Inflation

[geoman]

I have three older teens in the house. One in ROTC so he is an eating machine! So for me it's the food and also medical. My daughter had to get 7 staples in her head and I fought cancer for a couple of years.

Thank goodness I am one of the lucky ones with a company truck. No eating out and no lavish trips. Even stopped on the camaro for now.

 

[Zstar]

I don't eat out that much to begin with and I like to cook. I have duplicated great restaurant dishes from YouTube videos. The cost of beef and chicken has become totally ridiculous. But I know the production costs have skyrocketed. Farmers gotta live too.

 

[tom3]

And I see that buying real chicken is getting hard, and expensive when I find it in a store. Everything is breaded chopped up floor sweepings these days. And fish is battered bread with some fish oil for flavor, and still high priced.

 

[FS87LT]

No fun these days, it seems. A lot of China is still dealing with COVID, which is where a lot of our supply comes from. Even if it might take 6 momths to get here! Very, very little ANY President can do about that, by observation. Keeping the housing market in N TX going is a main thing here, as there is still plenty of demand for $400K+ houses for a good while. Not really sure if there is really THAT much money still floating around or if the new buyers are biting on the (basically) "no interest loans" now available, remembering what they were in the 1980s. The local utilities district has 400 taps on hold, until their water treatment plant gets expanded, using water from the Brazos River for its supply.

MANY neighborhoods of $400K+ homes, with about $250K worth of rolling stock and toys in the driveway, an hour from work, and they are still driving 80mph on the Interstate to get to work. Gotta be more money floating around we haven't discovered its source, just yet!

I discovered that my MasterCard's Thank You points can buy-down the price of (name brand) gasoline at a local station by 50cents/gallon, the other day. But only for 20 gallons/purchase. I pretty much stopped buying a full tank at a time when gas got above $3.00/gallon, just buying about $30.00 at a time.

We'll get through this. Just spend less, charge less, and pay it off slower than normal. Make more-targetted purchases, only when needed. Which makes "the splurges" better appreciated.

Take care,
FS87LT

 

[Gary S]

It sounds like pretty much everybody here has a handle on it. Cut costs where possible, eliminate the unnecessary stuff, and hang on. That worked in the past so it will work again if we control our spending.
I bought my ice cream today so I'm good again.

 

[carhead22000]

me and wife are lucky to be still working,my yougest just started a warehouse job.tons of work around here.nobody wants to do it anymore.as long as i can have my beer,shot of rum,steak or something on the bbq.im good.may i remind everyone to be kind to each other.trying times for alot of people.i love to cook and not blowing my horn but i can cook!!!.only thing that keeps me married.lol.just wanted everyone to know that these times are harder on some then others.more love needed.

 

[Lowend]

I’ve got an interesting concept for you guys I’ve been reading about.

Our current spike in the inflation rates are a normal market adjustment.

Inflation is expected and, depending on who you ask, actually a good thing. The fed shoots for annual inflation for ~2%. For the last decade inflation has trended lower than 2%. Our cumulative inflation rate over long periods of time is actually pretty consistent.

Looking at 30-year trends, the Cumulative US inflation rate from
1950-1980: 242%
1980-2010: 165%
1990-2020: 98%
1992-2022: 111% (There’s nothing special about 1992, I just wanted a 30-year calculation.)

Looking at 20-year trends
1950-1970: 61%
1960-1980: 178%
1970-1990: 236%
1980-2000: 109%
2000-2020: 50%
2001-2021: 53% (last complete cycle)
2002-2022: 65% (not included in calc)

We can see that the average cumulative inflation rate over a 20-year period is 114.5%

10 Year Trends
1950-1960: 23%
1960-1970: 31%
1970-1980: 112%
1980-1990: 59%
1990-2000: 32%
2000-2010: 26%
2010-2020: 19%
2012-2022: 29% (point of ref, not included in calculations)

We can see that the average cumulative inflation rate over a 10-year period is 43.1%
If I remove the inflation boom of the 1970's to normalize, we get 31.3%

All of those years from ~2000-now when we were living under 31.3% (or 43.1%) 10-year cumulative inflation, the inflation has been 'storing up'. What we are seeing now with higher inflation rates shouldn't surprise us. It's a normal market correction just like any other bubble. Our inflation bubble has been inverse, but you get the idea.

Economists have been warning for years about a sudden inflation boom, and it's here.

Feel free to check my data at https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

 

[Jimmac]

we just keep doing what we always have done except not saving as much. we were shopping for a bigger house, but when the prices are crazy high, it's hard to spend 350k on a 200k house. The plan was to sell our 2 homes and use the money to buy bigger but we keep thinking maybe just keep the 2 (1 we rent)

 

[Zstar]

I’ve got an interesting concept for you guys I’ve been reading about.

Our current spike in the inflation rates are a normal market adjustment.

Inflation is expected and, depending on who you ask, actually a good thing. The fed shoots for annual inflation for ~2%. For the last decade inflation has trended lower than 2%. Our cumulative inflation rate over long periods of time is actually pretty consistent.

Looking at 30-year trends, the Cumulative US inflation rate from
1950-1980: 242%
1980-2010: 165%
1990-2020: 98%
1992-2022: 111% (There’s nothing special about 1992, I just wanted a 30-year calculation.)

Looking at 20-year trends
1950-1970: 61%
1960-1980: 178%
1970-1990: 236%
1980-2000: 109%
2000-2020: 50%
2001-2021: 53% (last complete cycle)
2002-2022: 65% (not included in calc)

We can see that the average cumulative inflation rate over a 20-year period is 114.5%

10 Year Trends
1950-1960: 23%
1960-1970: 31%
1970-1980: 112%
1980-1990: 59%
1990-2000: 32%
2000-2010: 26%
2010-2020: 19%
2012-2022: 29% (point of ref, not included in calculations)

We can see that the average cumulative inflation rate over a 10-year period is 43.1%
If I remove the inflation boom of the 1970's to normalize, we get 31.3%

All of those years from ~2000-now when we were living under 31.3% (or 43.1%) 10-year cumulative inflation, the inflation has been 'storing up'. What we are seeing now with higher inflation rates shouldn't surprise us. It's a normal market correction just like any other bubble. Our inflation bubble has been inverse, but you get the idea.

Economists have been warning for years about a sudden inflation boom, and it's here.

Feel free to check my data at https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

This is really interesting info I was not aware of. But I do have a question. This data, I assume, is for the US only. The data that may have an effect on this is inflation rates in all the highly industrial countries around the world. What effect, if any, good or bad, does worldwide inflation have on us?

 

[Lowend]

That data is the US only. Predicting the effects of international inflation on the US, that’s beyond my scope of knowledge.
Inflation in some countries really doesn’t affect the US. Venezuela for example, we don’t really buy or sell much to them, so it doesn’t really affect trade.

Many smaller countries stake their currency to the dollar. This could theoretically cause some inflation or recession. But those other countries can’t print dollars. In general the GDP of countries like this is so small, it doesn’t really affect the US.