How are y'all dealing with inflation?
Everywhere I turn everything is more expensive.
I'm spending less and less every month on non-necessities, buying more basic foods, never eating out, spending less on entertainment, etc but everything else just keeps going up and up.
Electricity just went up 12%, my gas bill is up 20%, rent has gone up 10% year after year, water is somehow 30% more expensive than it used to be, my groceries are more expensive than ever even though I'm buying in bulk and not buying anything fancy, I've stopped eating luxuries I used to enjoy like steak and fancy cheese because they've just gotten outrageous.
I have a good job that pays decently but my raises have been less than 3% a year and I feel like I'm getting squeezed out of everything I once had. There's no light at the end of the tunnel is there?
As an independent consultant, I raise my rates every year by at least a COL increase, often a bit more than that in order to give myself raises. A few years back, I stopped stating a particular rate in my contract, and just said "Billing as per the YYYY rate sheet", and every year I send out the rate sheet for the new year. If people don't want to work with me at the new rate, there are others who are more price insensitive or value my efforts at the new rate. No one else is going to give me a raise, so I'm going to do it for myself.
So, inflation sucks, but I'm more able than most to just adjust to handle it.
If you don't mind me asking, what general area/field do you work in? How difficult was it for you to do start up your business? I work in a field called HRIS and I would love to be able to do some type of independent consulting on the side for it.
I do finance and business operations consulting for small businesses and nonprofits. I didn't have to do the initial startup of the business the first time, as I bought out my prior boss which came with an established client base. I have had major pushes to grow my client base at various times when passive growth / word of mouth didn't provide as many clients as I wanted, but it wasn't difficult, just time consuming. I just had to get out there and get myself in front of enough people who wanted what I had to offer, and that took a lot of in-person networking.
As far as your specific case goes, there's immense hunger among small businesses to have HR managed in ways that fulfill their legal obligations without needing to hire an HR person; I'd start going to small business mixers and talking about what you can do and I daresay you'd have more work than you want in pretty short order.
But depending on your location, there's administrative headaches you'll have to deal with. You're going to be handling all the administration of your own business on top of the marketing, let alone providing the service. Especially starting out, expect that you'll only get paid for 33-50% of the time you put into your business, so price your services and set your expectations appropriately.
On a similar note, I also work in finance and have been job hopping every 2 years or so. It nets you a better raise than waiting around for a cost of living adjustment and you get to apply your skills to a different (but related) field.
I have a few friends who made the jump to independent consulting prior to the pandemic who keep pushing me to join them, but I like the security of working on the Death Star.
The security and consistency is definitely worth something. I like not having to dance for a boss as well as the clients, but I have complete respect for the people who make the other decision.
Same here with my small business. Our rent increases 3-5% per year so we do the same with our prices across the board. Rent is about 75% of our costs, so we don’t have a choice if we want to stay in business. At this time we also raise employee rates as well.
I've drastically cut down spending in general. I've bought less stuff and sold stuff I don't need anymore. We grocery shop based on what's on sale, and stock up on those items which can save a ton. We've cut down on beef consumption quite a bit since it's gotten crazy expensive. I make my own coffee and such instead of going out, and make most of my dishes from scratch.
I also like to fix/repair things instead of replacing them, if I can. I currently have a small wine fridge on my workbench that I think is dead due to a $0.10 capacitor. I do that kind of thing for fun, but it does save money too.
This is v. much an aspiration for me, too. I'm pretty good at doing basic iFixit-aided repairs on consumer electronics, but I'd one day like to have a workbench of my own to be able to fix soldered-on components as well.
My old local library used to have mending workshops where people could bring their broken items, and others in the community could help volunteer their expertise to repair them. That's kind of my dream? I'd love to one day have the skills to help other people save money by repairing their broken things, too.
Oh man I'm imagining a group of dads standing around diagnosing problems with small engines or fixing wobbly chair legs or something. I know I'm getting old because this is exactly something that I would kill a few weekend hours doing if I had something like this in my area.
EXACTLY!
I'm also the type to dumpster dive? I used to live in a fancy condo downtown for a year when rent deflated due to covid, and the kind of things that the wealthy tenants would leave in the garbage room astonished me. I felt like such a scrappy little raccoon scurrying in and out of the garbage room, saving perfectly good items from heading to the dump.
I could just. Spend my whole life finding items that would otherwise be discarded and mending them to be usable again. It's such a satisfying pastime!
I spent my Erasmus in Norway and it was incredibly common for students to dumpster dive, only from the local supermarkets though really - I popped along a few times and the quality was surprisingly high!
Trick was to do it on days they restocked etc crazy amount of perfectly edible food gets thrown out!
I don't know if its true where you live, but in my major metropolitan area there's a number of shops doing exactly that. Between doing appliance/small appliance repair and purchasing used appliances for resale, they seem to do alright.
Seriously, talk to your local librarian. Ours just started up a free sewing class on interest from the community.
DIY stuff is hugely satisfying. Our library does repair clinics and such which is awesome. I actually studied electrical engineering in college, so managed to develop a good understanding of electricity and electronics. YouTube for common issues can help too. It's gotten to the point where I haven't hired someone to repair something in many years. I've done my own plumbing, building and electrical work for a while now. The last straw was a plumber who charged me $500 to hook up a sink and faucet, and did it wrong.
I'm with you on watching the spending on beef. Our meat consumption in general has dropped massively, there's almost a post apocalyptic vibe to it all - feels like we've all suddenly dropped out of the "everything is on demand and cheap" era.
Could have the water wars startin any day now, I'd say. I wonder how Kevin Costner is doing these days actually
I'm still buying beef, but its usually ground beef on sale for things like tacos, other than that its not worth it
I love red meat, beef, steak, and grilling so much. I've gone over a year without buying a ribeye or lamb chops which are my favorite foods.
Seems to be the reality of most everyone I know, myself included. My life would surely be easier if I made more money, but everyone I know who makes more than I do struggles just as much as I do. My combined healthcare/retirement plan is dying in the revolution and/or environmental collapse before it actually becomes an issue.
I think this can be avoided if you don't inflate your lifestyle as you get more money. I was seriously pinched monetarily a few years back, but I got a really good job and did not increase my lifestyle much and it has helped a lot.
