Streaming services of any kind. I've got a jellyfin server now that has everything I need.
It was fine when they were $5 a month, but this $20 a month bullshit is insane. And what do you mean I can't share one account with the family if we're not on the same network, get real.
yeah, this is the way. i got lectured yesterday buy some weirdo about how doing that is 'too inconvenient and a massive waste of time'. and then doubled down when I pointed out it takes seconds to do this, and were like 'it shouldn't have to take me seconds'. OK buddy... like i guess if you feel you must be subbed to 8 different services at once and forever because you can't ever cancel or swap, it must be really tough to be you.
dam thats like 100+$ of streams, its an addiction. good thing im satisfied by all the stuff being uploaded to YT in clips, basically tells you the whole story/seasons anyways.
Do you have any information that could help me understand how to self-host my own music streaming using jellyfin? I’ve been meaning to learn this as I’m over Apple’s last increase.
If you only want to stream music you might be better off setting up Navidrome. !selfhosted@lemmy.world is a good place to look for advice on this stuff.
You bet! If you only need to get it working on your home network then it's really easy. The Jellyfin website has great documentation on the process and there are also great YouTube videos as well. It's pretty much download the program and tell it where to look for the files, then visit the localhost link it gives you and bam you're golden.
If you also want to be able to access it from outside of your home network then things get can get a bit tricky and you will need to set up a reverse proxy of some kind (Caddy, Nginx, Pangolin, etc).
Thank you so much! I should have just looked into it myself but it felt daunting as I’m new to it all but really want to own my own data and media again.
I'm in the US and have to watch a few seconds of something on my phone while connected to the wifi in each location for two houses less than 3 miles apart every single month or it gets signed out of every device at one of the two locations. I only do that ao my daughter can watch shows at two places.
I will most likely cancel this fall after catching up on my backlog. It isn't the cost that will be the dealbreaker, it is the hassle.
It is an annoyance for a thing that up to a couple years ago required zero effort and at that time the company promoted sharing accounts. Now they are so against sharing that they penalize people who use more than one wifi network.
I'm not even sharing accounts, just watching it in two places. If I could just mfa once at either location to confirm it wouldn't be so bad. I have to remember to take action in two places and track it so it doesn't get cut off in the evening at the other place while I'm going to bed and my kiddo is trying to watch a movie.
Also I'm paying for Netflix. Your job is paying you to do that.
yeah the world changes. nothing stays the same. what seemed like a good idea 5-10 years ago seems utterly stupid today. that's how life works, including business.
I mean, I get it, 1st world problem of mind inconvenience is a moral outrage. But I don't own two homes, I can't possible imagine how difficult and awful it must be to have to manage my netflix account across multiple properties...
oh wait, you could just create a vpn and network your two homes so they appear on the same network! wow... almost as if there is a solution to every problem.
I don't own two homes, what the fuck are you talking about?
My daughter moves back and forth between two homes, like a lot of kids do. You do understand that family situations can be complicated right?
Netflix's "solution" is to have a second account, but then if she watches something at my place and then at her mom's it would require signing in and out of Netflix constantly to have access to her personal profile. Netflix tying accounts to wifi networks is stupid and frankly you would fit right in there.
I don't work for netflix but I do understand a lot about tech and I do very well in my career, yeah.
Because I don't tolerate entitled requests from users who think their convenience is all that matters. They have to sign into the account everytime they they move locations because it's a necessary security precaustion and contractually obligated by our insurance.
but right, I'm a dummy and you know better. you know you can just setup your daughters phone with a netflix account and have her stream from the phone to any tv without having to re-auth right?
but hey sorry for trying to help you out, when clearly you didn't want a solution, you just wanted to be embittered at netflix because how dare you be inconvenienced.
You could just... no longer subscribe to them. but that would be even more inconvenient.
Lol meanwhile I have to punch in a code if I want to watch Netflix at work because I'm not on my home network. Somehow Netflix invented landline streaming services.
Newegg was bundling other parts with video cards to deter scalping. I got a Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT 16GB and 750W power supply for $630 a few months back. It's now "on sale" by itself for $790. Months before that it was closer to $500!
The Seagate Exos 20 TB hard drives I paid $350-$400 each for over a year ago are now $793.
You're lucky to have kinda the opposite of my situation.
