• @seaQueue
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      219 months ago

      Not eating American corpo-factory food that causes chronic health conditions is splurging, got it.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      I had to splurge on some hospital bills recently. Such a luxurious life we live, with our not wanting to die of starvation or disease.

      Back in my day, we didn’t even eat breakfast! We just smoked a Winston with our instant coffee. “Granppa, if I had cigarette money I could afford food”

  • @[email protected]
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    9 months ago

    The firm asked over 4,000 people, from baby boomers to Gen Zers, about the categories they intend to splurge on this year. Groceries ranked highest for millennials and Gen Zers, outpacing restaurants, bars, travel, beauty and personal care, apparel, and fitness.

    Yeah I mean, we can’t afford any of those listed, we just have enough to EAT, crazy right? And it’s not even that we spend more on those, it’s just that everything has become so expensive

    The typical American household would need to spend $445 more a month to purchase the same goods and services as a year ago

    • @CaptainSpaceman
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      609 months ago

      No that cant be true. Every media outlet says workers are making hand over fist right now and the economy has never been better.

      • @[email protected]
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        419 months ago

        This is really doing my head in. Democrats keep touting how good the economy is, and while the IRA and infrastructure bill were definitely good, the lived experience of your average voter isn’t that they’re doing so much better. Inflation has gone back to normal levels, but that doesn’t mean that prices went back to how they were, it just means prices aren’t going up as much as before.

        • @afraid_of_zombies
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          129 months ago

          New sandwich place opened up down my block. Everyone by me was praising it. Went in last weekend, 3 sandwiches and 2 drinks. A bit over $50 dollars. Yeah not going that again. Only two years ago that would have been half the price.

          • @[email protected]
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            79 months ago

            Yep, going out for brunch or whatever else we used to do just a few years ago has become ridiculously expensive. And no, my wage hasn’t gone up enough to compensate for that.

      • @0110010001100010
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        249 months ago

        I mean, the economy has been doing great if you look at a purely wall-street perspective. The problem is, that doesn’t translate into shit for the average person. Corporate/stock profits != individual financial health.

        • @[email protected]
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          9 months ago

          Objectively the health of the US economy is pretty great now. All the B2B indicators are green, Velocity of Money finally bounced back, etc.

          Unfortunately, the health of the economy is divorced from the health of the US laborer… but for those that own business, they are pleased.

          (I always thought how funny it would be if they all took the republican advice of “pull up your boot straps and start a small business”. The labor force would evaporate, and it would all be small independent contractors that will take you to small claims if they need to…)

      • @SlopppyEngineer
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        109 months ago

        The average economy is going great, but that number is heavily skewed by a small number of big earners. The median economy, what reflects the income of most households, went down.

        • @[email protected]
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          69 months ago

          Funnily enough, median income actually went up quite a bit here in Romania over the last year. Mainly because of successful union action.

  • @_sideffect
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    859 months ago

    I remember reading an “article” stating that:

    “People are buying groceries despite their high costs”

    Really? No fucking kidding, us poor folks have to eat to survive, just like the rich pricks!

    And even worse is when it said: “Grocery chains have reached record profits”

    Fuck them all

    • @Bytemeister
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      249 months ago

      In my state, they are charging record prices for chicken, at the same time, multiple of the largest suppliers in my state are under investigation for hiring children as young as 11, in dangerous meat processing jobs, and paying them less than minimum wage.

      These fucks are actively trying to take wages and workers right back to the early days of the industrial revolution.

      • @_sideffect
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        29 months ago

        All politicians are corrupt, it’s gotten way out of hand

    • @[email protected]
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      -109 months ago

      This post perfectly embodies my complaint about Lemmy.

      Multiple unsubstantiated claims that are fully outrageous, and of course the post is filled with outrage against rich people.

      But not a single challenge to the claim, and it’s universally upvoted.

      This place is fully entrenched in outrage culture.

      • @_sideffect
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        109 months ago

        What’s outrageous about what I said that I read in an article?

        Are you part of the 1%?

        If not, stop defending them. They don’t give two fucks about you

        • @[email protected]
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          49 months ago

          What’s outrageous about what I said that I read in an article?

          Fairly confident he’s calling you a liar and suggesting the things you claim to have seen in an article you never really saw, and are instead offering a claim of your own under the guise of it having been in an article.

          Pretty cool way to interact with another human being, if you think about it.

          • @_sideffect
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            39 months ago

            You mean gaslighting. No it’s not a cool way to interact with anyone

            • @[email protected]
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              9 months ago

              Well, gaslighting would be trying to get you to question reality in some way. I don’t think that fits here. I was more implying he was being a dickhead. Because he was.

              • @_sideffect
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                39 months ago

                Ah, your sarcasm flew over my head, sorry!

                • @[email protected]
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                  29 months ago

                  Nah, it wasn’t very clear in retrospect. That kind of snide comment doesn’t really translate to text very well. My bad!

