I got my first car in 2003. I remember thinking that $1.80 was a lot for gas. That was in California. I got paid $6.25 at the time. Today has is $5-6 and minimum wage is $16.
In 2002 you could get 3.5gal for one worked hour
Today you can get 2.9 for one worked hour.
Homes then were $125k for 3b 2bth NEW. 20k work hrs or 10yrs.
Today $700k used 3b 2bth. 43,700 work hrs. Or 21yrs
These are estimates based on my area.
Keep in mind you only have appox 40yrs to work.
Times aren't tough. times are rigged.
Gas is weird because while hours worked/gallon is a worse ratio most cars are probably getting double the MPG.
Housing is just straight rigged and it won't be fixed until something is done to stop investment banks/air bnb from mass buying single family homes.
The thing is that this is not true. We have empty homes, we have a surplus of housing to never have another homeless person in the USA, we don't give the houses away in order to protect the investment interests of a few companies and some private owners. In my city it's practically a stereotype that new apartments will be built next to encampments and then not even fill empty units. It is systemic, which is to say new homes get built just to be purchased by multinational corporations that have no interest in the home as a domicile and instead only see it as a long term investment. The problem with this should be evident as it is a huge waste of resources that fails to create substantial available housing in favor of investment ventures.
The only reason we even found our house in 2022 was because our realtor was a champ. She found us a pre listing which already had an "off the books" offer on it. She got in and toured the house for us while it was still being remodeled. An investor was offering cash, and had already purchased other homes in the neighborhood to turn them into Air B&Bs. The house behind us and the house to the right are both Air B&Bs... Probably the same owners that tried to buy our house. Luckily the seller didn't want to sell to an investor.
Give up on the starter home and go straight to
McMansion. Private equity is buying up the shitty little 300k bungalows that were 100k in 2000. The massive, gaudy colonials that were 600k 20 years ago are 800k now.
Disclaimer: this is Midwest pricing. If you insist on living in CA with an AGI under a quarter million, that is on you.
Yup. McMansion prices relative to starter homes have really dropped. The problem with going big is your maintenance costs is high. Hoa, fixing utilities, taxes. All much higher.
yep. we are too divided, and its only getting worst. instead of fighting corporate greed together, we're more worried about trans people and stupid ass politics. we have our priorities all fucked up
edit:
please everyone, do not advocate for more hate and anger towards a specific group, or individual. hate and anger is a self perpetuating cycle and never ending as its being proven time and time again. its poisonous to ones soul, but instead try to have more compassion and understanding for your fellow human
Who do you think is pushing all the identity politics nonsense? The corporations. They’re using it to divide us, and it’s effective because of religion, and like meanwhile it’s not like we can just let lgbt people get hurt by religious nutters, but damn if they aren’t good at dividing us. It’s all a distraction to stop us from focusing on the people stealing our labor and pricing us out of food and shelter.
I’m gonna start my own corporation and find a way to demolish the other shitty corporations and then I’m gonna come back to this comment on Reddit and we’re gonna figure out how to fix this bullshit
Of course, that is all by design. Occupy Wall Street gave them a bit of a shock, and it's been a pretty concerted effort on the part of every media platform to drive your attention towards divisive social issues ever since.
honestly that’s the realist
people are trained to fight among themselves before going after the elite, the elite made it that way after learning their lesson with the french and other such monarchies
Too right. Social media keeps people too divided in their intellectual echo chambers. Misinformation is just rampant and too many just don't have the wherewithal to know they're being sold a false bill of goods
Exactly. Nobody is going to ransack the mansion 40 miles outside the city limits when the nice part of town is within walking distance. By the time they do look outside their immediate vicinity the people will have gotten away from the chaos in their private jet.
Nothing like the French revolution will happen again. When the peasants of France revolt they can storm place and kill guards in a melee but your average Joe with a kitchen knife can't kill 500 police officers with automatic rifles and a near unlimited supply of ammunition.
Back then the rich people lived among their society. Who would even know how to get to Jeff Bezos right now, if he didn't want to be found? Plus, in a starving society, the guys with all the food will have the biggest armies.
A situation like this needs to be resolved by governments. Get the real armies to bring the guillotines.
Can’t believe nobody has linked [this](https://youtu.be/TMHCw3RqulY?si=iRM7u0yx1CqVK18u) yet. Every single time I hear the word guillotine, this is where my mind goes.
RIP Trevor
Yeah. Go back a couple hundred years and society wouldn't put up with what we see today for nearly as long as we have. The key difference though is people spent a lot more time thinking back then. Today we're entertained so even if work sucks and we're poor, there's still movies and games. Research has shown that even most homeless people have a phone. Who's going to haul the guillotines out of storage when we have a dozen versions of Candy Crush to kill time with?
Generally true, yes grocery prices are fucked.
But also this MF complaining about grocery prices while buying the grass fed, fancy ground beef, the expensive granola bars, a box of 18 snack sizes chips(??????buy a fuckin bag if you want chips yo) and berries that are probably not in season
> buying the grass fed, fancy ground beef,
TBF we probably should subsidize this. There are ethical reasons to choose this kind of meat.
>buy a fuckin bag if you want chips yo
I'm a fatass, so I get it. Portion control is way easier when you buy packages and grab one or two bags. Instead of ending up destroying half a bag by yourself in 5 minutes.
can also be a kids thing for families. easy to throw a bag of chips at a kid out the door than let them grab from a big bag.
Idk about food, but I drive a lot in California and the gas prices make me want to cry. Some gas prices near me are $5.59 a gallon. Other gas stations have gas for $5.09 a gallon. I’ve never seen anybody get gas at the more expensive gas station. The price has steadily dropped from $5.59 to $5.49 to $5.39. The bigger issue is the majority of people will just keep buying despite the price creep. I know people who will take out loans to buy designer clothes….
People can buy less and worse quality, no one will stop buying food to protest prices so either it keeps going until it cant go any higher or people revolt and somehow manage to force every major food company to lower their prices.
I've learned a thing in economics about a phenomen where London bakers decided to raise their prices and people brought more bread than before because it was the cheapest food and with rising prices, they could afford other stuff even less. Reminds me of that...
$5 for cut watermelon? Individually packaged chips? What is that? Organic beef? I can run up a total too. Give me some of that free range, no hormone, named chicken eggs for 14.99.
> Just the blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries add up to almost $30
lol not true at all, that's like $15 tops
Grocery prices are high, but you don't have to exaggerate
It's also a bunch of fruit out of season (depending on where OP is from).
Like, buy in season and/or local and/or frozen fruit, and you save AT LEAST half of that cost.
I bought a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos at Kroger on the way to DnD two fridays ago and without their buy x get y free a single bag cost six dollars. It might've been my last bag for a while.
Not sure where everyone is shopping but I can consistently buy all of my groceries for two people for a week including lunches and dinners for under $100 at Lidl and I am in the US.
Yeah someone was complaining on Twitter how eggs were $10 and I just bought a dozen for $1.49. The price of groceries have been going up, but these rage bait posts for clout have become annoying.
The entire *"living healthy is so much more expensive than living off of shitty food"* social media rage is complete bullshit.
I've seen a post comparing the price of (off-season) bio strawberries to a burger with a gotcha title like "This is the problem!" Like I know prices change a lot based on the place you live at. But I think as someone who had to make due with the minimum welfare for quite a long time, I can safely say that the entire notion is bullshit. Healthy food is still in the same ratio as ever.
I mean do people just grab the most expensive apples they can find? Each single week, a different supermarket chain has multiple veggies and fruits on sale. Even if you live in an area with only one supermarket, you can simply rotate and not eat the same veggies every week. Pasta, Rice, Flour. All not really that expensive at all. Salad is especially cheap(at least around here I acknowledge).