I used a second hand office machine with a low power graphics card added, because that came out quite cheap. Until about 2 years ago, when I saw that really good looking cases, with the glass and LEDs and everything, are quite affordable now, got one for 60 bucks, I think.
The problem was that that office machine was not made to be upgradeable. Power supply that delivered pretty much exactly what the current parts needed and no more, with custom connectors to the mainboard.
So I thought ok, I do it in steps, after all that's the whole point that that's possible. Start by getting a nice modern bequiet PSU, and finding a more standard motherboard, that fit with my CPU and RAM. In some obscure webshop no less, because stuff is old, I'm working with DDR2 here.
And the plan was that later I would look at upgrading motherboard+CPU+RAM, because I'd have to do those together.
And then the data centers happened.
I'm just lucky that the old machine was a beast for its time - the back then impressive 16GB RAM are still decent now. Battlefield the WW1 one ran fine, that game where you upgrade your jeep was too laggy - gotta be a bit more selective about what I run now, because my upgrade plans are on ice until we storm the data centers.
Prices could come down during the upcoming crash of the economy. Trouble is, that means consumers won't have money, and billionaires will buy it all up on the cheap.
Soda. Wtf are they even thinking at this point. Hell, I ran into a Dollar General to get carbonated water the other day and the only product they had was $9. For carbonated. Water. GTFO
You can pick up a used ball keg, probs $25-30, a cheap regulator, some tubing and a carbonating cap (you can skip the carbonating cap, which last I looked is some $25, just hook the CO2 line to the dip tube, it’ll take longer to reach carbonation saturation, but it works fine), and a hand faucet for $1 and rent a CO2 tank (last time I filled a 5lb cylinder it was $30 which includes the cylinder) and make gallons of the stuff for decreasing spend.
Upfront cost is moderately high, yes thats true, but the more you use it the less it costs per gallon. And no plastic bottles, no questionable water source, no shipping pollution. You just have on demand carbonated water. If you add fruit puree, you can make “Italian soda”, or you can buy the soda syrup businesses and such use if you want, though you’ll want something in a pump bottle and not a box that hooks to a big system..
One 5lb tank of co2 is enough for 5-10 batches, depending how heavily carbonated you like, and each batch is 5 gallons, assuming a standard 1/8 barrel keg, so the math is pretty appealing if carbonated water is a thing you like.
Those co2 cartridges are like $30 for 20 16-gram charges. I have them for my ukeg (pressurized growler). They keep 2 gallons of beer pressurized and dispense it, but I’d assume they are only enough for about 2 liter to carbonate from still. So roughly 10 gallons for $30 vs 25-50 gallons for about the same price (only considering ongoing CO2 costs) with the keg setup.
So you can, yeah, but it’s substantially more expensive in the long run, and a 5 gallon keg plus everything else really doesn't take up a lot of space. They are tall and narrow, and you need to put the soda syphon thing somewhere, too, and I assume that’s taking precious counter space, rather than sitting in a dead space corner behind a door, or tucked into a closet or something.
Really it’s just a matter of how much you’ll use. If you don’t go through 5 gallons of carbonated water in a reasonable timeframe, like monthly so you can clean everything out, it doesn't really pay to make a big batch. You can get a 2.5 gallon keg if you want a smaller batch, but those are tough to source used and are thus pricier (place I've bought from before has them for $120, about the same price as a full-size keg of the same brand)
The way we made it at the place I worked was to puree fruit, then reduce it a bit over heat (no added sugar), then put like 2tbsp or so over ice and topped off with the carbonated water.
So it'll only really work well with flavors that don't degrade in heat, but you may also have luck with just straight pureed fruits like watermelon, not super sure how that’d turn out.
You can also use fruit syrups that you buy or make yourself, tons of recipes out there.
its shrinkflationed to maximize the cost. and then larger chains started doing ti to. like with carbonated drinks 8pk vs 12pk, and fruit, energy, protein bars. 5 vs original 6-8. same goes with alot of toothpastes too. og is 8.2 to 5.4, and 5.1 to 4.6, and finally 4.3. i noticed that with foils too at the discount(grocery outlet) they used to have wafer thin for 200sqft, removed to 150max.
they play the same trick with TOILET paper too. try to trick people by reducing the ply and keeping the rolls the same, or the amount of paper the same.
target used to have very good instore brand thier up and up, i stopped buying it when they switched to"deal worthy"
soda is overpriced everywhere, people also stopped drinking them for the most part. i think some places have added tax too. i mostly drink sparkling water with flavours, of different brands. i usually dont mind stevia infused ones much. even in discount stores they are expensive asf. sparkling water is cheap compared to soda, like most of the time its half the price.
