Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, no, I haven't. My groceries are the same. My electric bill is stable. The watch I'm replacing today is the same price today as ten years ago when I got its predecessor.

I don't know if it's because I buy different things from you, or if I live in a different place from you, or what. But my andecdote is that no, I'm not paying more for stuff than a year ago.

View on HN

Odd that some people don’t notice things like this... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

Do you actually track spending or just don’t notice?

A gallon of milk is still a gallon of milk. A pound of carrots is still a pound of carrots.

It sounds as if your basket of goods is different from mine. Most of the examples on that Wikipedia page are sugary foods, which I just don't buy a lot of.

I used to buy 3lbs of carrots, but now the bags are 2lbs but cost the same.

Here, two pounds of carrots are $1.79, just as they have been for as long as I can remember. I don't have a spreadsheet, but I know what carrots cost. They certainly haven't shot up by 50%.

>Do you actually track spending or just don’t notice?

Do you? The BLS does, and their inflation numbers for food is 3.5% YOY.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/

I do actually. Because I am poor, I’m extremely conscious of my spending, and have spreadsheets and save receipts to track price changes in normal purchases.

I just saw this in real-time this past month with cat food.

A 24pk of Rx Renal cat food went from 5.8oz to 5.1oz[1]. I buy two packs at a time and what used to cost $113.76 is now $114.72 Effectively they're charging me an extra buck to keep 33.6oz (5.7 old-cans / 6.5 new-cans) of cat food from me.

[1] https://www.chewy.com/royal-canin-veterinary-diet-renal/dp/2...

Clothing prices seem to be way up in the US, especially shoes. My suspicion is people are flush with cash from the stimulus checks and retailers can charge whatever and people are buying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com