Ask Lemmy

In Australia, surprisingly and disappointingly, medical appointments. Seeing a specialist for anything is about $500 AUD, after Medicare rebate. So you need to have more than that much liquid cash on the day, and be able to tank the hit.

I still remember being in line behind this mother whose child was clearly extremely unwell mentally. When she heard the price for the psychiatrist appointment she's like, I can't pay that... Let alone 2 or 3 times because psychiatrists never diagnose on the first visit. She had her own (understandable) mental breakdown, and stepped outside to call family to borrow money.

You shouldn't need a payment plan to get antipsychotics. Somehow still cheaper than the scam that is private health insurance though.

I bought two individual russet potatoes, came to about $5.50. In the past Ive always bought bags of potatoes, but they go bad sometimes before they get eaten, so Ive just been buying individual potatoes lately.

Healthcare

Normalizing monopoly.

Eggs are back to 1.90-2 per dozen, but velveeta slices are $6 and a gallon of milk is $5-6 also

Scallions are still cheap but fish and shrimp, chicken and beef are way up. I cook most of my family's food but if we want Uber Eats it's always like $60-100. We are in Manhattan, but honestly when I visit family in FL or GA it's not much better. Coffee is double what it was 2 years ago.

Generally everything.
Have you seen how much you pay for "nothing special" groceries? $30 and you didn't buy anything.
Couple cuts of meat $6, cheese $4, a loaf of bread $4, a gallon of milk $4, carton of eggs $5, and some random greenery and maybe some sweets $4.

Lumber. I was planning out a project with teak wood and noped out as soon as I saw the prices.

Cigarettes.

I haven't smoked in almost thirty years, but I remember thensuper discount brand cartons going for $7 back in the late '90s.

literally everything. I stopped getting fast food and lottery tickets because they were no longer inconsequential amounts. I mean its not exactly a bad thing for my health and well being but its kinda crazy. Ironically. Relatively speaking. Healthier stuff is cheaper because less and less people can afford it. I even see soda companies desperately trying to raise prices but folks don't have it. Every sale the shelves get cleared because everyone is stocking up to make it to the next sale. when no sale then none of it moves.

This is going to have an asterisk because I'm in a fairly remote area on vacation. Like, in the Upper Peninsula, not a lot of grocery competition.

But we went to get some food for the week at this grocery store today, and I was staggered by the prices, many of which were crazy out of step with what I'd pay in my home state at a random Walmart or similar chain. The smallest Lucky Charms was over $6; the largest was on sale for $4 and change but only if you had the store loyalty card. If you use the store loyalty card it doesn't auto-discount anything, you have to use the credit card reader to scroll the available coupons and try to pick the ones relevant to your cart.

Normal sized Starbucks whole bean bag was $17. Extra big one was like $27. Of course I bought neither.

Twizzlers in the big bag was two for $8. Fuck off lol.

They extrude corn syrup and artificial flavoring for pennies and will do anything to increase or maintain profit margins as people can less and less afford luxuries like sweet treats with 0 nutritional value. They're going to price us all into diets with their inflexibility and greed.

Gasoline isn't even that expensive. At least, not compared to the 2008 oil crunch when prices got up to a 2026 adjusted $6.30/gal.

Even 2022 saw higher prices, shortly after the COVID supply shock, at north of $5.

Given the percentage of my budget that's gasoline related, I just don't see how it ranks beside the sudden spike in water bills we've been seeing. Or the inflation in rental rates. Unless you're driving an absolute hog of a car, it's just not that much by comparison.

Food.

The pre-made ice coffee jugs like SToK/Starbucks/Califia etcetera. Feels like they've doubled in price over the last few years. I keep a couple in my fridge at all times.

What doesn't?

it's not so much that prices are high, just that income is low.

Streaming service subscriptions. Had Claude make me a graph. Apparently eggs are wild in US.

Enjoy my slop:

Price for handjobs has gotten ridiculous. Don't get me started on anal!