Sparkling water with flavours is soda with a different name, friend. And it used to cost less around me, but now it's the same price as any other soda. We don't have a special soda tax here.
Soda at the movie theater near me costs $11 now. The entire place is also falling apart and looks like it's on the verge of bankruptsy even though it's one of the most well-known locations.
Costco prices still seem reasonable compared to what I'm used to. regular grocery store prices for meat in any form are fucked. the prices they have on tiny hams or pre-packaged sliced meat are fucked.
I only get steak if it's close to expiration and marked way down. Ironically it's better at that point anyway since it's been aged (as long as you eat it right away). Otherwise I'll buy top or bottom round and hammer the shit out of it with a tenderizing mallet and flash-seer it; taste is quite good and you let the mallet do the work instead of your teeth.
I now just buy the large ready-to-bake supreme pizza at Aldi and just enhance it by adding mozarella and other toppings at home. $8 plus maybe $2 worth of extra stuff I put on it. Just like sushi, I really can’t justify paying too much for it when eating out.
You mean from their food court, or their Kirkland brand freezer ones? I have wanted to try the food court ones, but if I get it home and it's not good then I'm both frustrated and need to find something else to eat, so I always pass it up since I don't know if it's good or not...
For me, time, effort, and of course the $10. I'm disabled so take a standard costco run, make it take 4x as long and physically difficult. Add taking a gamble on dinner as I leave and it's a make-or-break decision.
I'll have to give it a go the next time I'm there. I've had their ice cream and it's very good, but that's not a meal :p
they're weird so they slice it into 6 but that makes it a huuuge slice. well well well worth the $2 imo, it's certainly a loss leader for them (meaning the cost for them to make it is more than they charge you for it)
legitimately the best pizza I had in the years I spent living in Georgia.
The Motor City Pizza (if they sell at your Costco) in the frozen aisle is good too if you like deep dish. It's too meaty for my taste, but will do the trick in a pinch.
Oh god for me it was frozen pizza. I fucking love frozen pizza as an easy dinner night and used to be able to find Dr Oetkers for $4 a pizza. That shit is $13 now.
It kills me cause I still love it but I won't buy it :(
A lot of my grocery stores have pizza dough ready to go thats about $2.50 and can be frozen. So if you buy your ingredients and a pizza stone, you can have some REALLY good pizza any time.
I like to put the sauce on, then toast the crust for about 4-5mins before putting the rest on. Keeps the crust crispy.
Also, a dough ball isnt as hard to fit in the fridge.
Pizza in my corner of the world is still a reasonable price. First, there's cheap but delicious Little Caesars -- that's a go-to that I'm not at all embarrassed to admit. Then my local pizza shop can get me a XL pie and cheesy bread sticks for less than $20 out the door. My family of three always has leftovers from that for lunch the next day for someone but not everyone.
Any of the bougy "wood fired" blah blah blah boutique pizza grift stills costs a fortune here. But my little local pizza shop is a good NYC style slice, with normal pizza shop ingredients.
It's not BAD. I don't mind it for the price. I would never claim that it's "delicious" either though. I'm from Detroit too. The Little Caesar's pizza at Little Caesar's Arena hits different. Albeit it's $30 more.
I, too, am originally from the Metro Detroit area. My Metro Detroit area chain pizza takes: Hungry Howies used to be better, I think (or I'm suffering rose colored hindsight). Jet's Pizza is still pretty good. Dominoes was never really good and despite their commercials, they've not gotten much better.
Hot take: Buddy's Pizza is overrated greasy dog shit.
I now live out of state, but I visit my family in SE Michigan every other month or so. I have a preference for Coney's too.
I'm going to go on a rant here, but I was disappointed in the launch of the Pi 5 and even more frustrated at the lack of pushback by the tech community.
I'm forgetting the details now, but it launched much later than it was supposed to (they used covid as an excuse, but I'm not sure). That's not the issue; the issue is that it was only slightly more powerful than the Pi 4.