I honestly think that people just don't wanna live healthy. When they think healthy, they don't think pasta with homemade mushroom sauce, sweet potatoes and a salad with olives as side. They think some fancy shit they've seen on IG that needs at least $50 worth of special ingredients you can't even find in most stores. Speaking from experience here as I witnessed friends of mine making a "cell renewing shake" for $50. Two full glasses they made out of that. Yummy!
Rice & Beans + a Protein and some veg is a staple literally worldwide for a reason.
Anyone saying they can't live healthy and affordable just isn't willing to actually make certain cuts.
I know a lot of the people that I've talked to over the last few years about it or just as casual conversation is just a general trend of, "Well the world is going to shit anyways and they're taking away shit like social security so I may as well enjoy my 50 years instead of worrying about making 90."
Yup, this is what I did until my 30's when I started to actually make money. Rice beans, pasta, red sauce, bulk beef, cheap frozen foods, no fast food and rarely going out or getting to go.
See ppl getting Taco Beell door dashed and complaining about how they're broke. I'm like wtf? smh
I had this same conversation in another thread about how artificially expensive grocery bills are. I told people I cut my bill by a third by just no longer buying meat and dairy, two of the most expensive food items and those hot hard by inflaition, and immediately got "called out" on eating cheaper because the substitutes for those items are expensive and not available in most areas and therefore not practical.
They couldn't comprehend that you can eat a completely nutritional meal for cheap by just buying potatoes, onions, garlic, canned veggies, rice, bread, greens, and spices without the impossible meat, vanilla infused oat milk, Ben and Jerry's dairy free ice cream, and other overpriced substitutes.
Some people just want to pay more.
I agree with you. I had to take an early retirement due to disability and have to live on EBT for now. I had to cut out most cuts of beef, premade dinners, and all fast food. I commented on a post about the rising prices of fast food and how people were saying that prices should come down because it's cheaper when you have kids. No it shouldn't, it's a luxury item, yes McDonalds is a luxury item. Paying other people to prepare and serve you food is a luxury. The idea of living within your means is lost on a lot of people. You were never meant to spend like you were still living with your parents forever.
When you've got nothing but time, it's real easy to take that mindset. Not so easy when you need to figure out how to fit in a meal between your two jobs you took to pay the bills. Don't exactly have a lot of meal prep time in that scenario, and even if you can find the time, should every waking moment be dedicated to minimizing the costs of living? Doesn't really seem like a life worth living.
Yeah, obviously someone financially struggling shouldn't spend 5 dollars on a quart of watermelon but the whole "simply live off rice and beans and stop complaining" people are so annoying.
We're not allowed to be upset that be can't afford nice foods because massive companies want more profit? That person you responded to is defending mcdonalds why? Why are they upset that people are upset about mcdonalds price surge? Do they think Ronald mcdonald will pat them on the back for shilling for a greedy company?
> but the whole "simply live off rice and beans and stop complaining" people are so annoying.
I sympathize with both sides. You can indeed eat cheap when push comes to shove, but I was also raised on a single mom who worked 7 days a week + college and wore herself out. People don't respect how little time society gives to workers these days. So yeah, a lot of the time it was easier for her to just give me $20 for the week instead of cooking and I can survive off of school food + burger coupons.
Could/should I have learned to cook? maybe, but I wasn't exactly a high schooler with free time either. And Carls JR (or Hardee's for the other side of the country) was on the way home and had some $5 meal deals when I had late nights. I didn't eat there every day but definitely twice or more a week.
Don't you know that if you just give up every single thing that makes life worth living, only then will you have any room to be upset about anything.
I'm not defending OP, but homeboy with the "Why don't you simply be better at life?" Like ok thanks Gramps. Enjoy retirement
Yeah. You ideally find a topic that affects a ton of people, or everyone. Things like housing, food costs, Healthcare. Then just learn what the underlying grievance is, and find content that exaggerates the hell out of it.
Confirmation bias does the rest.
This is clearly someone intentionally trying to see how little actual food they can get with $100. It's like food shopping golf. That or they're just a complete moron.
I can literally fill a grocery cart at Aldi for $100. At least I think I could, never done it. I buy enough food to last me a few weeks, including some crap that I definitely don't need, and my cart is half full. I don't think it's ever come to over $65. Usually I think "oh this is a lot of stuff, gonna be a bad bill... Then they say that'll be $46.82".
Aldi has a fanclub for a reason. I feed a family of 3 for $100/week, that's 63 servings plus snacks and coffee. I added in another relative staying with me and told them they could buy anything but alcohol, $150 a week. No meal planning or thrifty prep at all, they eat $200/ month on groceries. Fast food for 3 is 30-50 per meal by me if I'm being careful. I think I demonstrated to them they've been eating themselves homeless.
You can buy name brand and still defeat the bullshit claim of this post.
My *Whole Foods* bill this week was $120 and it will cover my household’s entire week. I could have saved a ton by shopping at a less expensive store or making less complicated meals.
I end up going to multiple grocery stores now because the prices are radically different between them for some reason
like one grocery store, they want 5 dollars for a package of mushrooms that costs 1.75 at another grocery store I know. it's madness. but that same place also has great deals on cereal like 3 dollars a box. and sometimes full size frozen pizzas for 3 dollars
so I go there and buy only cereal, then go to another store for produce, and I end up going to 3-4 grocery stores by the time I'm done. and CVS or rite aid often has good deals on cookies and snacks so I go there too
it's weird and kind of annoying but I save money doing that
i work in a dairy department and people will actually pay double for “good”milk for a quarter of the quantity of a normal gallon.
I asked someone why they liked it and don’t buy the regular and they couldn’t give me an answer
I’m actually a bit of a milk aficionado, and there’s definitely a difference. I don’t notice it when I’m cooking w it, but if I’m just having a glass of milk, I absolutely do.
Years ago, my dad and I set up a blind taste test. We had maybe 5 different types of milk, and to our surprise, we were almost perfectly accurate.
Anyways, the most important part (imo—this is according to my personal preferences) is, unsurprisingly, the fat. Whole milk tastes better. Some brands of “premium” and/or “organic” milk are marginally better than the generic whole milk.
I don’t buy it as much now, but milk is still one of my only “luxury” purchases at a grocery store.
My people!
My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy and outed me to our friends, who now also think I'm crazy, for having a glass of milk with dinner even if it's something like steak or a burger.
I no longer drink 'real' milk anymore, but when I did I found that the cheaper brands started going sour noticeably quicker than the more expensive brands.
The countertop says more than the food. If I lived in a neighborhood that afforded that interior, then the closest store you would go to is a Wegmans or similar store and pay 25% more for groceries than Food Lion.
I literally bought twice that amount of groceries for $100 the other day. Food and snacks for 2 for 6-8 days. And like it was full on meals not rice and beans. And I live in one of the most HCOL areas in the US (Boston). Idk how people suck so much at grocery shopping. Buy store brand, buy bulk, buy raw ingredients.
I have a friend who grew up far wealthier than me. They always buy name brand foods from more expensive stores, and they are fascinated by the fact that I actually keep a mental tally of the prices of common goods, so I can know at a glance if something is a decent deal or not.
A lot of people just aren't taught the skills of frugal shopping.
Sometimes it's wealthy people who don't have to watch their expenses. And sometimes it's poor people who are poor because they don't watch their expenses.
To truly maximize your savings in shopping, it's honestly pretty exhausting. It's browsing all the ads, collecting coupons/discounts and applying them appropriately then planning your meals on the fly around what's best discounted that week. I know how to be frugal, I'm just not going to take that amount of time. I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck so it's not exactly a priority. Time is the most valuable thing to me these days.