Well, just to offer a diversity of anecdotes, to be honest, I haven't really changed any spending habits or moved or done anything in particular to cut costs over the past ~3-4, and most of the people I'm friends with have also not done anything. So we didn't really do anything.
Same here, at least personally. I have noticed that things are more expensive, but I have the advantage that my job's yearly raises tend to be in the 15% range and bonuses tend to add another 10% of my salary to that figure. That said, my spending has gone down due to preparations for moving to another state and buying a different home. Combine that with the realization that I don't need more stuff to move and will be getting rid of a lot of my current stuff, and I just spend less out of the desire to declutter before moving in the next 18 months.
That said, a friend of mine that is a writer for a living has taken to doing doordash to supplement his income as book sales across the board for small indie writers have gone down and he's churning out fewer books due to burnout.
I’ve recently had to change jobs to get proper salary increases, which isn’t ideal.
Two years ago I was told there was no money for raises, so I found another job that was offering me 15% more. I took it and left.
Last year I was offered a 4% raise, but was offered 13% more by another company. This company reached out to me on LinkedIn.
This year I’m waiting to hear what I’m getting for a raise. All I know is I have a company that reached out to me on LinkedIn, and they are offering me 11% more to come to them.
What I have learned is that job hopping isn’t a thing, and companies don’t really care about it. I’ve also learned that if you want to get an increase that is competitive or at least comes close to cost of living increases, moving to another company is the best way to do it.
This is the situation I'm in, I like my job but they're just not giving me anything close to reasonable raises. I told them I was disappointed with my compensation increases and they told me that I was already making "over market rate" so bigger raises in the future were unlikely. I'm going to be casually looking for new jobs in my spare time
If you’re already making “over market rate” but other companies are offering better compensation for the same position, then that is a pile of garbage. Some companies use market rates to create a salary range for positions, and then decide that they are willing to pay between X and Y for that position.
I left a previous job because the company decided my role was worth a maximum of X and they stopped giving me raises because I was already at the maximum. I looked at the same position at our competitors and they were paying 10-20% more depending on experience.
What industry do you work in? Where I am (at a tech company), changing jobs every year is a huge red flag. We've certainly tossed resumes that have a ton of churn. Nobody wants to spend time training and onboarding someone just for them to leave a year later.
I work in construction. My point may not be valid in every industry, but I also know that many companies and recruiters aren’t looking at job hopping the same way that they used to. The same level of loyalty that we used to see when people were staying at jobs for 5+ years just isn’t a thing anymore. I would have assumed in the tech industry, especially where there have been a lot of layoffs in recent years, that shorter job history would not be seen as an immediate red flag.
I am honest if I am asked about my career history. Each move that I have made has been made because career advancement stagnated at the company I was at, or I was looking for better work-life balance. In the cases where a recruiter or company have reached out to me and I haven’t applied for the role on my own, I let them know that I was happy at my previous job, but there were specific things that excited me about a new opportunity.
My job history hasn’t slowed the level of interest, as I have 3-5 recruiters reaching out to me each month. I am also familiar with the companies that they represent, and some get turned down immediately because I just don’t like the company they are representing.
With that all being said, I do have two jobs on my resume that are 5+ years, and it is possible that people feel hope that I will stay for longer periods of time because that is there. I want to find somewhere I can stay for a long period of time. I also have a family to take care of.
Ahh gotcha. I would imagine that there's a lot of turnover in the construction industry in general, so I could see how short stints there aren't a big deal. Our company has about a 5% attrition rate (it did increase during COVID but has since settled back since the tech job market isn't as strong as it was), so seeing a bunch of 1-year jobs isn't all that common. If someone has been at their job for a year or less and I happen to be interviewing them, I usually ask why the sudden move. If that's something that looks like a pattern, they're usually not making it to an interview.
The tech layoffs aren't a sustained thing over the past decade. They've happened more recently because many companies over-hired during COVID and are adjusting back to reality, but yearly job hopping just isn't common to see on tech resumes. And since we're usually getting 50+ applicants for a position (we are well-regarded in the industry), and we want to hire for the long haul where possible, a yearly job hopper is easy for us to pass on.
Would you toss a resume of someone who job hops every 2 to 3 years? Or changes positions within the same company once a year? Just trying to gage what is "a lot."
Within the same company isn't a negative to me. It's even a positive to me if I see some kind of growth (either in position or skillset).
Job/company hopping every 2-3 years? I don't see 2-3 years as an issue. Yearly is a bit much, though, IMO unless I see steady job growth (which typically isn't the case if you hop around yearly). What I try to avoid is wasting a req on someone who will take 3 months to ramp up and bail 6-9 months later to take 10% more somewhere else. And pay raises aren't really something that we (at the manager and IC level) have much control over. Pay grades are set company-wide by HR, and we're unlikely to promote someone who has been here for just 1 year unless they're truly a rockstar and were brought in at a lower-than-deserved grade to begin with.
Yeah, that's something that many people will disagree with. But as a global company with a relatively good reputation in the industry as being a good place to work, we get enough qualified applicants for any position that we can afford to filter out resumes based on stuff like this and hire someone who we feel is both qualified and will have longevity in the company.
Sure....
Nobody wants to stay in a job that doesn't offer them at least a CoL adjustment every year either.
Companies need to adjust their retention budgets, or the "Job hopping" will increase.
I believe it is more specific to companies than industries, at least most industries. I've heard people say that tech is actually the best industry to job hop every 2 years in.
Someone else had replied and made the distinction between company types - startups vs more established companies. There are a lot of tech startups, so that might be why it seems like tech is a good industry to job job. Startups are probably okay with that, but hiring managers at some of the larger FAANG-type companies might look down on that practice.
It’s been normal for tech companies to hire folks that switch jobs every 2 years, since the mid 2000s. I don’t know any tech company that rewards longevity that is a disaster for other reasons (oracle, Microsoft, etc)
Too short of a tenure is a thing, but in my opinion so is too long. At that point you're kept on payroll due to your institutional knowledge and how much real learning can you do after a decade? You'll be using the same systems, processes, way of doing things, etc. There's a healthy balance.
If there are three candidates that are perfectly equal but one is coming from a tenure of 1 year, one with 3 years, and one with 10 years I'll take the 3 years.
I think even then it depends on the company. At an early startup (where you can still make good money) you can easily hit the ground running, leave after a year, and still have a big impact.
