POLITICS Inflation /General Finance Insanity

Figured I’d start this thread to discuss all things inflation and current insane macroeconomic trends in general.

First topic is grocery bills. I’m 29, not yet married and no kids. While I’m probably not a smart shopper per se, I’d imagine I spend less than the average person in my shoes. I’d love to know what you guys with 2+ growing kids are spending on groceries these days. Was at a friends house the other day who has 3 and I opened the fridge and it just hit me how much he’s probably spending, all I could think was that I have no idea how most of America is getting by. I guess the answer probably is just credit card debt.

 

I have never understood how most people get by. But I guess I have student loans and that is making the difference.

 

Spending much more. And having more “snack dinners” where everybody just figures it out for themselves. Kids are older. Gotta get creative.

 

“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.” -anonymous

UBI is a necessity at this point. Everyone deserves dignity. If you want extra fancy stuff work hard but the floor shouldn’t be homelessness. I believe we’d see an explosion of creativity and productivity if no one had to worry about the basics.

There’s no reason for any one person to have more than about five or ten million. We need a 90-99 percent tax rate on everything above that.

 

Not eating out much anymore, save an inexpensive pizza joint.

Grocery bill is north of 250 bucks most weeks. Sometimes less, sometimes more.

I have family of me, wife and a 15 and 17 year old, both boys. One dog, but he is 17 lbs and doesn't eat a lot of dog food.

The last year and more has been a real shocker to the ole pocket book, I'll tell you. I have no clue how my kids are going to afford their first car or first house at this rate.

 

The used car market is slowly correcting and the housing market is about to take a bath.


It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but by the end of this decade things are going to be way better for those in America. Your kids are going to have a lot of opportunities that this country hasn’t seen since the 1950’s.

 

The used car market metrics look better than they should because life is being extended and the average sale is weighted toward older cars now. Just not enough new cars being pumped into the fleet.

Housing market will be interesting to watch. The short term rentals washout could be painful but beneficial.

 

Wife is on the verge of getting a new job that will force us to buy a car (she currently walks to work). We can afford it, but I'd HIGHLY prefer to wait another 6 months in hopes that prices make a bit more sense. For the cars we are considering, it was literally cheaper to build a new one than buy a few year old used version with <60k miles (as of a month or two ago).

 

We've been getting by fine, but we have two incomes and no kids. We are also about as bare bones as it gets at the grocery store. We don't do snacks and stuff.

Not having to pay down her student loans has probably helped quite a bit. We will be fine once it starts back up, but I'm sure seeing that number again every month will lead us to tighten up a little bit on the eating out and excess spending.

 

It's probably 4 to 6 months before it corrects itself

 

New job would only require her in the office 1 day a week, so making it work for 6 months may not be impossible.

 

Used cars will self correct they changed some adjustments making it easier to take out loans for used cars.

people financed used cars at crazy prices due to the lack of availability of new cars and easy money.


People realized they had a crazy ass loan for a used car and have stopped making payments, so you’re going to see a lot of those back on the market

 

Have always thought that it is both criminal and perplexing that of every sector within American society, nothing has inflated more than the cost of higher education in the past 50 years. Universities are as Gordon Gecko as it gets. Profits over everything, harm to others be damned.

 

Look at what drives the rankings, and there is your answer.

 

I don't understand why so many have built so many 8 figure new buildings. Wasteful. Especially at places that don't have big athletic departments contributing. Campus architecture isn't in the top 10 reasons students choose a school. You can learn just as well in that ugly 1968 classroom.

 

At UT it’s because Mr & Mrs so and so gave you a few million to build a new small animal clinic and put their name on it to thank you for saving Snowball

 

Yes, at poorer state schools that is true too, but it's usually supplemented. "Oh we can build this building at a 40% discount, how can we afford not to?"

Well the old one had 50 more years of usefulness.

 

because administrators don’t get pictures in newspapers for maintaining and operating efficiently.

same reason the government isn’t good at maintaining infrastructure and likes new ground breaking projects

 

I paid $5 for 18 eggs last week. This is getting out of hand.

 

When you build with the lowest bidder, you can't expect to get much more than 80 years out of things.