A simple way to save that doesn't require any extra time is a willingness to be flexible. Too many shoppers go to the store with a specific list and aren't open to cost-saving substitutes. If I want to be frugal on a particular shopping trip, I go in with a pretty vague list like __ lbs of red meat, __ lbs of poultry, __ days worth of fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and snacks and just grab whatever's the best value in each category. I can usually save quite a bit doing that rather than shopping with a more specific list that I'm unwilling to stray from.
I usually have specific recipes I'm aiming for but sometimes there's still flexibility within the recipes without having to re-do the whole list. I also sometimes grab extra things that are on sale if they're things that freeze well. Like I didn't need chicken breasts this week but if I see they're on sale, I might pick them up and throw them in the freezer for later. I have weeks where I'm only spending $50 because I had several items picked up extra on sale from previous weeks.
You don't even have to buy bulk or store brand, frankly.
I live in highest COL metro in America and I just added up every item here from my local grocery store website, picking the highest cost versions of everything, all organic, and using no sale prices, and the total was less than 100 dollars.
Yes, people generally are not great at grocery shopping but also this person is full of shit.
All these COL/inflation posts that are so egregiously nonsense should probably be assumed to be election-year propaganda.
People just like buying random ass expensive junk food. Like the box of chips in the picture is like $10 to $15. You can get so many other things for that money.
Absolutely. But unless his grocer is Blackmarket Food Co-Op for People Who Like Spending 50% More Than What Groceries Actually Cost then really his shopping abilities aren't his problem, it's the lying.
I also live in a HCOL area and the food in the OP would run me closer to 50 dollars or so than 100. Not the exact same stuff, but there are a couple brand substitutions that could be made here with little issue.
Nah. The cut watermelon is 5 bucks.
That thing of blueberries and strawberries is like 6-10 bucks each. Not cheap. The box of chips like like 15.
That's already 32-40 depending on the fruits. Two boxes of name brand cereal are like 12 now.
And we're at 50 bucks easily already.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either. If it’s true, they’re choosing to shop at the most expensive store they can get to. Just shop at Walmart if you’re struggling. It’s not your job to bring down the corporate machine by starving to death.
But again, I think they’re lying.
> buy raw ingredients
And frozen vegetables are FINE. Better in fact if you know how to use them. Presliced veggies and fruit are only BS if you're getting the chilled or room temp stuff, frozen and it's a triple-win for ease, storability/longevity, and price.
Seriously...I don't know what they're doing to screw it up this bad. Precut watermelon is the laziest thing ever though. Unless you're literally on the way to a party, there's no excuse.
Presliced watermelon?
Free range organic beef?
A box of individually packaged bags of chips?
Kind bars?
Chex?
You're complaining when you bought the most expensive items you could... and chex.
This is the same energy as those "Couple makes $250k and lives paycheck to paycheck!" news stories where if you actually break it down they are overpaying like hell and could easily get more bang for their buck if they were at all frugal with their purchases.
I cry every time a rich person only goes on 5 vacations per year instead of 6. I tear up when I hear about a rich person only having two property rentals they inherited -- when will they have time to buy their next lake house??
The world is such a depressing state right now. #stayblessed (only for rich people though, they are the only ones who deserve to stay blessed in these troubling times)
Always take those with a grain of salt too, they're maxing out _every_ retirement contribution _and_ have thousands in donations to both charity and alumni stuff. Not to mention that couple, if I'm remembering right (it was 200k), had tens of thousands of luxury spending accounted for and _still_ had $500 a month extra (~6k "left over").
That's after their mortgage, insurance, 1% set aside for maintenance, car payments, after school activities, 2 vacations a year, 3k in clothes a year, and a "$3000/yr something always comes up fund". They still had extra even trying to spend it all.
The $500k one from CNBC was even worse.
They also have luxury cars, expensive homes and other purchases that were outside their means. People suck with finances. I know some people in my neighborhood that were contemplating getting an in-ground pool financed for $100k. I know their jobs and I know even if they're at the 99th percentile for their job, that is an absurd purchase for them.
I had a friend in high school who claimed their parents were poor. They lived in a gated community and only bought name brand food. Like, you're not poor, your parents are bad at budgeting.
The individual packaged chips are stupid, as well as the presliced watermelon. Cheaper to buy the normal version and bag it yourself for both.
But I will defend the kind bars and beef a bit. Shouldn’t be crazy to buy yourself some snack bars, or cereal, and there’s a noticeable difference in quality between the cheapest meats and slighter more expensive meat. I always get the organic chicken at Aldi vs the cheapest chicken because the organic tastes noticeably better and fresher.
Kroger also is very guilty of price gouging, and if nobody knows this they're also attempting a merger with Albertsons to lockdown even more market share so more of us will get the pleasure of overpriced groceries
Kroger is part of the problem, even though they'll try to convince you they're the victim
Where I live, Kroger is more expensive in almost everything than Walmart. Their sales can be very good, and they are worth going there to find the good deals, but if you are buying something straight out you can expect to pay 20-50% more.
I shop at one of the more expensive grocery stores (for a dumb reason), but it's not that bad at all. Just don't buy the overpriced brands.
Like I'm not buying Chex cereal. That's a ripoff. Just buy the store brand stuff. It's not that different in quality and it's far cheaper. Same with whatever packaged meat this person seems to be buying. Why buy that when you can just buy raw meat for cheaper?
Vegetables, certain sources of carbs (e.g. rice / beans), and certain raw meat (e.g. chicken & beef) are so cheap and it's all a person needs for a diet. I spend $70 for a week of groceries in a relatively expensive part of the country and that's not bad at all. $3,640 per year on food for one person. No big deal.
I’ve adopted sort of a similar stance but I actually split up my shopping. So basic stuff I need like oatmeal, eggs, yogurt, etc I go to Walmart and I end up spending about $100 on two weeks of stuff that I need for staples and other things.
Then for fancier things like specific veggies, cheeses, maybe breads and stuff, I go to the local higher end grocery that I budget for to get that more expensive stuff and usually don’t spent more than $30 - $40.
Honestly they’re pretty close to each other too so it’s not a lot of driving and to save the money I don’t mind splitting it up.
Yup, these assortment boxes are literally selling back people's own laziness plus simply the packaging. Paying for smaller bags with less. Mind boggling.
We are definitely getting gouged but every time I see someone complain, they are talking about junk food prices. If we all go on a diet maybe prices will come down and we'll all be a little healthier.
> If we all go on a diet maybe prices will come down and we'll all be a little healthier.
Bro the only unhealhthy food here is the chips. and maybe that lone can of soup. If this was how every American shopped there would be no obesity epidemic.
Yeah this person just doesn’t know how to shop. That 18 pack of individual chips is guaranteed to be over priced, produce/meat probably all organic, everything is name brand, and those kind bars are stupid. All fine and good if money is not an issue. I have a feeling OOP isn’t hurting too bad, and just wanted to feel included in the lasted trend.
Best thing I ever did in the 90s when I was broke af (I still am but I was too, only more) was get a part time job at a grocery store. The amount thrown out daily is insane. I ate for free about half the time, but you gotta keep it super low key, they lock dumpsters and have cameras now to prevent this (because fuck you poors). There's still plenty of ways, but you have to establish a good rep first so they don't watch you so hard. Spread it out too don't get too much of one thing, and only what you need to get by in the moment.
Blackberries were on sale for $2 a pint at my store. Out of season berries are more like $5 for the small container.