Yes, totally agree with this. Churn in startups is common, that's just the nature of startups. I should've thought more about that in my response. I personally prefer stable/established companies over startups, so that's where my mind was.
We actually interviewed a manager who had worked for a bunch of startups on short stints before applying with us. My director/boss (who has been with the company for 15 years) didn't want to consider him because of the churn, but I convinced him to set that aside because of the specific companies that he worked with. We ultimately didn't extend him an offer for reasons unrelated to that, but it is indeed a different consideration IMO.
To each their own! I just put in my 3 week notice at the big company I work for and will be exploring all sorts of volatile and uncertain opportunities instead.
Best of luck to you! My brother loved the unknown/challenges of startup culture. It's definitely a different kind of challenge for sure. I totally understand the excitement behind it, it's just not for me :)
I thought "job hopping" was more or less accepted in tech? Unless you meant tenures under <15 months, because otherwise I've heard of lots of people climbing the corporate ladder (and salaries) by jumping around 2-3 years in.
It depends. Some places (particularly startups) and roles might not care. But as you move up and towards steady corporate roles, it's frowned on (in my experience). 2-3 years is likely fine in most cases, but the comment I originally replied to cited yearly hops which is a bit much. I wouldn't hire someone with a series of 1-2 year stints.
I’m assuming you’re a hiring manager or part of an interview panel? Would you say that 2+ years puts someone in the “clear”?
Yes, I'm the most senior technical lead in my dept, so I review resumes and perform the technical part of all of our interviews. And ultimately, it depends. 5 jobs in the past 10 years? That's a lot, IMO. Unless I see significant title, responsibility or skillet growth, it's a red flag to me, especially if they're lateral moves. I'd rather not hire someone who is just going to bounce in a year or two to chase a few bucks somewhere else, if I can avoid it.
That being said, red flags aren't automatic disqualifiers. It's a factor in selection, balanced with the rest of the resume and ultimately the interviews. But it's pretty rare that we hire a job hopper. It's just not in our company's culture, and we typically get enough qualified applicants for a position that we can get someone with the right combination of technical and cultural fit who also has an actual stable job history.
I posted this is another reply, but I actually did push for an interview for an engineer manager with an impressive resume who had a slew of short positions at startups. That's just the nature of startups, but I liked the rest of his resume so we interviewed him anyway. Ultimately passed on him due to cultural fit, but his job history made sense with the types of companies he worked for.
It makes sense to job hop:
https://www.conference-board.org/press/One-Third-of-Those-Who-Changed-Jobs-Make-More
I haven't because of the work life balance and the pewter cufflinks (government pension).
I avoid eating out. If I do, it is special occasion type thing (ice cream) or very cheap food (taco bell)
I torrent a lot. It's not great but I can't justify spending >$10 on a streaming service for a month when I just want to watch one series. I also have like 40+ Wii U games so if I torrent the occasional Nintendo game, I feel less bad.
I just buy cheaper products whenever possible and use coupons. If I buy beer, I choose the brands that are offering cash back. I will but store brand products. I check coupons every time I shop.
This one is terrible, but I just don't go to the doctor if I don't have to. I have been dealing with a stress fracture in my foot for several months now (at least I think it is a stress fracture). And I can't really afford to spend whatever it will cost to diagnose and fix it.
I do my best to maximize my pay check. Get my FSA just right for buying glasses or contacts. Take advantage of Employee Stock Purchasing Plan. Do what I can to put money into 401k.
If it's improving then ig it works, otherwise you should see doctor because later it may cost more money.
Some days are better than others. But it isn't getting worse.
The really shitty thing is that even "cheap" food isn't cheap anymore. If we get any 2 meals at Taco Bell other than their 3 taco meal we're spending as much as an Applebee's 2 for $24 deal.
I never thought I'd see the day were taking 6 people to Taco Bell (2 adults, 4 kids/teens) would be nearly $60 for a couple of 12 taco packs, a box deal and some drinks..
I know, right...used to be (not that long ago) if you spent $20 at Taco Bell for 2 people it was too much food.
Who the hell can only eat one TB taco? My default was always like 3 tacos unless heavily inebriated.
That like ordering half a hotdog. Pretty sure the soda would have almost as many calories.
I went to McDonalds recently on a whim and it was free fries Friday, $1.29 for a large soft drink, and "2 for $3" and I opted for a McDouble and McChicken. So medium fries, a large soft drink, and two sandwiches came out to under $6. If you use apps and search for deals it can be done.
How often do you order with the app? I find their online exclusive meal deals are the best. We typically can have enough for two people at around ~$15.
My wife and I moved up to Massachusetts from North Carolina last year and both got fairly significant increases as a result of changing jobs (same job titles, different companies). The downside is the cost of living is high in the area. We are a half hour from Boston and it's easily $750k for a house that is livable. Anything less in my area is priced for the land, will be torn down, and "duet" homes will be crammed into the lot.
So basically, due to inflation we are continuing to rent instead of buy and we are eating out rarely. We are not going out to events as often and are instead staying home and playing video games, playing board games or reading. We hike and camp a lot and try to spend a lot of time outdoors. Boston is a fun city, but you are dropping a lot of money to commute in, eat a meal, and do an activity.
I honestly don't know how many people can afford to do much with the rising costs of.. everything. As student loan repayments resume and the job market (maybe) stabilizes, I'm anticipating a lot of families will cut back hard on their entertainment, vacation and eating out spending even more. I think a lot of businesses will struggle.
I assume you know this already, but Trader Joe's is the place to go for cheap "fancy" cheese.
I love Massachusetts, but the housing situation is wicked bad. You're really looking at west of 495 for anything even remotely affordable.
Trader Joe's also has cheap sweet potato fries. $2.50 a bag that can easily be two servings!
Might as well ask all who read, what other deals can be had at Trader Joe's?
Nuts and dried fruit are good deals. They have a pretty close knock off of pirates booty that's like half the price.
I feel like their frozen food selection is a great replacement for eating out. Most things taste great and don't have that odd 'frozen food' taste.
Any particular stand outs for you? I have gotten some things over the past few years like their beef and broccoli, and was pleasantly surprised
I always have some of their spanish rice (https://www.clubtraderjoes.com/2022/10/trader-joes-spanish-style-rice-review.html) on hand. It's $2 or so and is really good!
