Inflation at its highest in 40 years…

Damn lol. You gotta drink before the game in the surrounding bars not during the game man.

 

I'll preface this by saying where I live has a high cost of living, but I am increasingly getting sticker shock whenever I go out shopping for food. Fast Food is about $10 per combo. Pizza is almost $20. I bought a regular salad for $15, was less than $10 just a few years ago.
I end up paying because at the end of the day I am using a credit card so they're just numbers on a screen, but I feel like if we as a society were more cash focused that there would be a lot more friction in price increases because people are a lot stinger when it comes to giving paper money away than when using a credit card.

The most annoying part is that I make nearly the same as I did in 2019 but I am working harder and everything costs more. Working for a non-profit is not all it's cracked up to be.

 

That seems on par, maybe even slightly cheaper, than where I live, which does not have a high cost of living.

 

Everywhere is a high cost of living then

 

This seems fair. Pay increases (at least in my case, and I assume many others) are not outpacing inflation, making us poorer every year, essentially.


Though, I think this may be beginning to slightly even out.

 

I had a pay freeze 2020-2022 (totally justified) but then a 6% COL adjustment in 2023 to make it "right" despite inflation in 2023 being 9%. So still outpaced by inflation. Life feels like a treadmill.

 

Those cost sound about the same as where I live. My work has been very uneven and as an owner of the company I don’t get a regular paycheck. That said my investments have been doing very well and am financially better than I was 5 years ago.

 

all these restaurants jacked up the price during Covid and decided to keep it that way

and now everyone is asking for tips too

I stopped by a Subway for the 1st time in several years, and the card reader was asking for a tip…I almost busted out laughing

 

Tip culture is out of control. I got food from a robot a couple of weeks ago and it had a mandatory tip charge. Like WTF.