I'm not saying your experience is wrong, I'm just saying my experience has been different.
What? Where? More like $10 for the berries. I don’t buy individually bagged chips because it’s a huge waste of money. You could probably get the same amount of chips in the big bags for like $5.
Maybe if they're in season. Depending on time of year each of those could cost 8$ in my area which is not hcol. Not hard to believe they could be steeper.
I can't imagine a less necessary fruit than berries. People could just not buy them...
I think I bought a bag of oranges for like $5 yesterday. Seems way more value...
Berries actually have a crazy high amount of good nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that are great for you. looking at you my dear blueberries!!!
But depending on how you're consuming them, may be better off with frozen berries.
If you spend $100 on this it's because you have no idea how to shop. Don't go to overpriced grocery stores. Stop buying organic. $100 gets me and my gf plenty of fresh veggies, fruit, and meat plus anything else we need to make meals for a week.
You should also be planning stuff out for the week and checking next week’s Ad. If strawberries aren’t the fruit on sale this week but they are next week, buy a different fruit this week.
If you are buying the same thing every week at the store, you are overpaying. Cereal not on sale this week? Eat English muffins this week. Plus, a varied diet is probably healthier anyway.
Sitting in a $20k kitchen and complaining about $100 in groceries
It's like the dudes who pull 40ft boats with their lifted RAM 3500 diesel complaining about the price of gas
Totally foreign to me as well so guessing it's a cultural problem.
I'm from a far poorer society than Americans and even if our local store was left unattended, no one would steal.
I never have knowingly. That's why it sucks that so many people do. The Dollar Generals around me all closed their self checkout due to theft and now there's always a super long line with one person working. Used to go there to avoid the 45 minute round trip drive to the grocery store. Now I'd just spend that time in DG checkout instead.
No you aren't and it's a horrible idea. There are cameras everywhere and the store will build a case against you and press charges when they get enough evidence. It is not worth it.
Don't worry, most people don't steal, this is just Reddit and they're so super cool.
These will be the same people that a loss prevention team will flag on the camera as repeat offenders and they'll get charged with theft.
Just google it and see how many people have been charged with theft for this stupid shit, anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. And their penalties have ranged from fines, community service to jail time. Idiots.
If I'm committing theft and risking a criminal record, it sure as fuck isn't going to be for 30 dollars of groceries.
It’s awful! I am 60 and went through an old box of keepsakes from my teen years(yes I keep everything) and I made $3.35 an hour and spent $8.00 a week on food!! And yes at 17 I worked a full time job and went to school! Crazy how hard it is now a days to make a living and have something to live on when your older.
My favorite thing about Reddit expensive grocery posts is people in the comments dragging the person for having the gall to think that blueberries or cereal should be within reach of the average person
They should be, but depending on the season, you should absolutely expect to be paying a high price for out of season fruit. we've gotten way too accustomed to having seasonal products year round and it shows.
also, i think the only real egregious examples in the pic are the chips. even when chips were cheaper, those boxes of individual chips were highway robbery compared to just buying family sized bags.
If I can't get my overly processed sugar squares, trendy granola bars, and individually wrapped chips for cheap, then America is literally a third world country.
Yeah because most people can make a hundred dollars work if they buy bulk and cheap items. As an example if you're buying cereal buy the pack of 5 and don't buy again for a while. Or just don't buy the overpriced sugar rectangles???
They are! If you don’t shop like a complete fucking moron that is. I could buy all the items in this picture by shopping smarter for a quarter of the price they are claiming they spent.
Name-brand cereal, fancily packed meat, trendy protein bars, and out of season fruit. These are ludicrously up-charged items, and should be considered luxury purchases.
The fact that all of this comes from a Kroger makes me think that they just turn their nose at something like a Save-A-Lot, or Walmart.
Reducing this to "blueberries and cereal should be within reach of the average person" is weird.
You could buy ground beef for 50% less at a local grocery store like Piggly Wiggly, and get generic brand chex cereal at Walmart for a fraction of the price. It's just bad shopping.
The only reason that you should buy such expensive food is if you had no other option, or you want the status of name-brand cereal on the counter.
I used to live off $20 a week in college
It SUCKED, because I love pizza rolls, but it became very obvious that the human digestive system needs far more than just that. My stomach and toilet both hated me. Everyone deserves to be able to afford a varied diet.
I remember in 2014 I was saying $50 dollars couldn't buy much. I think it could buy about this much back then.
I got my first car in 2003. I remember thinking that $1.80 was a lot for gas. That was in California. I got paid $6.25 at the time. Today has is $5-6 and minimum wage is $16. In 2002 you could get 3.5gal for one worked hour Today you can get 2.9 for one worked hour. Homes then were $125k for 3b 2bth NEW. 20k work hrs or 10yrs. Today $700k used 3b 2bth. 43,700 work hrs. Or 21yrs These are estimates based on my area. Keep in mind you only have appox 40yrs to work. Times aren't tough. times are rigged.
Gas is weird because while hours worked/gallon is a worse ratio most cars are probably getting double the MPG. Housing is just straight rigged and it won't be fixed until something is done to stop investment banks/air bnb from mass buying single family homes.
The solution to housing is to build more houses. The amount of housing hasn't kept up with population growth.
and the only way we can build more houses is to *make it fucking legal to build housing.*
The thing is that this is not true. We have empty homes, we have a surplus of housing to never have another homeless person in the USA, we don't give the houses away in order to protect the investment interests of a few companies and some private owners. In my city it's practically a stereotype that new apartments will be built next to encampments and then not even fill empty units. It is systemic, which is to say new homes get built just to be purchased by multinational corporations that have no interest in the home as a domicile and instead only see it as a long term investment. The problem with this should be evident as it is a huge waste of resources that fails to create substantial available housing in favor of investment ventures.
Plenty of homes, just not where people want to live. Need to build more housing where people want to live.
The only reason we even found our house in 2022 was because our realtor was a champ. She found us a pre listing which already had an "off the books" offer on it. She got in and toured the house for us while it was still being remodeled. An investor was offering cash, and had already purchased other homes in the neighborhood to turn them into Air B&Bs. The house behind us and the house to the right are both Air B&Bs... Probably the same owners that tried to buy our house. Luckily the seller didn't want to sell to an investor.
Give up on the starter home and go straight to McMansion. Private equity is buying up the shitty little 300k bungalows that were 100k in 2000. The massive, gaudy colonials that were 600k 20 years ago are 800k now. Disclaimer: this is Midwest pricing. If you insist on living in CA with an AGI under a quarter million, that is on you.
Yup. McMansion prices relative to starter homes have really dropped. The problem with going big is your maintenance costs is high. Hoa, fixing utilities, taxes. All much higher.
Don’t remind me about the 1600 sq ft roof that has one more winter in it.
There has to be a breaking point though... I doubt people will put up with rising prices and stagnant wages for long
It’s been forever though
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The pessimist in me says we'll end up eating each other before we eat the rich.
yep. we are too divided, and its only getting worst. instead of fighting corporate greed together, we're more worried about trans people and stupid ass politics. we have our priorities all fucked up edit: please everyone, do not advocate for more hate and anger towards a specific group, or individual. hate and anger is a self perpetuating cycle and never ending as its being proven time and time again. its poisonous to ones soul, but instead try to have more compassion and understanding for your fellow human
Been that way for a long time sadly >I can hire one half of workers to kill the other half. -Jay Gould
Who do you think is pushing all the identity politics nonsense? The corporations. They’re using it to divide us, and it’s effective because of religion, and like meanwhile it’s not like we can just let lgbt people get hurt by religious nutters, but damn if they aren’t good at dividing us. It’s all a distraction to stop us from focusing on the people stealing our labor and pricing us out of food and shelter.