Given that the Pi 5 was launched 4 years later, it should have been more powerful. But considering it wasn't, it meant they were using cheaper silicon.
But the real kicker is that I think it had a $10 (like a 25%) price hike.
So more expensive for marginally better power...screw that.
That along with the locked down nature of arm, I was done with the company. Especially considering the strides x86 has made in low power applications.
I smoked in high school and early college and quit before I graduated.
I then joined the Army and went overseas and did not restart smoking. So I oblivious to the cost of cigarettes.
I came back to the states and the first time I bought cigarettes since early college was for my brother around 2001/2002. He was broke and came over for Thanksgiving so decided to get him a carton of cigarets as he was out.
I was floored. A pack of cigarets was 10 bucks a carton cost 100 dollars. 10 bucks a pack.
Cigarettes (and to some extent alcohol) are one thing I think should be very heavily taxed, and therefore very expensive. The high prices are intended to encourage people to quit smoking, and more importantly, discourage people from getting addicted in the first place. Heck, a handful of countries are finally starting to ban cigarettes altogether for people born after a certain year. This is good.
I know I'm speaking from a point of "privilege", I've never smoked in my life and never been addicted to any substance. I know it's just not feasible for some people to quit, and for them, the high prices really suck. But on a society level, I still think it's better if cigarettes are expensive enough to remind you you should quit every time you buy them.
Yeah much of the cost of cigarettes is the deterring tax and I agree wth you on using them. Smoking is terrible and one of the best things I ever did for myself is quit smoking them.
I don’t know if there are similar taxes on other tobacco products.
That is what is so disheartening about all the vaping. In this that we had cigarettes and smoking beat. The numbers were going down and then vaping came along and everyone thought/thinks it is safe and now smoking is everywhere again.
I agree that tobacco products should be heavily taxed, but should cigarettes be banned outright? I'm not sure banning is the right way to go, I mean just look at what the prohibition of alcohol back then did. A thriving, unregulated black market.
People should be able to buy cigarettes, that way they can be sure of what it is they are smoking.
I don't think it's quite the same thing. Smoking has almost zero redeeming qualities. Alcohol has a lot of social value, cultural heritage, crap like that. If you're going to break the law, there are more attractive substances than tobacco.
There are other benefits too: restaurants stop having to dedicate space to smoking tables; people are far less likely to smoke in public places (like bus stops), which is already against the law but people do it anyway, if smoking is banned altogether they'd do it less.
If people are gonna smoke tobacco, I'd rather they do it in secret than out in the open. Also I think even "failed" prohibition likely reduces actual usage by a lot.
Nah, because then you have the situation Australia has now which is that the financial incentive to bring in illegal cigarettes and sell them which creates organised crime groups who keep firebombing each others shit.
The US has the importation issue on a smaller scale because the tax on cigarettes varies between cities and states. Crooks will drive box trucks full of cigarettes from Virginia (which has the second lowest tax on them) to New York City (which has the highest).
A form has to be filled out above a certain number of packs so they'll buy just below that amount at different locations to avoid having the purchases recorded by the state.
Taxing cigarettes without proper redistribution is tricky because taxing cigarettes is also technically taxing poor people since they are the majority of smokers.
If the goal was to prevent people smoking, just put it behind a prescription or something. That way the people who cannot quit smoking, which is a very strong medical addiction, can still exist without paying exorbitant costs. But there's still a deterrent for anyone to start smoking, and it changes public perception of the habit. You also have to convince a doctor to give you the script, which any good doctor will not prescribe cigarettes to a 16 year old who never smoked before.
This "sin tax" bullshit can fuck off. It doesn't actually work or help anyone, as evidenced by the tobacco industry still being obscenely lucrative. Most people I know who used to smoke, still smoke. It's not something you can stop just because it gets expensive, that's not how addiction works.
If the focus was actually on public health, there are many better options, I've only listed one possible alternative. The true goal is and always will be money. The government makes a shit load of sin tax dollars, and the tobacco industry has a captured and addicted market so they don't really care what the final price is.
I the mid-90's I could get a carton of Camels at the reservation for $14.25. Last time I went (around 2004) a carton was $125. I quit smoking long enough ago that I have to assume the price now is somewhere in the $300 range.