Their orange chicken is pretty good if you just need some takeout-style chicken ready to go! I usually skip the provided soy sauce, it's that good just by itself :)
I'll add some more here if I can recall what I usually get
750k for a house sounds cheap in Vancouver.
Here are the cheapest listings.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/cheapest-homes-metro-vancouver-july-2023
That last house there is in a 55+ ONLY strata and not suitable for families.
To be clear, OP is not talking about prices in the city, but suburbs 30-50 mins outside the city.
I’m at the 97th percentile for income in my country, I should be doing very well. Somehow I’m still living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t live extravagantly, I rent and have a modest car loan. I’m a bit perplexed but I think it boils down to residing in a place with a very high cost of living. I’m preparing to move to a different region where my expenses will be roughly halved, with the same income (since I work remotely) and I’m desperately hoping that will bring some relief. It boggles my mind how I can be earning so much and still struggling, and it’s been getting harder every year. This move is my last resort.
I will say that moving to a lower-CoL place will do wonders. Those of us with families don't really have the option without destroying our children's social networks, but if I were single 100% I'd be moving somewhere where rent is < $800/mo for a 2 BR.
Lower CoL also comes with lower local wages though. You're not going to be able to move to the middle of Kansas and ask for a Bay Area salary. This strategy is only viable for people with a high paying remote job, or people who have worked a while and saved up enough to retire early.
Yes but person I was replying to said they work remotely.
Remote work might finally help equalize CoL everywhere as high-salaries integrate wirh low CoL places over time.
I get that, I'm just making a point that personal life choices made at the individual level by those who are able and willing to isn't viable as a broad solution. It's one of those things like a general strike. It'd be nice, but it's just not realistic. The only solution that will really work requires putting in the effort to do coordinated political action and organizing.
This is what I did, I work for a company out of LA and moved to the suburbs of Raleigh where cost of living is lower... though its rising incredibly quickly here too. I may move again to the sticks to try and fight the insane housing increases that are happening out here
How am I dealing? Poorly.
No more holidays, or indulgence foods, or cab rides to save time. Taking advantage of every dime available on my employer-provided insurance. Watching for sales and stocking up. Deferring upgrades on my family's phones. Cancelling all my subscriptions and only watching tentpole series with friends.
Buying everything used, except underwear... on special occasions.
To be honest I have not noticed, nor has anyone in my immediate friend circles.
Mind if I ask what field you work in and what general area you live in?
I don't mind. I debated if it was insensitive to post my initial message, but after more consideration decided sharing openly lets us all have a more complete picture of the situation.
I'm a software engineer living in Seattle.
Everybody else is just paying the inflated prices we have been paying for years lol
I loaded up my Fidelity account with cash from my checking account and also rerouted my paychecks to directly deposit into it to get MAXIMUM returns from the FZFXX money market fund. I'm getting close to 5% on Fidelity's money market and the monthly dividends have been a source of slight comfort in hedging against this insane inflation.
As a bonus, I can also deploy my idling capital on a moment's notice if I happen to like a stock that I've done background research and analysis on.
Aside from this, I've also been making full use of my credit cards by maximizing cashbacks and rewards, and paying them off in full at the end of the month, of course.
Amen. Also quit my job a couple months ago. My comp was extremely good but my career was destroying my health. My life is worth more than a paycheck.
I'm just not sure what I'm going to do next. I just know that I don't want it to be with Big Tech. Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.
If you have time and a bit of money, try a trade!
I'll probably hop ship to a trade or handyman at the least when I can afford to take a pay cut. I can't stand sitting at a computer anymore.
Well, we're taking up gardening—just like every other family in our neighborhood. 🤦🏻♂️
Tomatoes for days. Victory gardens are making a comeback.
Rapidly rising grocery prices have forced me to learn how to cook. It's still expensive (and currently tastes worse) but not the 3-4 hundred I would be spending at this point. I'm also trying to find some urban gardening methods that work for me.
Aside from generally reducing my spending, I'm also fruitlessly looking for a better job. Change what you have the power to change I guess. :/
Livin' like it's 2009 all over again - lots and lots of bulking up meals with cheap grains/pasta/frozen vegetables. Lots and lots of big batch soups. I've decided to try something new and convince my body it likes beans and lentils. My toilet hates me.
I don't have any streaming services (too broke for that, thanks pandemic), but I do enjoy PlutoTV and Tubi. They're free, ad supported streaming services that are pretty good, I can almost always find something to watch either 'live' or on demand. Be warned that for some things they won't have all the episodes (the South Park channel on PlutoTV only airs a selection of episodes), but overall they're my speed: free and entertaining.
Check your local library system(s) and they'll often offer access to Overdrive, Hoopla, and Freegal etc with (free!) library membership. Lots of books, audiobooks, and videos, both hard media and digital. You may not always get the latest releases or even the last year's theatrical hits, but let's be real there is so much entertainment created in the last few decades that you could watch only 10 minutes of each offering and still have enough to watch nonstop for longer than you actually have freetime to do so.
(Also, your local library might have resume workshops you can attend to get feedback on your application package as you try to switch to a better paying job)
(Libraries are awesome, check out your local system(s) and see what your tax dollars are doing!)
Thrifting is good and fun if you like treasure hunting and have access to a nice location where the betteroff send their castoffs.
Back in 2020 when we were all stuck at home, there were many discussions everywhere about cheap/free hobbies to kill time. I'd look those up and see if there's anything that strikes your fancy. Some hobbies have buy-in costs (like painting or sewing) but they also tend to come with enthusiastic communities online and IRL that will serve as entertainment and socialization, a BOGO if ever there was a worthy expenditure. You're not likely to make money from most creative hobbies, but they can enhance your quality of life because you'll be better able to adapt cheap crap and make it better. (Like sewing - you could learn to tailor pants that are too long that you bought at a thrift shop for cheap and update your wardrobe.)
Not going to sugarcoat it - being broke sucks. Pick your distractions wisely.
Edit: I only now discovered that unlike my intentions to make this a standalone comment, I've taken someone else's comment for a left turn. Oops.
I have a bunch of pdf cookbooks if you're interested.
Edit: if anyone else is interested feel free to send me a message. I cook often and have bought a lot of them, as well as physical books, and I don't mind sharing them
Thanks. I've got cookbooks, I'm just terrible at following directions it seems.