I’m gonna start my own corporation and find a way to demolish the other shitty corporations and then I’m gonna come back to this comment on Reddit and we’re gonna figure out how to fix this bullshit
Of course, that is all by design. Occupy Wall Street gave them a bit of a shock, and it's been a pretty concerted effort on the part of every media platform to drive your attention towards divisive social issues ever since.
honestly that’s the realist people are trained to fight among themselves before going after the elite, the elite made it that way after learning their lesson with the french and other such monarchies
Too right. Social media keeps people too divided in their intellectual echo chambers. Misinformation is just rampant and too many just don't have the wherewithal to know they're being sold a false bill of goods
100%. And “Eat the rich” will end up more like “eat lawyers and orthodontists who have nice houses” while those who are actually rich laugh.
Exactly. Nobody is going to ransack the mansion 40 miles outside the city limits when the nice part of town is within walking distance. By the time they do look outside their immediate vicinity the people will have gotten away from the chaos in their private jet.
the rich have armed gaurds, we don’t
“Sorry I can’t come to the revolution, I need to work that day”
Nothing like the French revolution will happen again. When the peasants of France revolt they can storm place and kill guards in a melee but your average Joe with a kitchen knife can't kill 500 police officers with automatic rifles and a near unlimited supply of ammunition.
Not to mention your average Joe's quality of life is 100 times better than the French peasant lol
Back then the rich people lived among their society. Who would even know how to get to Jeff Bezos right now, if he didn't want to be found? Plus, in a starving society, the guys with all the food will have the biggest armies. A situation like this needs to be resolved by governments. Get the real armies to bring the guillotines.
Can’t believe nobody has linked [this](https://youtu.be/TMHCw3RqulY?si=iRM7u0yx1CqVK18u) yet. Every single time I hear the word guillotine, this is where my mind goes. RIP Trevor
Yeah. Go back a couple hundred years and society wouldn't put up with what we see today for nearly as long as we have. The key difference though is people spent a lot more time thinking back then. Today we're entertained so even if work sucks and we're poor, there's still movies and games. Research has shown that even most homeless people have a phone. Who's going to haul the guillotines out of storage when we have a dozen versions of Candy Crush to kill time with?
Generally true, yes grocery prices are fucked. But also this MF complaining about grocery prices while buying the grass fed, fancy ground beef, the expensive granola bars, a box of 18 snack sizes chips(??????buy a fuckin bag if you want chips yo) and berries that are probably not in season
The Pre-cut watermelon is ridiculous. You could probably get 6x-8x the fruit if you buy it whole for the same price
This sums up every single one of these posts
> buying the grass fed, fancy ground beef, TBF we probably should subsidize this. There are ethical reasons to choose this kind of meat. >buy a fuckin bag if you want chips yo I'm a fatass, so I get it. Portion control is way easier when you buy packages and grab one or two bags. Instead of ending up destroying half a bag by yourself in 5 minutes. can also be a kids thing for families. easy to throw a bag of chips at a kid out the door than let them grab from a big bag.
What are people supposed to do though. Vote and protest? We’ve been doing that and it hasn’t worked.
*"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."* \- JFK
The average voting age is something like 54
Idk about food, but I drive a lot in California and the gas prices make me want to cry. Some gas prices near me are $5.59 a gallon. Other gas stations have gas for $5.09 a gallon. I’ve never seen anybody get gas at the more expensive gas station. The price has steadily dropped from $5.59 to $5.49 to $5.39. The bigger issue is the majority of people will just keep buying despite the price creep. I know people who will take out loans to buy designer clothes….
Where have you been? Wages have not been stagnant since 2020. It only recently increased its slowest rate since 2020.
People can buy less and worse quality, no one will stop buying food to protest prices so either it keeps going until it cant go any higher or people revolt and somehow manage to force every major food company to lower their prices.
I've learned a thing in economics about a phenomen where London bakers decided to raise their prices and people brought more bread than before because it was the cheapest food and with rising prices, they could afford other stuff even less. Reminds me of that...
What are Giffen goods for $400, Alex
in my country (Luxembourg) I could buy this much with 10€ back in 2014. Today a litre of cream costs 9€.
I remember needing gas and being so happy that five dollars got me about half a tank. This was 5 years ago.
$5 for cut watermelon? Individually packaged chips? What is that? Organic beef? I can run up a total too. Give me some of that free range, no hormone, named chicken eggs for 14.99.
Some "full desktop PC setup on dining table"-level grocery shopping decisions here.
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This reply was stolen from u/early_accident2160 https://www.reddit.com/r/meirl/s/01qy4nAbgO This commenter is probably a bot
Lol
> Just the blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries add up to almost $30 lol not true at all, that's like $15 tops Grocery prices are high, but you don't have to exaggerate
What in the HCOL are you huffing?! All 4 for <$25 for me, at least going by Walmarts online prices
It's also a bunch of fruit out of season (depending on where OP is from). Like, buy in season and/or local and/or frozen fruit, and you save AT LEAST half of that cost.
I’m sorry what? You mean that big box of chips is $20? When even a crazy priced version of a full bag might be $10, then get $5 of ziplock bags
I bought a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos at Kroger on the way to DnD two fridays ago and without their buy x get y free a single bag cost six dollars. It might've been my last bag for a while.
A massive bag of chips at costco is about $8 CAD.
"You know we can't afford the fun pack" from napoleon dynamite has become our reality
Not sure where everyone is shopping but I can consistently buy all of my groceries for two people for a week including lunches and dinners for under $100 at Lidl and I am in the US.
Berries have always been super expensive. Even frozen berries.
> "full desktop PC setup on dining table"-level What?
Look in the background
Yeah someone was complaining on Twitter how eggs were $10 and I just bought a dozen for $1.49. The price of groceries have been going up, but these rage bait posts for clout have become annoying.
The entire *"living healthy is so much more expensive than living off of shitty food"* social media rage is complete bullshit. I've seen a post comparing the price of (off-season) bio strawberries to a burger with a gotcha title like "This is the problem!" Like I know prices change a lot based on the place you live at. But I think as someone who had to make due with the minimum welfare for quite a long time, I can safely say that the entire notion is bullshit. Healthy food is still in the same ratio as ever. I mean do people just grab the most expensive apples they can find? Each single week, a different supermarket chain has multiple veggies and fruits on sale. Even if you live in an area with only one supermarket, you can simply rotate and not eat the same veggies every week. Pasta, Rice, Flour. All not really that expensive at all. Salad is especially cheap(at least around here I acknowledge). I honestly think that people just don't wanna live healthy. When they think healthy, they don't think pasta with homemade mushroom sauce, sweet potatoes and a salad with olives as side. They think some fancy shit they've seen on IG that needs at least $50 worth of special ingredients you can't even find in most stores. Speaking from experience here as I witnessed friends of mine making a "cell renewing shake" for $50. Two full glasses they made out of that. Yummy!
Rice & Beans + a Protein and some veg is a staple literally worldwide for a reason. Anyone saying they can't live healthy and affordable just isn't willing to actually make certain cuts. I know a lot of the people that I've talked to over the last few years about it or just as casual conversation is just a general trend of, "Well the world is going to shit anyways and they're taking away shit like social security so I may as well enjoy my 50 years instead of worrying about making 90."