I figure I quit smoking around 1990. I am not sure what I was paying for a pack, but the number that keeps popping up in my head is 4:25USD.
I remember cigs being about $2.25 my first years of smoking from '93 in southern California. I used to be able to steal quarters from my brother's jar to buy a pack.
I stopped 20 years ago... I smoked ~3 packs per week and the cost was less than 10$ (Canada), when it was more than that, I stopped. It is now 20$ for ONE pack.
Nothing made me care so little about buying things than the corporations desperate want for me to buy them.
New games? Eh I'll replay mass effect or skyrim. New hardware (before the crisis), looks real nice, don't think I need it. The more they pushed me to buy the less I cared. If they all started chilling out maybe I'd get back into it, but doesn't look like it.
This, mostly what I buy are things that save me from needing to buy things. Tools, server hardware, looking for a food dehydrator for my garden, etc. I can't stand giving any money to a corp that backed fascism so I avoid them at all costs.
Hard drives. I have a movie hobby and that takes a lot of storage and well, storage now is 3-5 times more expensive than not two years ago and I can't afford it anymore.
But on the flip side, people can now finally nudify my daughter, so that is totally worth it!
Not only has shit gotten expensive, I got laid off from a good paying job and could only land a middling salary. I used to buy more varied food. I'd order delivery when I had guests over. I'd buy seltzer.
No more. Fuck em. If they don't want to pay me I'll keep my spend to a minimum.
Fast food is hilariously overpriced. You pay about as much for a sit down meal at a restaurant for some crappy burgers. I remember the days when they had a true dollar menu. Now they just call it a "value menu" or whatever.
Used to be able to get two double cheeseburgers for $2 at burger king. Add fries and a drink and you were sitting at about $8 after tax. That same order today will run you about $19 before taxes. I'm not even that old, this all happened within the last two decades or so - prices literally more than doubling and all the while the quality getting worse and portion size getting smaller and smaller.
It's probably better for my health that I can't stomach the idea of paying that much for greasy unhealthy food, so it's an occasional treat to let me have that nostalgic taste.
Burger King is the worst offender of Restaurantitus.
They forgot they are fast food, so now try to sell 10 dollar burgers and other ridiculous shit at sitdown prices.
McDonalds is the worst offender for just plain price gouging. Their 99 cent menu doesnt exist anymore, all the shit that WAS on the 99 cent menu is now like 4-5 bucks.
Which is what a fucking bigmac used to cost, and we'd groan about the big mac being 5 dollars.
I got lunch for my mom and myself at Five Guys the other day. Two burgers, one order of fries, two fountain drinks, $44. I wouldn't even have minded the price if it had been, y'know, fantastic food, but it was just mid. Burgers were bland, fries were limp and greasy -- so greasy that the bottom of the bag broke open when I got it home -- and even the drinks were watery. For $44!
I tried Taco Bell yesterday for the first time in years. At least it was "only" $11 for a mexican pizza, two tacos and a large drink. Unfortunately it was utterly disgusting, everything tasted like stale wheat flour which was weird because I don't think the food actually had wheat flour in it anywhere.
they shrinkflationed it so much people stopped buying, also people started eating healthy cutting in thier profits. and they have closed franchises near me, that have been here decades.
It's not even about the money specifically, if that's what it actually cost or if it was going to a good place. It's the greed of constantly trying to find that line on how hard they can squeeze and at what price point people will keep taking it.
I have a small garden for a hobby and mental health. I spent $30 on 2 bags of fucking DIRT yesterday. What am I doing? Dirt was $30!?!? I guess I can't even afford dirt anymore. 😭
depends on which chocolate, i mostly buy the pure chocolate bars, like 85% and up when its on sale, i dislike milk chocolate. WF SELLs the bougie chocolate meant as "gifts"
I drive a roadster and people assume I'm incredibly rich. I bought the fucking thing nine years ago for $8000 -- tell me what new car today costs less than $1000 a year to own and operate.
I think this is their sneaky way of raising prices. They know most people aren't going to buy 4 bags of Doritos and 5 12-packs of soda to get the lower price on the shelf, and the single unit price is crazy.
PC upgrades of course, but also I refuse to pay for a coffee out these days. Sometimes I do it if I'm with someone but never alone. It's very expensive.