Are you any good at chemistry? If you do better with precise instructions such as "heat until thermometer reads X degrees", instead of vague stuff like "saute until aromatic".... Or if you find yourself wondering why am I doing this to the food what does it even do, then consider Modernist Cuisine. Precision, repeatable successes, and the science explained so that you can confidently learn how to cook instead of only what you are cooking.
I'm not particularly great a chemistry (probably for the same reasons. But that actually does sound interesting and helpful. Thank you!
Try watching cooking shows where chefs have to improvise. I learned so much about cooking from watching Chopped and Iron Chef for endless hours! It's not about following recipes. It's about learning patterns of what works well, what doesn't, and how you can substitute ingredients. Less planning and more improvisation!
It's like playing piano without knowing how to read music. Many people can do this well!
I’m getting better at cooking too.
We had an instant pot that didn’t get much use until recently. Dry beans work really well in it, and can be completely done start to finish in about an hour. There’s no need to soak.
I’ve always liked black beans and now I can cook them to where they taste like some of my favorite Cuban restaurants. That plus rice and a protein and it’s multiple meals that seem to get better the longer they’re in the fridge.
Yeah I bought a rice cooker recently and have been trying to make that a major part of my cooking. Hard to screw it up so no matter what, at the end of the day, at least I have some rice.
I eat less and I sleep less.
Jk, but not really.
I've drastically cut down on my spending. I basically only buy food and pay bills, and I'm worried. My partner and I both run our own, fairly new, fledgling buisness and don't have the luxury of a single guaranteed salary.
It hasn't affected me at all really, for a few compounding reasons
I got a decent raise 2021, two in 2022, and one more this year.
I've noticed my grocery bills are a bit higher, but my purchasing habits haven't really changed. It's just me and my SO, so we don't buy a ton of groceries to begin with.
I bought my home in 2018 and refinanced in early 2021 to get an even lower interest rate. I avoided those scammy adjustable rate mortgages, so my mortgage payment doesn't change just because the value of the dollar has. It will go lower again in a few months when I'm able to dump the PMI.
Man, you really got all the right answers at the right time haha, the prices of houses in my area literally have tripled in the last 4 years and I've gotten 10% in raises over that time... feels like I'm on the opposite edge of the luck spectrum from you
Been trying to trim off any unnecessary expenses anywhere I can. Sales at the grocery store, shopping at cheaper grocery stores, cutting down streaming subscriptions, letting my ugly legs flap free in shorts while I set the AC at 76, etc. Also, idk if this affects anyone else but I was always a bit stubborn about my coffee. Bought expensive coffee that was about $14-$18 for a 12 oz. bag. I was pouting about having to buy cheap coffee but found that Cafe Bustelo is actually quite good, nice and strong like I like, comes in a nice espresso grind and is less than $6 for a 10 oz. can.
Cafe Bustelo is nice and strong. I got a vacuum sealed brick of it as a gift and had low expectations. I'm not a coffee snob or anything, but oftentimes the cheapest coffees are lacking in flavor.
I made a funnel out of a paper plate, transferred the grinds into a can, and bigly enjoyed every cup.
There are a lot of other cheapo espressos out there. We have an ethnic supermarket near us (and by ethnic I mean they have multiple aisles dedicated to specific nationalities, and the veg and protein options are extremely wide-ranging). We can get vacuum sealed bricks of espresso for @.$2 each (and yes, we store the grounds in another lidded container). They keep.for a long time and are cheap enough to experiment with different brands.
Eating out at all is for celebrating days we get raises or if there's a deal on an app(like Arby's this last week offered 5 roast beef sandwiches for $5, that's enough to eat for three days.) But normal eating out is not justifiable anymore. Spending $50 at a Cheddars where you know the cook and the server do not give a flying snarf about you is not worth it.
But fireworks.... Yeah I can justify dropping $200 for the 4th.
Honestly it hasn’t been too difficult for me. Not because I make a lot of money (I actually make pretty poor wages for my skill set) but because I had been saving up for a long time and have a lifestyle that borders on anticonsumption and have gotten used to saving my money. I don’t buy useless junk most of the time and I have minimized my spending in numerous ways (no interest payments, driving an electric car, etc.).
One way I have managed to save the most was done for health reasons rather than economic reasons, and that was changing my diet. A lot of people spend a lot of money on processed foods, animal products, and restaurants, but those add up fast. My Whole Foods plant based diet doesn’t allow me to have any of those. Lunch for two can easily cost $30 at a fast food place these days. Delivery can be closer to $50. My meals (individually) cost less than $5 usually, and breakfasts usually cost about $1-2. Even if I were to splurge on a restaurant the veggie options tend to be cheaper. For instance, I can get a fully loaded foot long veggie delight sandwich at Subway for about $8. Don’t have to pay for a drink because those have sugar and water is free. This also means I have more budget for higher quality ingredients if I want to. But for most things I generally go for the cheap stuff.
This has been so successful that I actually just bought a new (to me) car. Though I did finance part of it, the amount I am expecting to get for my old car and some debt owed to me should get me in the clear fairly soon.
Interesting that nearly none of the comments are about dealing with inflation. Two persons mention increasing their salary which is a partial answer, every other comment is about decreasing spending which (as far as I know) exacerbates the problem on a macroeconomic scale and, on an individual level, is not going to solve the problem.
Inflation is the phenomenon by which money becomes less valuable. No comment talks about how to manage that issue, for example by investing. Decreasing your outflow helps, but for a given amount of inflation, spending reduction doesn't recuperate the lost purchasing power of the money you have. Increasing income is only part of the solution: if your savings rate is constant after correcting for inflation, inflation still kills your savings if you keep them in a vault and don't do anything with them.
If you've got more than a few thousand bucks of savings, you should really look into index funds, bonds, solar panels, real estate, and other things that appreciate on par with inflation or more.
I think the problem is that a lot of people are in a situation where they literally can't afford to do much that would fix it. Apparently 34% of people in the UK either had no savings or less than £1000, and two thirds of us think we couldn't even go 3 months without needing to borrow money. (Source)
I don't know what the statistics are for the USA or anywhere else in the world, but I'd be surprised if there were many places where it was the typical lived experience for people to have more than a few thousand in savings.
I earn a decent wage. With 4 kids (three are teens), a divorce so I'm paying maintenance, and that also cost me on a 10 year interest only mortgage not buying a brick, I'm at month to month.