  • @Kachilde
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    649 months ago

    Gotta get that little snooty dog in there that Gen-Z and Millennials are buying high quality, expensive groceries, to make sure we know it’s our own damn fault because we won’t bend over and suffer by eating store-brand cornflakes with water for dinner.

    Keeping in mind those store-brand cornflakes now cost the same as a box of Kellogg did 5 years ago.

  • @IonAddis
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    489 months ago

    The typical American household would need to spend $445 more a month to purchase the same goods and services as a year ago, a report from Moody’s found.

    • @AlternatePersonMan
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      319 months ago

      Wow, just looked that up, and people are spending ~11% of their income on groceries. I was just saying that groceries have gone from a part of my budget that I don’t really think about, to the #2 expense, behind my mortgage.

      Outside of not allowing mergers for large companies, I would like stronger restrictions on deceptive packaging/marketing. Off the top of my head, shrinkflation items should be required to have a big ugly warning on the label.

  • @[email protected]
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    419 months ago

    I make a decent wage. But for the last few years I’ve just been really uninterested in spending money, because shit is so crazy nowadays that I might lose my job and be unemployed for a while. So I just stopped eating out. Stopped buying the expensive brand. Stopped buying random little things. I’m fine. I just put my attention into other things. I spend half what I used to, and I don’t really notice. My phone? Older, but still supported and works fine. Just lost my desire to have brand new and gained the desire to hoard money.

    THATS WHAT YOU GET CAPITALISM! No money for you.

    • @LucidNightmare
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      39 months ago

      It’s interesting to see someone’s perspective as you.

      I am on a slightly different path in that I have always not splurged on myself because I always wanted to know I was secure, but after the shit show that has been the last 6 years, I now splurge more than ever because I’m not even sure if I’ll be here tomorrow.

      Truly, at this point, all that I ever worked hard for in life is so far out of my reach, I just really do not give a fuck anymore.

        • @LucidNightmare
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          29 months ago

          Cheers. May we outlast this crazy shit, or at the very least, not suffer when it all comes crashing down.

    • @Bytemeister
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      9 months ago

      Sounds like me. Maybe once or twice a year I splurge less than 200 bucks on something nice for myself, (last year it was a new knife, and I went halfsies on a new headset with my wife as a bday present). I just literally don’t buy anything.

  • @[email protected]
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    419 months ago

    Why do millennials and gen Z spend so much of their income by percentage on the lowest tier of Maslows hierarchy?

    • Pennomi
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      329 months ago

      Regulatory capture, mostly.

      • @grue
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        239 months ago

        Especially failure to enforce anti-trust law.

    • @[email protected]
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      29 months ago

      From what I briefly read, Maslow’s hierarchy is an oversimplification and academically disputed or even disproved.

      • @Bytemeister
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        09 months ago

        From what I briefly read, the Earth is flat, god is real, and ivermectin will cure covid.

  • Veraxus
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    9 months ago

    I also plan to spend more on groceries.

    Because I don’t have a choice.

    Because groceries are stupid expensive and unbridled Capitalism has condemned us all.

  • ReallyKinda
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    349 months ago

    It would be interesting to look at generational differences in what people consider a splurge at the grocery store nowadays. Things like chips that didn’t used to be luxury priced cost $5-$6 dollars a bag now. I’ve always considered items more than about $4 (for individual items) to be expensive.

    Things that I ate regularly that have drifted into “splurge” territory for me in the last few years:
    -chips
    -Veggie italian sausage
    -Naked juice/bolthouse juice
    -grapes
    -chocolate chips
    -pineapple juice
    -potato bread
    -salad dressing
    -croutons
    -yogurt
    -cottage cheese

    • @KISSmyOSFeddit
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      99 months ago

      Sometimes when I’ve hit a big milestone at work, or for my birthday, I like to say “fuck it” and just splurge on a piece of potato bread.

    • @[email protected]
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      29 months ago

      My baseline is 30 cents per oz. That’s the sweet spot for decent value on food. Anything less than that is great. More than that, better be exceptional. I generally won’t buy anything more than 50 cents per oz.

      • @KISSmyOSFeddit
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        9 months ago

        Can you recommend me a good cheese? Milk? Beef?

  • @[email protected]
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    269 months ago

    Ah yes buying groceries is trendy. Surely it will fade into obscurity soon as people stop this whole buying food trend. Who is this propaganda piece even for?

    • @Etterra
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      119 months ago

      It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes.

    • @[email protected]
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      119 months ago

      I saw potatoes for $2 each. I was like wtf!? That’s supposed to be the cheap food you use as filler. Now we can barely even afford that.

    • @seaQueue
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      49 months ago

      Planning ahead and budgeting is apparently bad now, as is not planning or budgeting ahead.

      Whatever Gen-Z or millennials do is bad, as usual.