Also burgers out, I never buy them, but also because they are not very good and the price is ridiculous. Last time I checked, Burger King double whopper menu was 14 dollars in my country. Probably more expensive now.
Sit down places are over 20 where I'm at. I've seen a burger for $27. Fuck that. Ground beef is also pretty expensive but it's not even close. I use my grill and it comes out better anyway.
My mom for this last year had a home helper who was making around $21 an hour. She would order lunch every day through Grub Hub, usually $15-$20 just for the food and then another $10 for the delivery. She was willing to work for an hour and a half just to pay for her lunch. And she would always complain about how shitty and cold the food was. Even weirder is that she was a great cook herself, I provided whatever groceries she wanted, and she had plenty of time to cook whatever she wanted, and she still did the Grub Hub shit. I just do not get people.
Beef cattle are declining in numbers for years due to policy, and screwfly is here now to reduce them further.
Cheap beef is over for the foreseeable future unless government policy goes pro-beef again. Trump supposed reversed Biden's anti-cattle policies, but even if that's true you won't see an impact for years.
I glanced at a porterhouse for sale at my local grocery a few weeks ago. $54. The fuck? I'd balk at paying that much at a steakhouse, cooked and with sides and a couple of beers.
I've not stopped but heavily worked to cut fast food out of my daily meal plan. The cost of most burgers out there I can buy buns, ingredients, and meat to cook myself to how I like it. It'll be juicier, thicker, and tastier as well.
A pet. My dog died a few years ago. I'd love to get another, maybe adopt, but I couldn't afford the healthcare now. It got pretty expensive towards the end of her life and I just couldn't do that now. I also can't afford the time that a dog deserves - I'm working more overtime and still feel like I have less money.
My cat had an enlarged heart near the end of her life and when I took her to a chain vet they quoted me $3500 to do what they could and she still would have been in pretty bad shape. I could tell the vet didn't really want to do it and when I asked about euthanasia instead she immediately said "that's the right thing to do" and went off to get the process started without asking me again about the expensive treatment. I will always be indebted to her for this.
I used to take my cats to my sister-in-law's mother, but she had to sell her practice (to this very same chain, in fact) in order to have something for her retirement. The chain told her quite openly that they were buying her practice to shut it down and remove local competition. Corporations are such a fucking cancer.
oh yea pets are expensive, especially if it has chronic conditions, or is old. or if you rescue it with unknown health history. also certain breeds tend to be unhealthy= more expensive medical cares.
Even with the vet donating supplies and instructing me on how to do a lot of the work, the last month of my old pets life still ran up a 10k bill, which I am still struggling to pay down years later.
I don't think I'll ever have a pet again, the financials just dont work out.
And I was one of the crazy ones and still could dispose money on this. I just choose not to pay ridiculous amounts. Let's see where that gets em when the bubble is over.
Im on fixed income at the moment so: Meat, eggs, and unfortunately most fresh produce at this point. I’m doing what I can to grow my own, but there’s a huge project in need of doing before I can really hit the ground on it. I have a small flock of chickens for eggs, and sometimes raise quail for meat (I’m too poor to be vegan/vegetarian; the birds turn waste into eggs and muscle, I give them as good a life as I can, and slaughter humanely with neutral gas when the time comes), but mostly I just eat shelf-stable stuff that I can buy bulk and cheap.
And since food is a struggle, I also don't really buy anything else anymore. Too expensive to justify.
and unfortunately most fresh produce at this point
Special secret: grocery store dumpsters are often full of perfectly good fresh produce -- and I mean full. And in most states, it's perfectly legal to take some. Learn the ways of the dumpster, and you'll eat like a king.
Except for the fact that it can be dangerously unsanitary. At my store we sometimes throw produce into the same bag that our bathroom trash gets emptied into. There are toilet paper rolls that were used to clean syringes in there and everything.
Not to mention sometimes the syringes themselves...
If you have to eat that way I get it, but that should be last resort.
A) Find the good dumpsters. Some grocery stores have 'compost only' dumpsters, and those are an absolute gold mine. Those ones will be full of food and only food.
B) Of course you need to wash everything thoroughly before eating it. And don't take (unwrapped, unsealed) things that can't be washed.