The one thing going for me is that I'm essentially hot property, I could contract at a day rate of £800+ if I had to. Even with all that said I have a lot of debt due to unfortunate circumstances which have amounted to loans and a credit card to get my wife's business off of the ground.
In 2024 one loan is paid freeing up £426 a month. Child care at three mornings a week gets mooted by government scheme, that's another £442. My second eldest from my first marriage finishes school, that's £340 maintenance I can stop paying. Issue is always time and the future, but right now I'm skint as skint can be.
I really like your comment, it’s an eye opener! That’s really a totally different way of thinking about inflation than I’ve done until now and it opens up some different ways to let my savings work for me.
I remember that moment about five years ago while visiting friends. I started my first indefinite (no plans to continue studying) full time job a few months back and had done some retirement planning, but ran into the problem of both inflation and longevity. Nobody had told me yet that there are ways to invest money that are safe enough to use for your life savings. They did. Changed everything.
I thought investing was like gambling, or at least required a lot of time to figure out who's going to bring you return on investment (hence this being people's jobs at banks), only since then do I know things like that real estate value grows (ballpark) with inflation and not more. But also usually not less. Index funds grow with like 4% above inflation and that beats most professional stock market investors, though I don't know what will happen when everyone realises this and nobody picks companies anymore. Like, if your stock is gonna get bought no matter what, there's no reason to perform well. But that's a worry on a larger scale than I probably need to think of; index investing math was figured out in the 80s iirc and it's still going strong. One caveat is that you need to be prepared to sit out recessions that may last a decade, but the solution there is to start investing long before you need it and use the compound interest to get a position where it's not a loss to sell (when corrected for inflation).
There's still open questions though:
Anyway I'm not expecting you to have solutions here, just putting this out here in case someone reads this who either finds it inspiring as well (some risks and life philosophies to consider) or perhaps has input on some of it.
If your broker goes bankrupt, in the US, your equity is protected by the SIPC, which will insure up to 500k of equity and 250k of cash at each brokerage.
I'm not sure what you mean by "stock issuers". That's not really a term in use. For index funds, these days they're algorithmically traded to match whatever index they're tracking. Could it still bug out? Sure, anything can happen, after all.
As to using your money now, that's a valid choice. I'd note that there are ways to get money out of retirement accounts without penalty; for your 401k, for instance, you can do what's called a Roth IRA ladder to extract money with a 5 year delay from your 401k without penalty. So it's not a reason not to use tax advantaged accounts.
There's certainly uncertainty with investments, and that's in fact a core variable in investing - the more risk, the more uncertainty, the more return and vice versa. But the same is also true with everything. In the end, you just have to find the balance of risk and reward that matches your lifestyle.
Well, were doing a.(much needed) home project now. We had waited for far too long but seeing that inflation is eating away at cash helped us decide.to make this spendy repair. It's probably 30% more expensive than it would've been a few years ago. When it's done it will be considered a home improvement/renovation and help with the house value anyway.
In America, that's the only two options the vast majority have, earn more or spend less.
Here's a decent analysis of a typical US savings account.
More than half of America has less than $5,000 in savings (and probably a lot less due to draining during early phases of inflation..certainly the case for me). Almost 35% has less than $1,000.
If you're in that 49%ish with $5k or more in savings, the inflation problem is probably an academic concern for you, not a tangible one.
Edit: Tagging @16bitclaudes because they were wondering US numbers
Thanks for tagging me! It sounds like a big chunk of Americans are in dire financial straits too. :(
Lol yea I too count my financial wellbeing by "Months unemployed till homeless." And even for many well-off people, than answer is still less than 6 months.
My wife and I have cut way back on delivery, take out, and eating out in general.. We refinanced a car loan that had an outrageous rate to a slightly less outrageous rate. Shopped around on all of our insurances. Cut a bunch of random streaming services that we had accumulated for a show here or there.
I have a running list in my phone of things I’d like to buy/upgrade, but can’t afford or justify right now. At least putting them in the list helps remove the urge to buy them. I still get to go down the research rabbit holes, but can defer buying the things until we absolutely need them or we have money to splurge with.
My hobbies have shifted to the less expensive ones until I can afford the more expensive things again.
I traveled to Norway/Denmark and Aruba in the past 2 months. I was shocked at the prices in those locations.
$8.50 for a bag of Lays potato chips floored me although they are about $5.00 at home. Just seemed a bit crazy.
Made me feel just slightly better about the crazy rise in prices where I live in western Pennsylvania.
But only just slightly.
I am going to go through my streaming services to see what I can eliminate and start reading again.
Only buy what I need. Try and find a higher paying job (unsuccessful so far, wanting one not just because of lower pay), cutting down on anything that isn’t very necessary like streaming subscriptions etc.
No new electronics. I spent tons on new pc and other electronics last couple of years, I'm basically set for the next five years and going to stick with what I have.
In terms of food, I like to shop at Grocery Outlet (American discount grocery store) and Trader Joes. Their prices are more reasonable. Also, I luckily found a fish market nearby that has good prices like $2 for a bag of salmon head or $3 for salmon belly. I definitely try to make more meals using those inexpensive (and healthier) sources.
As for meat, I still stick with Costco for $10/pound steak. Sometimes local grocery stores will have coupons for $5-6/pound beef.
Not sure where you are, but 10% rent increase year over year is nuts. I've been grateful that rent control meant that my rent only gone up ~2% in the last couple of years.
Thought this comment was going to highlight what I've been trying to tell people for years: electronics are hardly getting faster anymore, it's way cheaper to buy second hand.
To be fair, efficiency got a boost when AMD re-entered the market, but it's not like a good 2013 laptop is unusable in 2023. Not that I'm necessarily recommending to buy that old, especially if you want to play modern games, but it goes to show.
Buying a 2-3 year old flagship phone second-hand is much cheaper than buying a new device from a lower price class with similar performance and features. You'll have to check that the camera and other components aren't broken outright, but since there are no moving parts, nothing besides the battery really wears. Either it works or it doesn't. The battery you can have replaced, if needed, by the vendor (Samsung offers this) or a local store, or DIY. EU legislation will also make this easier: replaceable batteries are going to be mandatory in a few years.