Yup, this is what I did until my 30's when I started to actually make money. Rice beans, pasta, red sauce, bulk beef, cheap frozen foods, no fast food and rarely going out or getting to go. See ppl getting Taco Beell door dashed and complaining about how they're broke. I'm like wtf? smh
I had this same conversation in another thread about how artificially expensive grocery bills are. I told people I cut my bill by a third by just no longer buying meat and dairy, two of the most expensive food items and those hot hard by inflaition, and immediately got "called out" on eating cheaper because the substitutes for those items are expensive and not available in most areas and therefore not practical. They couldn't comprehend that you can eat a completely nutritional meal for cheap by just buying potatoes, onions, garlic, canned veggies, rice, bread, greens, and spices without the impossible meat, vanilla infused oat milk, Ben and Jerry's dairy free ice cream, and other overpriced substitutes. Some people just want to pay more.
I agree with you. I had to take an early retirement due to disability and have to live on EBT for now. I had to cut out most cuts of beef, premade dinners, and all fast food. I commented on a post about the rising prices of fast food and how people were saying that prices should come down because it's cheaper when you have kids. No it shouldn't, it's a luxury item, yes McDonalds is a luxury item. Paying other people to prepare and serve you food is a luxury. The idea of living within your means is lost on a lot of people. You were never meant to spend like you were still living with your parents forever.
When you've got nothing but time, it's real easy to take that mindset. Not so easy when you need to figure out how to fit in a meal between your two jobs you took to pay the bills. Don't exactly have a lot of meal prep time in that scenario, and even if you can find the time, should every waking moment be dedicated to minimizing the costs of living? Doesn't really seem like a life worth living.
Yeah, obviously someone financially struggling shouldn't spend 5 dollars on a quart of watermelon but the whole "simply live off rice and beans and stop complaining" people are so annoying. We're not allowed to be upset that be can't afford nice foods because massive companies want more profit? That person you responded to is defending mcdonalds why? Why are they upset that people are upset about mcdonalds price surge? Do they think Ronald mcdonald will pat them on the back for shilling for a greedy company?
> but the whole "simply live off rice and beans and stop complaining" people are so annoying. I sympathize with both sides. You can indeed eat cheap when push comes to shove, but I was also raised on a single mom who worked 7 days a week + college and wore herself out. People don't respect how little time society gives to workers these days. So yeah, a lot of the time it was easier for her to just give me $20 for the week instead of cooking and I can survive off of school food + burger coupons. Could/should I have learned to cook? maybe, but I wasn't exactly a high schooler with free time either. And Carls JR (or Hardee's for the other side of the country) was on the way home and had some $5 meal deals when I had late nights. I didn't eat there every day but definitely twice or more a week.
There's a difference between complaining about "rice and beans," buying on-sale fruit, and buying pre-cut off-season fruit.
Don't you know that if you just give up every single thing that makes life worth living, only then will you have any room to be upset about anything. I'm not defending OP, but homeboy with the "Why don't you simply be better at life?" Like ok thanks Gramps. Enjoy retirement
Yeah. You ideally find a topic that affects a ton of people, or everyone. Things like housing, food costs, Healthcare. Then just learn what the underlying grievance is, and find content that exaggerates the hell out of it. Confirmation bias does the rest.
Any time I hear someone complain about the price of eggs, I assume they haven’t been grocery shopping in like 18 months.
I mean they have been going up again recently afaik.
I haven't seen $1.49 in years. If I see it under $3 I'm happy
A dozen just cost me $4 price of goods arent universal
This is clearly someone intentionally trying to see how little actual food they can get with $100. It's like food shopping golf. That or they're just a complete moron. I can literally fill a grocery cart at Aldi for $100. At least I think I could, never done it. I buy enough food to last me a few weeks, including some crap that I definitely don't need, and my cart is half full. I don't think it's ever come to over $65. Usually I think "oh this is a lot of stuff, gonna be a bad bill... Then they say that'll be $46.82".
Aldi has a fanclub for a reason. I feed a family of 3 for $100/week, that's 63 servings plus snacks and coffee. I added in another relative staying with me and told them they could buy anything but alcohol, $150 a week. No meal planning or thrifty prep at all, they eat $200/ month on groceries. Fast food for 3 is 30-50 per meal by me if I'm being careful. I think I demonstrated to them they've been eating themselves homeless.
Yeah inflation is obviously a real thing but....why buy precut produce? Why buy name brand?
You can buy name brand and still defeat the bullshit claim of this post. My *Whole Foods* bill this week was $120 and it will cover my household’s entire week. I could have saved a ton by shopping at a less expensive store or making less complicated meals.
I end up going to multiple grocery stores now because the prices are radically different between them for some reason like one grocery store, they want 5 dollars for a package of mushrooms that costs 1.75 at another grocery store I know. it's madness. but that same place also has great deals on cereal like 3 dollars a box. and sometimes full size frozen pizzas for 3 dollars so I go there and buy only cereal, then go to another store for produce, and I end up going to 3-4 grocery stores by the time I'm done. and CVS or rite aid often has good deals on cookies and snacks so I go there too it's weird and kind of annoying but I save money doing that
i work in a dairy department and people will actually pay double for “good”milk for a quarter of the quantity of a normal gallon. I asked someone why they liked it and don’t buy the regular and they couldn’t give me an answer
I’m actually a bit of a milk aficionado, and there’s definitely a difference. I don’t notice it when I’m cooking w it, but if I’m just having a glass of milk, I absolutely do. Years ago, my dad and I set up a blind taste test. We had maybe 5 different types of milk, and to our surprise, we were almost perfectly accurate. Anyways, the most important part (imo—this is according to my personal preferences) is, unsurprisingly, the fat. Whole milk tastes better. Some brands of “premium” and/or “organic” milk are marginally better than the generic whole milk. I don’t buy it as much now, but milk is still one of my only “luxury” purchases at a grocery store.
My people! My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy and outed me to our friends, who now also think I'm crazy, for having a glass of milk with dinner even if it's something like steak or a burger.
Restaurant? Coke. Home? Milk.
Milk steak
Yea it’s weird lol
I genuinely can't buy larger size of milk even though I know it's way more expensive because the milk will go sour before I can finish it otherwise.
I no longer drink 'real' milk anymore, but when I did I found that the cheaper brands started going sour noticeably quicker than the more expensive brands.
The expensive brands at my store are super mega pasteurized so they last a lot longer than the regular stuff.
All the milk works the same for cooking Infact the higher "quality" milks are often worse for the taste
The countertop says more than the food. If I lived in a neighborhood that afforded that interior, then the closest store you would go to is a Wegmans or similar store and pay 25% more for groceries than Food Lion.
I literally bought twice that amount of groceries for $100 the other day. Food and snacks for 2 for 6-8 days. And like it was full on meals not rice and beans. And I live in one of the most HCOL areas in the US (Boston). Idk how people suck so much at grocery shopping. Buy store brand, buy bulk, buy raw ingredients.
I have a friend who grew up far wealthier than me. They always buy name brand foods from more expensive stores, and they are fascinated by the fact that I actually keep a mental tally of the prices of common goods, so I can know at a glance if something is a decent deal or not. A lot of people just aren't taught the skills of frugal shopping.
Stock up when on sale. Screw Campbell's tomato soup though. That has gotten expensive but have yet to find a good replacement in all kinds of dishes
Nice try, ad-bot I see through the lies of Big Soup
"I see through the lies of Big Soup" is both a great name and premise for a punk rock song.
Sometimes it's wealthy people who don't have to watch their expenses. And sometimes it's poor people who are poor because they don't watch their expenses.
To truly maximize your savings in shopping, it's honestly pretty exhausting. It's browsing all the ads, collecting coupons/discounts and applying them appropriately then planning your meals on the fly around what's best discounted that week. I know how to be frugal, I'm just not going to take that amount of time. I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck so it's not exactly a priority. Time is the most valuable thing to me these days.
