Inflation - How is it affecting you?

[Sweatlord_STG]

Oh OK so it's just fries then right? Yeah that could be cheaper I guess.

A large fries at McDonalds is now between $3-5, depending on the location in the US. It's crazy expensive, but not far away from 4.5 Euros.

I don't really eat out much at all, but I do like to go to get ice cream once in awhile, and a small size at the local place I like is now about $6.50. That's for some custard mixed with Italian ice. And a small.

Yeah that is literally the same price. 4.5 Eur should be roughly 5 USD. Food has always been super expensive over the last 10 years or so. I can tell you always cook at home AGermanArtist If I want to have a feast I can easily spend 20 Pounds at any place, no matter if it's KFC, Taco Bell, Jollibees, Papa Johns, etc

[AGermanArtist]

Fuck that. I just wouldn't give it to them. I'd sooner cook and put the saving in my hash pipe.

£20 would get me 2LBs of topside beef, a bag of potatoes and a tub of £6 ice cream, and we'd each have fries with 1LB of braised shredded beef on top, slathered in Bernaise/pepper sauce made with the braising liquid and onion rings. For less than 20 mins prep.

I get that inflation is an issue across the board, but take outs and restaurants are really taking the piss.

[vol.2]

I get that inflation is an issue across the board, but take outs and restaurants are really taking the piss.

Idk man. I think they are charging what they have to in order to stay in business. Especially small shops cannot benefit from the economy of scale that chains can, so it's very tough for them when prices of ingredients go up and when worker wages increase. Both of which have been happening in recent times.

Those that can't continue to sell enough food will just die off.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Is anyone on this forum (aside from trap15) under 40?

I like trap15's hacks, but maybe the registrations should be closed for new people under 40. They only play shitty games and their woke mindset is annoying. What's wrong with some good old jokes about women and other minorities?
Lol just kidding.

Fuck that. I just wouldn't give it to them. I'd sooner cook and put the saving in my hash pipe.

£20 would get me 2LBs of topside beef, a bag of potatoes and a tub of £6 ice cream, and we'd each have fries with 1LB of braised shredded beef on top, slathered in Bernaise/pepper sauce made with the braising liquid and onion rings. For less than 20 mins prep.

I get that inflation is an issue across the board, but take outs and restaurants are really taking the piss.

I think if you and I shared an accommodation I'd save a lot of money. Ehr, and you would as well, I mean. You are the chef, I'm in charge of the hash pipe!

[Randorama]

I was thinking that I have been following the same type of diet for roughly two decades now, even though there is always a degree of variation based on what I kind find as cheap and fresh vegetables and sources of protein in a given place/city/country. I designed it when I was an ass-poor student abroad and had to live on an embarrassingly small budget while also trying to stay fit (2004 was the first year: I was posting on the old forum).

I am not really poor anymore and I switched sides of the academic divide, but I have not changed the "winning formula". Let's just say that a healthy diet of core vegetables (tomatoes, carrots, radish/Daikon or anything "white", kahle, lettuce and other green stuff, classical and sweet potatoes), "ugly but tasty" fish (e.g. mackerel, sardines), and legumes has never costed me more than an average of 10 euros per week. For meat, I do eat outside these days, but currently I live in China so it remains inexpensive for all the horrible reasons that you can think of (dog-eat-dog? You mean human-eat-human, here!). I am however a loyal customer, so I get discounts more or less everywhere with top-up membership cards (restaurants, grocery shop, etc.), which entails that I am absorbing small price increases by simply letting shops counting on my patronage.

When I go back to Italy for holidays, though, I can see that prices are simply going up on just about everything. Last time I was back, I resorted to walking more or less everywhere to save on fuel, and my place is not so well connected (early countryside of a small mountainous town). This was a good choice anyway: I finished paying an apartment in a beautiful if secluded place while not even living in the country, so walking a bit is a good price to pay.

I cannot even remember anymore when I had a meal outside, when not in China (no, I do: in Sweden, shortly before leaving, in 2017, and it was an "all-you-can-eat" buffet at cheap-ass prices because the food was mediocre at best). Games, manga/comics, books, etc.: Arcade archives games are inexpensive, Manga in China are cheap if you buy whole series, and online tv show services are affordable and again, top-up membership card programs in China sometimes offer spectacularly wide sets of discounts (e.g. "buy 1 kg of tea and get 1 week of Bilibili free!"). Alien: Earth in English with Chinese subtitles is an experience on its own.