Laptops are even easier, since the battery is so much easier to replace (unfortunately usually not a clicky system as was common until 2016, but a Phillips screwdriver usually does the trick). Screen hinge is more trouble, but usually lasts long enough that it's not an issue. Framework sells laptops with even more easily replaceable/upgradable parts, though they're quite pricey and haven't existed for that long yet so idk about the second-hand market there.
So anyway, when you are due for replacement or an upgrade, that's my recommendation!
Yea I've noticed if the PC has at least 4 threads, a SATA SSD, and 2 GB of RAM, even a KDE plasma distro still does pretty well for browsing and typical office stuff. If it has any semblance of a GPU then can handle most video fine too. An even lighterweight desktop would even possibly be snappy.
I have noticed old dual-core x86 systems are just too slow to handle tasks like functioning as a wireless router at gigabit speeds. And the lack of extra threads makes that single-core performance hurt more.
To add to that, you say 2 GB is still usable but this can be upgraded and RAM has never been as cheap as it is today. Get yourself at least one 4GB stick and add that alongside whatever your current RAM module size is. Even if the system is going to be replaced within two years (if it shipped with 2 GB, it's probably from around 2011 or older), that's going to be worth it.
Not sure about 4 threads btw: hyperthreading is only a little bit faster than plain old cores, and so much still depends on single-core speed that I'd argue 2 fast cores (one doing 100% your foreground task, one handling anything running in the background) beat the user experience of 8 slightly slower ones, especially if each of those 8 produce their own share of heat that it needs to try to dissipate by clocking them all down to lower frequencies. This is definitely not true for all software, but basics like web browsing, email, document editing, games that are a few years old, web development... basically what >80% of people need. No consumer knows this + per-core performance has somewhat stagnated so the geeks wouldn't reach higher benchmark scores if they didn't buy more cores, and that's why we've got these 12-core systems being advertised/featured nowadays.
I was specifically thinking of a Core 2 Duo (circa 2008) and a 4 core AMD Bulldozer (circa 2012).
Bulldozer was an absolute disaster. However, I think AMD hit it square on the nose and it paved the framework for the later Ryzen systems. And that even though the Core2Duo was still outperforming the Bulldozer circa 2012, AMD was right that the future was multithreaded. A modern linux system does a lot of asynchronous background stuff and the 4-core Bulldozer provides a better experience than a Core2Duo.
But that doesn't use a full core, even a 1995 era cpu would probably not be stressed from the background tasks a Linux kernel needs to do during modern workloads (at least from what I see as a full time Linux desktop+server user). I really think two fast cpu cores cover 100% of the needs for the vast majority of users (plus parallelism for driving the screen of course, but (i)GPUs are considered separate components).
Do you have (approximate) model numbers to compare per-core benchmarks? I'd be very interested if you actually have both running because I've always had this hypothesis but, besides virtual machines which I've never needed to give more than two cores (at work we do everything isolated VMs for security), I haven't had an opportunity to test this on real hardware.
I would love to know your salmon head recipes.
I could braise with tofu, or make quick soup but that's about it.
Also that's crazy cheap. Congratulations on the score
Nothing special. The simplest thing is just salt grilling it + some white rice. An entire head is filling enough.
Sometimes if I have mushroom and cabbage, I make Japanese nabe using it.
Another thing I like to do is boil it down to make a milky white soup, add some leafy greens and serve with udon.
The salmon belly is actually more versatile, since I can basically sub any other protein (chicken, pork, beef) using it.
Oh man fish milky soup!!
I wonder if other kinds of fish heads work if I'm not interested in eating the cheeks......
Pretty sure they would all yield a good fish broth, though the tastes may need more or less seasoning depending.
Mostly just watch in amazement and wonder if I'll make it long enough to see the other side.
Oh, and I'm trying to grow as much food as I can. Not really succeeding, but making gradual progress.
I tend to budget so that my husband and I can sustain our lifestyle for up to about a year on only one income. We have only one car, no kids, and make decent salaries, thankfully. So, while I'm sure the inflation has already started to have its impact and will impact us long term, I haven't felt it yet, besides being intermittently disturbed by the cost of a small bag of Fritos these days.
Overall though, I am concerned for many people and the future in general.
Luckily for me I'm already settling down so there isn't much for me to spend on, except for on the house and grocery. I also try to only buy in bulk from local grocers which comes to about 150 every 2 weeks and learn to cook whatever's cheapest. I find that I'm also eating smaller portions because it's getting more expensive. Planning your meals definitely helps the most for me.
I renegotiated my mortgage, insurances etc monthly spending and my monthly saving is a little less than before. But other than that I buy more or less the same things as before.
The place I'm living in is falling apart (e.g. the living room has a permanently-damp carpet patch due to a leaky roof and has visible mold on the carpet as a result) and my flat-mate recently had a paranoid break, so I looked around at other places to rent.
Rent has gone up ~40% since I last moved house (except for the place I'm living in, for obvious reasons), and I literally can't afford to move out. I'm not too worried about my flatmate (once he gets out of the mental hospital), but I am concerned about the health effects of inhaling spores. I've been leaving the front door open to try to keep a breeze going through, but it's the middle of winter here.
I found myself a better paying job
I'm pretty solidly not poor anymore but still feeling the squeeze. Luckily my partner and I are DINK and I'm switching jobs pretty shortly for a good pay increase, but because of the way inflation's shot up it still basically feels like treading water.
Doing what I can to help support some of my immediate family but my heart absolutely aches for people who are in the financial situation I was in about 5-10 years ago. I have no idea how they can cope.
I'm thankful every day for just how lucky we are.
Her dad bought our house for her years ago when prices were super low in our area.
We got a few chickens so we have a constant source of cheap protein. A nice side affect is that they're a nice stress reliever if we're having a bad day.
For the area, my fiance and I make decent money and I have perks like medical reimbursement up to $3000/year. What money is left over from my yearly medical expenses we go and buy feminine products for her and my daughter, aspirin, bandaids, etc for the upcoming year. Because its a little here, a little there, it's easy to overlook how much money we spent on those things.
She's constantly scanning for deals that are bundled with other deals. She found a Walmart promotion where we'll get a year of free Walmart grocery delivery, a year of Paramount+, 6 months of satellite radio and a few other perks for $50. We'll be signing up for that soon.