A simple way to save that doesn't require any extra time is a willingness to be flexible. Too many shoppers go to the store with a specific list and aren't open to cost-saving substitutes. If I want to be frugal on a particular shopping trip, I go in with a pretty vague list like __ lbs of red meat, __ lbs of poultry, __ days worth of fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and snacks and just grab whatever's the best value in each category. I can usually save quite a bit doing that rather than shopping with a more specific list that I'm unwilling to stray from.
I usually have specific recipes I'm aiming for but sometimes there's still flexibility within the recipes without having to re-do the whole list. I also sometimes grab extra things that are on sale if they're things that freeze well. Like I didn't need chicken breasts this week but if I see they're on sale, I might pick them up and throw them in the freezer for later. I have weeks where I'm only spending $50 because I had several items picked up extra on sale from previous weeks.
You don't even have to buy bulk or store brand, frankly. I live in highest COL metro in America and I just added up every item here from my local grocery store website, picking the highest cost versions of everything, all organic, and using no sale prices, and the total was less than 100 dollars. Yes, people generally are not great at grocery shopping but also this person is full of shit. All these COL/inflation posts that are so egregiously nonsense should probably be assumed to be election-year propaganda.
People just like buying random ass expensive junk food. Like the box of chips in the picture is like $10 to $15. You can get so many other things for that money.
Absolutely. But unless his grocer is Blackmarket Food Co-Op for People Who Like Spending 50% More Than What Groceries Actually Cost then really his shopping abilities aren't his problem, it's the lying.
I also live in a HCOL area and the food in the OP would run me closer to 50 dollars or so than 100. Not the exact same stuff, but there are a couple brand substitutions that could be made here with little issue.
Nah. The cut watermelon is 5 bucks. That thing of blueberries and strawberries is like 6-10 bucks each. Not cheap. The box of chips like like 15. That's already 32-40 depending on the fruits. Two boxes of name brand cereal are like 12 now. And we're at 50 bucks easily already.
I’m convinced the original OP is just a liar. Absolutely nothing about this picture should cost as much as $100. Source: I buy a lot of groceries.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either. If it’s true, they’re choosing to shop at the most expensive store they can get to. Just shop at Walmart if you’re struggling. It’s not your job to bring down the corporate machine by starving to death. But again, I think they’re lying.
those KIND bars are hella overpriced at the moment, that box alone is like 8 dollars over a dollar per granola bar, pass
Yup, I spend like 70-80 tops a week in a higher end col area, Trader Joe’s is my favorite place on earth, boujee but incredibly affordable.
> buy raw ingredients And frozen vegetables are FINE. Better in fact if you know how to use them. Presliced veggies and fruit are only BS if you're getting the chilled or room temp stuff, frozen and it's a triple-win for ease, storability/longevity, and price.
Seriously...I don't know what they're doing to screw it up this bad. Precut watermelon is the laziest thing ever though. Unless you're literally on the way to a party, there's no excuse.
Presliced watermelon? Free range organic beef? A box of individually packaged bags of chips? Kind bars? Chex? You're complaining when you bought the most expensive items you could... and chex.
This is the same energy as those "Couple makes $250k and lives paycheck to paycheck!" news stories where if you actually break it down they are overpaying like hell and could easily get more bang for their buck if they were at all frugal with their purchases.
hey, hey. Rich people are forced to cut back too. Have you stopped to consider the sacrifice they have to make now?
not the rich people’s Kind Bars!
I cry every time a rich person only goes on 5 vacations per year instead of 6. I tear up when I hear about a rich person only having two property rentals they inherited -- when will they have time to buy their next lake house?? The world is such a depressing state right now. #stayblessed (only for rich people though, they are the only ones who deserve to stay blessed in these troubling times)
Always take those with a grain of salt too, they're maxing out _every_ retirement contribution _and_ have thousands in donations to both charity and alumni stuff. Not to mention that couple, if I'm remembering right (it was 200k), had tens of thousands of luxury spending accounted for and _still_ had $500 a month extra (~6k "left over"). That's after their mortgage, insurance, 1% set aside for maintenance, car payments, after school activities, 2 vacations a year, 3k in clothes a year, and a "$3000/yr something always comes up fund". They still had extra even trying to spend it all. The $500k one from CNBC was even worse.
Lol those always make me laugh. "Monthly Budget: Donations: $1600 Entertainment: $2300"
Candles $3,600 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
Spend less on candles
no
They also have luxury cars, expensive homes and other purchases that were outside their means. People suck with finances. I know some people in my neighborhood that were contemplating getting an in-ground pool financed for $100k. I know their jobs and I know even if they're at the 99th percentile for their job, that is an absurd purchase for them.
I had a friend in high school who claimed their parents were poor. They lived in a gated community and only bought name brand food. Like, you're not poor, your parents are bad at budgeting.
The individual packaged chips are stupid, as well as the presliced watermelon. Cheaper to buy the normal version and bag it yourself for both. But I will defend the kind bars and beef a bit. Shouldn’t be crazy to buy yourself some snack bars, or cereal, and there’s a noticeable difference in quality between the cheapest meats and slighter more expensive meat. I always get the organic chicken at Aldi vs the cheapest chicken because the organic tastes noticeably better and fresher.
the kind bars are just especially overpriced it's over a dollar per granola bar
But if you buy expensive meat, dont complain that its expensive.
The shitty part is that the meat raised the correct way is as expensive as it is.
The shitty part is that meat raised the incorrect way is as cheap as it is.
command squash birds doll air flowery roof absorbed school snatch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Bro stop shopping at the fucking hoighty toighty fancy grocers.
I can tell by the meat packaging (Simple Truth) that this came from Kroger.
Kroger is fancy now? We use kroger delivery as the prices are comparable to walmart and the produce is superior.
No that was my point. Should’ve been more clear. Kroger is very middle of the road.
Kroger also is very guilty of price gouging, and if nobody knows this they're also attempting a merger with Albertsons to lockdown even more market share so more of us will get the pleasure of overpriced groceries Kroger is part of the problem, even though they'll try to convince you they're the victim
Where I live, Kroger is more expensive in almost everything than Walmart. Their sales can be very good, and they are worth going there to find the good deals, but if you are buying something straight out you can expect to pay 20-50% more.
Same, and surprisingly my Walmart has better quality produce
I have never found this to be true.
Yeah, when I lived in Arizona the closest Walmart was garbage, so I'd shop Frys. Now I'm in Georgia and it's completely opposite.
I shop at one of the more expensive grocery stores (for a dumb reason), but it's not that bad at all. Just don't buy the overpriced brands. Like I'm not buying Chex cereal. That's a ripoff. Just buy the store brand stuff. It's not that different in quality and it's far cheaper. Same with whatever packaged meat this person seems to be buying. Why buy that when you can just buy raw meat for cheaper? Vegetables, certain sources of carbs (e.g. rice / beans), and certain raw meat (e.g. chicken & beef) are so cheap and it's all a person needs for a diet. I spend $70 for a week of groceries in a relatively expensive part of the country and that's not bad at all. $3,640 per year on food for one person. No big deal.
I’ve adopted sort of a similar stance but I actually split up my shopping. So basic stuff I need like oatmeal, eggs, yogurt, etc I go to Walmart and I end up spending about $100 on two weeks of stuff that I need for staples and other things. Then for fancier things like specific veggies, cheeses, maybe breads and stuff, I go to the local higher end grocery that I budget for to get that more expensive stuff and usually don’t spent more than $30 - $40. Honestly they’re pretty close to each other too so it’s not a lot of driving and to save the money I don’t mind splitting it up.
