal expenses. Presidents do okay, salary-wise (about the level of a bank VP). They get a bill when they leave. Only state functions are paid for from taxpayer funds.

you should always be stressed when you go to the grocery store. you should be constantly stressed and vigilant about money. this is called being "disciplined"

wanting the most basic protections so you can just get paid, relax, and enjoy your life is called radical leftism, and that's for little babies and whiners

I don't know the answer to this but do doordash and similar services factor into this? They've grown and now take up a larger proportion of budgets than in the past, but I don't know if they're still growing or if they've levelled out (and if so when)

Anvil, my wife likes the Misfit/Imperfect services but I tend to go for targeted trips to stores

if we would all watch the price is right more frequently, we might have a better idea of the prices of our favorite consumer products

you should always be stressed when you go to the grocery store. you should be constantly stressed and vigilant about money. this is called being "disciplined"

uh, the sustainable kind of discipline comes through establishing good overall habits. the thought and effort is front-loaded, but once these are solid there's no reason for constant tension and vigilance. once your knowledge base has been trained on repeated experience, it's simply a matter of applying what you know.

Perdue Farms are selling Approx. 1.2-lb. tray of thin-sliced Chicken Breast for $14.99

They were selling the same product for $12.99 on November 25th 2020

I tried Pete's but wayback struggled with it

Glad I could start this conversation, a little horrified at how some of you seem to view poor people, but alas.

Year to year, our grocery bill has gone up about 20% since early 2020, pre-pandemic. We don’t go to bars or go out to eat as much as we did when we had less money, but it’s not like that 20% is an insignificant number to us.

The chatter about how inflation has stopped rising and people just need to get used to those price points reads disturbingly like implicit defense of huge food corporations price-gouging consumers because they can.

many places in America have a Dollar General and maybe a gas station mini mart, and that's it

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 19 January 2024 19:45 (one hour ago) link

The place where my mom lives has a Dollar General and a gas station mini mart AND a Family Dollar. That was built directly next to the Dollar General. And like ten miles of empty highway stretching off in each direction from there.

(cue theme song from The Jeffersons)

The wildly unscientific method by which I measure the rise of grocery bills is by the cost of the amount food I'm able to carry in two cloth tote bags on my walk home from work (i.e. not much). Pre-pandemic, that shit never came close to $100. Nowadays, I count myself lucky if it falls under $100.

I'm pretty frugal while grocery shopping, but will happily spend $60 in a bar without thinking about it

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, January 19, 2024 3:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

My man.