C) Follow your nose. Billions of years of evolution have actually equipped you pretty well when it comes to determining which food is and isn't safe to eat. If it looks good and smells good, it probably is good. Add a bit of common sense and looking out for signs of a few of the more dangerous things -- like botulism -- and you're pretty well safe. Also pay attention to recent recalls -- if the store is throwing away lots of the same thing, and none of it is expired yet, check for recalls on that product before eating it. (And look at why it was recalled. Recalled stuff is sometimes still perfectly safe to eat. Lots of recalls happen for reasons such as the product being mislabeled and not mentioning an allergen that might be present. In that case, as long as you're not allergic to that particular thing, you're good.)
I've never once gotten sick from eating dumpster food. IMO, unless you have some specific health condition that puts you at higher risk, you're very unlikely to have problems.
Practically everything. My phone, garbage, insurance, food, gas, electric, internet, cable . . . everything went up seemingly at the same time. There are a lot of products and businesses I just outright boycott based upon GOP reasons. I pretty much eliminate grocery stores in the summer and buy from local farms. I partition my trash into small bags and deposit them in trash cans and eliminated my garbage pick up. I compost all scraps. Started a vegetable garden. Grow my own cannabis. Switched to USMobile for $10 a month unlimited. Torrent everything. Cut cable. I used to eat out about three times a week and that is now zero. Overall, I am eating better and even lost about 15 pounds. I discovered bin stores. I find myself buying more stuff that I don't need but want. I found a $500 Garmin watch on dollar day. The only wrong with it was it was missing the band so I found one that fit and got that for a buck. On $3 day last week I found a pair of ar6 walkie talkies sealed. On $12 day I found a 32" TV and leaf blower, both sealed. I can't see myself ever paying full price again, shopping in a store or even online.
In the 90s youd go to the record store that had a ticket kiosk. Tickets were 10 to 20 dollars, youd get a printed ticket.
Now it just sucks. Venues add fees, ticketmaster fees double the price, printing fees, sometimes you cant even get the digital ticket until the day of and hope nithing goes wrong.
It all just sucks now.
I go down to my local dive bar and watch some local guys play rock and blues....for tips.
They're regularly $3.49 Canadian now... that's absurd. It has one ingredient, rice. Rice isn't that expensive, and it doesn't even use very much of it.
They're not even difficult to produce, the machine to make them is only a few thousand dollars and I'm seriously considering buying one from South Korea at this point.
Ahh, yeah those need a machine. I'm sure you could get one, but I don't know if your neighbors would appreciate it. The ones I've seen the vendors use are pretty loud.
This has been a blessing in disguise in some ways. I now make most of our food from scratch. Canned foods, bread, no more soda and instead I make Kefir (which is healthy, too).
I bought tools and do the gardening. Same with home repairs.
Dumped streaming and will buy second hand DVDs/blurays.
It takes a lot of my time, but it's also so fun, gives this feel good vibe.
Ended up in way better shape, less pollution, cleaner food, reconnected with nature.
Gaming/movie nights/etc took a big hit, but then again, time well spent with the family.
I buy maybe one or two "full price" video games per year. And even then those are probably not exactly "AAA". Buying tons of indie stuff though!
Got rid of most of the streaming services and I'm seriously considering dropping the few that remain. (I'd need to, ugh, call the support to cancel.) The free streaming service from the national public broadcaster is pretty amazing and I have a wall of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.
haven't thought of that, I know RAM is more expensive, let's check microSD, I bought last year a SanDisk 128GB MAX Endurance for my dashcam, check invoice... $29. It is now $59 so yeah it doubled! wow!
I used to be almost addicted to beef jerky, especially the smaller store types where it's made semi-local...until it got to be 29.99 per pound. I love the stuff but will never like it THAT much
I buy a lot less meat, and I consume much less too. I eat a lot more grains, pulses and vegetables instead.
I still get some meat from the supermarket, but I also try to buy direct from the farm or get free meat in exchange for services, like some sort of neopeasant.
When I use meat, I bulk it out by other means, like lentils or barley, and flavor-up with various techniques.
I don't eat pork or beef unless it's provided to me by the person that owned the animal. I still eat a lot of lamb and chicken though.
Yeah pearl barley can't be beaten in a stew or even a curry. And I've started eating beyond burgers instead of meaty ones - I'm not a veggie, I enjoy meat. But I'm not comfortable with the ethical issues, and it's full of saturated fats. They cost about the same, are less unhealthy, and they're tasty. A soon as the alternatives industry can come up with more products like this that I can afford, I'm out.