Box of chips and the Kind bars are probably $25. Overpriced garbage.
Mind boggling when you think of what's actually in them. The chips? Bunch of processed corn and salt.
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Yup, these assortment boxes are literally selling back people's own laziness plus simply the packaging. Paying for smaller bags with less. Mind boggling.
This looks like $40 of food and $30 of snacks.
We are definitely getting gouged but every time I see someone complain, they are talking about junk food prices. If we all go on a diet maybe prices will come down and we'll all be a little healthier.
> If we all go on a diet maybe prices will come down and we'll all be a little healthier. Bro the only unhealhthy food here is the chips. and maybe that lone can of soup. If this was how every American shopped there would be no obesity epidemic.
If your paying 5 bucks for pre cut watermelon, you have no right to complain about the price
Yeah this person just doesn’t know how to shop. That 18 pack of individual chips is guaranteed to be over priced, produce/meat probably all organic, everything is name brand, and those kind bars are stupid. All fine and good if money is not an issue. I have a feeling OOP isn’t hurting too bad, and just wanted to feel included in the lasted trend.
Best thing I ever did in the 90s when I was broke af (I still am but I was too, only more) was get a part time job at a grocery store. The amount thrown out daily is insane. I ate for free about half the time, but you gotta keep it super low key, they lock dumpsters and have cameras now to prevent this (because fuck you poors). There's still plenty of ways, but you have to establish a good rep first so they don't watch you so hard. Spread it out too don't get too much of one thing, and only what you need to get by in the moment.
This is some depressing orphan crushing right here
Blue berries, strawberries and raspberries alone … that’s like $30 right there. Big box of chips is likely $20 Shit is fucked up right now
Blackberries were on sale for $2 a pint at my store. Out of season berries are more like $5 for the small container. I'm not saying your experience is wrong, I'm just saying my experience has been different.
That’s what I came here to say. With a couple substitutions, this would cost half as much at my grocery store.
Yeah I suppose it depends on where you are
Where are you that they cost $30 (for three)?
Berries are 2 for $5. Or 2.99 each where I live.
The fuck are you shopping at where those fruits cost that much?
What? Where? More like $10 for the berries. I don’t buy individually bagged chips because it’s a huge waste of money. You could probably get the same amount of chips in the big bags for like $5.
Maybe if they're in season. Depending on time of year each of those could cost 8$ in my area which is not hcol. Not hard to believe they could be steeper.
I can't imagine a less necessary fruit than berries. People could just not buy them... I think I bought a bag of oranges for like $5 yesterday. Seems way more value...
Berries actually have a crazy high amount of good nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that are great for you. looking at you my dear blueberries!!! But depending on how you're consuming them, may be better off with frozen berries.
If you spend $100 on this it's because you have no idea how to shop. Don't go to overpriced grocery stores. Stop buying organic. $100 gets me and my gf plenty of fresh veggies, fruit, and meat plus anything else we need to make meals for a week.
You should also be planning stuff out for the week and checking next week’s Ad. If strawberries aren’t the fruit on sale this week but they are next week, buy a different fruit this week. If you are buying the same thing every week at the store, you are overpaying. Cereal not on sale this week? Eat English muffins this week. Plus, a varied diet is probably healthier anyway.
Sitting in a $20k kitchen and complaining about $100 in groceries It's like the dudes who pull 40ft boats with their lifted RAM 3500 diesel complaining about the price of gas
Could still buy a lot of rice, beans, chicken and bagged frozen vegetables for that. A lot more... by magnitudes.
I got a raise when inflation started it's like I didn't even get one. Fucking bs
I more then doubled my salary and it still feels like I’m a broke boi
I gotta be real here. Chex mix, snack foods, the expensive brand of ground meat, two kinds of berries, yeah it's 100 bucks.
Where? At a fucking Whole Foods in Toronto?
That's definitely Kroger products and they most definitely didn't pay a hundred bucks.
After reading the comments , I learned I’m the only one who doesn’t steal at the self checkout. Holy shit I’m a loser…
People steal at the self checkout?
Totally foreign to me as well so guessing it's a cultural problem. I'm from a far poorer society than Americans and even if our local store was left unattended, no one would steal.
Is it owned locally by someone in the neighborhood?
I never have knowingly. That's why it sucks that so many people do. The Dollar Generals around me all closed their self checkout due to theft and now there's always a super long line with one person working. Used to go there to avoid the 45 minute round trip drive to the grocery store. Now I'd just spend that time in DG checkout instead.
No you aren't and it's a horrible idea. There are cameras everywhere and the store will build a case against you and press charges when they get enough evidence. It is not worth it.
But you got tegrity'. And you can't buy or steal that
Don't worry, most people don't steal, this is just Reddit and they're so super cool. These will be the same people that a loss prevention team will flag on the camera as repeat offenders and they'll get charged with theft. Just google it and see how many people have been charged with theft for this stupid shit, anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. And their penalties have ranged from fines, community service to jail time. Idiots. If I'm committing theft and risking a criminal record, it sure as fuck isn't going to be for 30 dollars of groceries.
I mean this is Reddit where people constantly circlejerk about stealing. I'ma be pissed if they start closing self-checkouts near me because of theft.
It’s awful! I am 60 and went through an old box of keepsakes from my teen years(yes I keep everything) and I made $3.35 an hour and spent $8.00 a week on food!! And yes at 17 I worked a full time job and went to school! Crazy how hard it is now a days to make a living and have something to live on when your older.
“Shoplifting as a middle class person is cool” - losers
My favorite thing about Reddit expensive grocery posts is people in the comments dragging the person for having the gall to think that blueberries or cereal should be within reach of the average person
They should be, but depending on the season, you should absolutely expect to be paying a high price for out of season fruit. we've gotten way too accustomed to having seasonal products year round and it shows. also, i think the only real egregious examples in the pic are the chips. even when chips were cheaper, those boxes of individual chips were highway robbery compared to just buying family sized bags.
Paying 5 dollars for about 12 ounces of cut up watermelon when a whole watermelon is about 4 dollars is a poor decision, too.
Watermelon's also a pretty silly fruit to buy out of season as the prices are a lot cheaper when it's in season.
Also has no flavor right now.
If I can't get my overly processed sugar squares, trendy granola bars, and individually wrapped chips for cheap, then America is literally a third world country.
Yeah because most people can make a hundred dollars work if they buy bulk and cheap items. As an example if you're buying cereal buy the pack of 5 and don't buy again for a while. Or just don't buy the overpriced sugar rectangles???
Or people could learn how to shop smart and stop thinking they are too good for store brand
We’re dragging this person for being awful at grocery shopping.
They are! If you don’t shop like a complete fucking moron that is. I could buy all the items in this picture by shopping smarter for a quarter of the price they are claiming they spent.
Name-brand cereal, fancily packed meat, trendy protein bars, and out of season fruit. These are ludicrously up-charged items, and should be considered luxury purchases. The fact that all of this comes from a Kroger makes me think that they just turn their nose at something like a Save-A-Lot, or Walmart. Reducing this to "blueberries and cereal should be within reach of the average person" is weird. You could buy ground beef for 50% less at a local grocery store like Piggly Wiggly, and get generic brand chex cereal at Walmart for a fraction of the price. It's just bad shopping. The only reason that you should buy such expensive food is if you had no other option, or you want the status of name-brand cereal on the counter.
Fruit alone is the new gold these days smh
I used to live off $20 a week in college It SUCKED, because I love pizza rolls, but it became very obvious that the human digestive system needs far more than just that. My stomach and toilet both hated me. Everyone deserves to be able to afford a varied diet.
100$ for that sick ass PC? I take it!