Truth to be told, though, I do a lot of accounting and planning all the time (OCD also plays a role on this). Let's just say that I did not drop the habits of when I was a poor student/under-employed newlywed/part-timer hopeful, so I *believe* that I am not copping too much flak from inflation. I would get completely lost if I would have to do some "impulse purchase", to be honest. Ah no, my trick for impulse purchases are gacha toys and light sodas: half a dollar, and I get the feeling I did splurged in a silly but refreshing manner

[Sima Tuna]

I would love to visit China. I am jealous. Getting all kinds of bonuses with a pound of tea would be lovely. Or, hell, just having proper tea served places. America knows nothing about good tea. We have tea houses in my city but they are the "starbucks sugary mixed drink" kind of "tea." Boba and matcha latte are fine for those who enjoy them but I want the real shit!

The diet you are describing is not dissimilar from how I try to eat here in America. I have to modify it for fodmap, and I also have some food sensitivities that prevent me from using cheap starches like potatoes. But the basic idea of building around a whole grain, some sardines, and some vegetables I can tolerate. That seems to be a magic formula for a combination of both health and cost. Vegetables do rise in price but the price increases have been fairly modest so far, at least if you shop around and aren't married to the idea of a particular veg.

Spoiler

Although the price of lettuce doubled during covid and hasn't decreased

Sardines, I think I've said these have stayed the same price here in my area for the last 10-15 years. Low demand but high supply means they can't price gouge. I go with Pacific Crest and the quality is excellent. Quality of sardines varies by brand and even by catch, so I keep an eye out for which brands available to me have the most consistently high quality fish.

One of the big problems with eating this way is large chunks of the grocery store as well as entire convenience shops/smaller chains have basically nothing for me to buy there. If they don't have a produce section, they don't have fresh fruit and they don't have whole grains then all I can buy at the shop is cans. Sucks if you live in a food desert, which I thankfully don't.

[Randorama]

China is like South Korea, Japan and perhaps a few other countries that can be labelled as "fake Asia": a gloss of modernity (We have cleaning robots on campus!) with an underbelly of Stone Age values (e.g. try to be "queer" in any form...). I am not saying that the rest of the world is better, but please be careful about what you are jealous of. Ok, cynicism aside, we also get dozens if not hundreds of "milk tea" chains, but also proper tea shops with humongous amounts of choice. If you have a chance, I definitely suggest you to try Pu'er tea ("oxidised black", i.e. very strong in flavour, which you can actually buy on Amazon, go figure). The cake I am linking to is not cheap, but 357 grams (13 ounces?) is a good 357 full cups: pu'er tea is *strong*.

I also suspect that Oolong might be "old news", but why not offer a reminder? I drink a lot of mysterious stuff, because the "lady from the Clamp anime-style shop" I visit has developed the habit of selling me brews that are exceedingly obscure, or my money back. We converse in French and some Italian (Wuhan was a French protectorate until the 1920s), and she smokes the traditional needle-like pipe you only see in historical movies and anime, I swear. I am currently drinking a variety of mountainous green tea from some mountains south of Wuhan (where I live), that I could only describe as "ice mint and moss" in flavour. Dark emerald green in colour, and it is actually stronger than coffee.

Yes, though: nutrition-conscious diets can also be built on not so glamorous ingredients that tend to have stable prices are not simple to devise, but at some point I simply decided to maintain my student habits into my "adult life", since I had a few occasions in which I tried to spend more money ("hey, I have a good salary now!") and I quickly experienced inflation/price fluctuation stress tests. It does help that in China fresh fruit is easy to obtain (fruit shops are common and sell a bit of everything) and some varieties are delicious. Lychee, Jujube and Pomelos are healthy and frankly better sweet treats than any ultra-processed candy. They are also traditionally seen as "fruit for the poor", so they always tend to be cheap. I also have fodmap problems, but I use them to my advantage: with a bit of potatoes in my dinner, I can obtain a fake sense of fullness, since it takes me ages to digest them.

I'd say that I tend to eat this "poor man's diet", which has its socio-cultural and nutritional merits, and seems to serve me well as a shield from inflation. But no mackerel? Similar to tuna in flavour, way less fat and mercury (I cannot remember why, though), and if you buy it fresh, it is *delicious* in the oven with just some salt.

Some other observations:

I walk everywhere, and I rent bicycles or scooters when I need to cover longer distances (or use the subway). I will probably buy a car in 204X or so, when I will return to Italy for retirement, or perhaps brave the adversities and use a bike. I don't mind driving - on highways. So, petrol and cars are inflation factors I have almost become unaware of. At home, I have solar panels and even if electricity bills are generally low in China (thanks to the Three Gorges Dam), eight hours of decent light per day cover all daily cost and even heating costs/cooling costs (winter/summer) (and energy for rainy days, too). I guess that with a certain commitment to "smart life", more than the Buddha-like mindset, avoiding the effects of inflation becomes easier under the right conditions.

...it is also true that I constantly need to keep track of exchange rates when moving saved money or handling expenses to and from China, but those are factors almost entirely beyond my control. I do transfer savings when the yuan is usually at its strongest, though. I'd comment on my new contract at work, but it would probably be more on the off-topic side.