Speaking of streaming, we rotate out our streaming services and sort of play them against each other. At any given time we usually have 2 streaming services and Amazon Prime. When something comes out on a different service, we'll cancel one and sign up for a deal like "First 3 months for $5!" that they offer. After the 3 months we may keep it for a little longer or go to the next one. We'll bounce back and forth between her email/CC and mine. Usually after her trial and then my trial and a few months gap they'll offer her a deep discount to return and when that runs out they'll send the same deal to me. (Funny enough I used to do this with long distance carriers back in the 90's. I started with Sprint and then I'd get one of those checks in the mail from AT&T for $50. By cashing the check you were agreeing to switch to that long distance company. After around 6 months, Sprint would send me a check for $75 to switch back to them. Every now and then I'd get a check from a 3rd company to switch to them. The best part was there was no minimum time required to use them. The joke was always on them--I never even called long distance, lol)
Our hobbies are pretty cheap. I'm a "patient gamer" and I still play Minecraft. I mainly only buy games on deep discounts like a steam summer sale and most of the games I play have lots of replayability. I'll wait until Game Of The Year editions are around $10 for AAA titles like Fallout, Borderlands, etc. The various modpacks always keeps Minecraft fresh for me. Our kids are the same. Since we mainly play older titles we don't need massive gaming rigs although we do have pretty decent last gen setups. An extra benefit is that self-hosting a game server is pretty easy since most of the kinks and issues have been hammered out or solved by then. She does scrapbooking and crafty stuff using tools/materials she already has. She attends digital crops or goes to local ones anymore.
We've cut back almost all traveling. This one sucks the most for us, to be honest. Growing up working for my parents, I worked 6 days a week and I could never take time off for close to 30 years (restaurant industry). The few times I tried to plan a trip or vacation, someone would invariable end up getting sick or quitting. When I left there it was amazing to be able to plan weekend/long weekend trips to who knows where. She always found super cheap hotel rooms in nice areas through sites like hotels.com and we'd spend our points/free nights on spur of the moment trips. She'd also go to various crops for a weekend here and there (a crop is where crafters will get together in a bingo hall, hotel conference room, etc and set up their tables to chit-chat, share ideas and craft. Some scrapbook, others might do cross-point or make paracord bracelets, etc.)
We do more food planning now. We always sort of half-assed meal planning but now we're either doing bulk cooking for freezer meals or planning on having soup after cooking a chicken, for example.
What flabbergasts me is that when I grew up poor you could lower the costs of food with a little dweat equity--if you put more effort into something it was cheaper. Buying a loaf of bread cost more than buying frozen dough and cooking it yourself which cost more than making your own bread from scratch. Not anymore. Even before all the craziness with food prices started I was talking to our kids about how I grew up poor and what we'd eat. Holy crap! Beef liver (a staple when I was a kid because it was so cheap) was more per pound than some steaks. Frozen concentrated orange juice was around 30% more than fresh OJ. The frozen bread doughs were like $2 a loaf when store bread was $1.25.
I moved to a country where inflation is <2.5%.
(Sorry for the glib and privileged answer).
I eat/order out much less, and in particular when I buy chicken meat, I'll just buy a whole chicken and butcher it myself at home, or, if it's cheaper on the day, I'll buy a pre-roasted whole chicken.
Ask me in a week when raises hit our payroll at my company. Not looking forward to the inevitable math session to see what percentage it went up and then compare how little it matters considering inflation.
IKR. I love my job, but the plithy raises and benefits cuts mean that I'm currently where I was in 2016. Almost a decade of no tangible growth.
It's tedious but downloading apps to stores you frequent can help save money.
For example, Target often offers a $20-$25 gift card if you purchase $100 worth of diapers or wipes.
I also have an app to a local grocery store I frequent because it offers points everytime you purchase their own brands. Those points can be used as credit. I also get coupons through them and they can sometimes be very good. One coupon saves $17 off a basket of $80. Every little bit helps.
When I don't have special deals, I shop at Aldi's.
Swiss inflation dropped from 2.2% to 1.7% for June, quite amazing given what is happening elsewhere.
We had noticed items being more expensive, especially good but hadn't really adjusted spending habits.
Then my company cut all commissions effective July 1st meaning I will make about $70k less this fiscal year compared to last year and suddenly I am back to making a budget. Locked in my mortgage to get out of the variable dance. We are still in an okay place financially as long as I don't get laid off but I felt a lot better about things before learning about the commission change.
Beginning of last year: I cut down on spending a lot. Limited takeout to once per week tops, very careful when buying groceries etc. I don't have a lot of corners to cut when it comes to spending but I really tried. Ultimately I got a job with a different company that paid a lot more.
Beginning of this year: things were looking less than great again, I had to remortgage my apartment to change from a flexible to fixed interest rate, which meant a much higher payment per month. The prices had also gone crazy. I was lucky enough to get promoted to a higher position with a higher wage, and so far it's going okay. My partner also moved in with me, which brought my costs down even more. But if I stayed at my former job, I have no idea how I could have survived.
I am still employed, still able to invest monthly but I do invest less than I used too. I am doing alright but noticing that all my bills and expenses are going up.
Luckily I live in a city with great transportation links, so I don't need a car to get around(which saves me lots also).
Most of it was dealt with somewhat serendipitously.
Back during the heat of pandemic, I made the decision that I wanted cut down on costs and was tired of renting, and being that I had a fully remote job I decided to buy a house in an area with lower cost of living. It's worked out pretty well… I intentionally shot well below my lending potential for the mortgage so my monthly payment was in the ballpark of 15% of gross salary, down from 30%. That alone opened up a lot of padding to help absorb inflation and that padding will only increase as the mortgage payment remains unchanged instead of increasing like rent. Other things also cost less where I live now also cost less which helps. I've had to spend some on the house, but those costs are far below what I've saved in rent.
Aside from that, the company I work for does yearly inflation adjustments which while not covering inflation entirely reduces the impact substantially, I've scaled back on some expensive hobbies, and thanks to not spending as much on housing I've managed to pay off my debts and build savings worth mentioning which are now gathering decent interest (4.3%). Once I have enough liquid savings I'll start turning extra cash into less liquid assets with better returns.
If I hadn't bought a house in a lower CoL area though? To reach the same financial outcome, I probably would've moved to a smaller apartment further out from the city, cut out hobby spending entirely, and shifted to a more frugal diet.