The recent episode of GB sewing bee had contestants making knickers out of jersey t-shirts they got 3 pairs per t-shirt. Plus some elastic and time of course. But you do also need a sewing machine however its a good machine for life.
Fish & chips. There were other reasons when I could afford it, but now I'm on government support, it's just not a sound financial decision, even as a treat.
I haven't been to my local chippy in a good long while, but the last time I was there the price was around £10, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it at £15 now. I can eat for the better part of a week for that sort of money.
(The other reasons being that I was putting on a lot of weight, and I always seemed to end up scratching the heck out of my throat on them. And no, I wasn't swallowing them like a gannet.)
I refuse to pump my car tyres from petrol stations anymore because all the ones in my local area have started charging exorbitant prices. It always used to be free with petrol, then a few years ago it became 20p, but now it's randomly shot up to £1.50. WHY??
You can buy devices that pump your car tyres up for you too. They tend not to last very long, so they're not exactly "one time" purchases, but they're far more cost effective than doing it at stations nowadays.!
I never liked going out to eat or drink, but its gotten insane lately. Seems like everywhere is $15 or more for a simple cocktail, $10 or more for a Miller Lite. Insulting when the staff might only be making $2.13 per hour, and I need to tip and add tax so that gets close to $20 for a drink I could have ppuree myself at home for probably $1. Bars and restaurants have also started to use Kore and more tactics to make themselves less pleasant to hang out in, enoucoraging faster consumption and quicker turn times to try to get more customers. Louder music, less comfortabke chairs, etc.
I used to build a gaming PC for both myself and my wife roughly every 6 or 7 years. I never needed anything top-of-the-line: I am perfectly satisfied with 1080p 60fps and playing older games. I liked to maximize value. I built myself a PC in 2019 and my wife one in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to hit. At this point I am starting to wonder whether those will be the last PC's I will afford in my lifetime.
I expect Streaming Services will be a common answer here. I started messing around with Jellyfin a few years ago, and my wife and I had slowly been buying DVD's and Blu-Rays, occasionally supplemented by the high seas. This year we finally canceled our HBO and Netflix subscriptions. We also decided to try to cancel Spotify, so I went ahead and ripped all our CD's, gathered our pirated collection (organized separately to make it easier to potentially decide to buy that music later), and started buying more music from artists directly. I'm good enough to cancel today, but my wife has become accustomed to the near-infinite supply of variety that Spotify has so... Yeah
Oil change services for my vehicles. Despite doing tons of my own repairs, I hate dealing with the oil. It always gets on the outside of the container and my recycling locations are always full. The service (including oil) used to be about 50% more than the oil I could buy to do myself. It was worth it to me to spend an extra dinner's worth of money ~4 times a year. But now a service costs at least twice as much as the oil alone, even at independent shops. Plus, I now get oil in slight bulk, so the service is 3x what I pay in oil. I treated myself to a nice catch pan and dedicated funnels as a compromise, still costing less than a service on my first DIY in a decade.
Not to mention a lot of shops run 55 gallon drums of INCREDIBLY cheap oil. You can spend less and be runing very high quality oil for ur car to help it last as long as possible 🙏 this guess for ur brakes and shit too most shops source the cheapest crap from local parts stores that they can, if you shoot around you can buy quality parts without breaking the bank and not have to repeat as many repairs or replace ur brakes because their rotted not worn etc.
Honestly, it's stupid easy. The worst part for me is shimmying on the ground to get under the car, but I have spondyloarthritis so maybe most folks aren't even bothered by that. It has always been eyebrow-raisingly more cost effective to diy an oil change.
Brake pads are harder but not really all that difficult. Huge cost savings if you diy there too.
I guess I'm lucky that every auto parts store near me takes used oil for free. I drain my old oil into the "pan," set it aside and do the oil change, and then i pour the pan of used oil into the now-empty jug that had my fresh oil. I take a sharpie and write OLD on the jug. I set that aside in the shed. Then when it's time for my next oil change, I grab that jug of old oil out of the shed and take it to the auto parts store where I dump it and then buy fresh oil and a filter -- one-stop shopping. Easy peasy.
I've only stopped buying specific brands completely, otherwise, I'd characterize my situation as cutting back on things where the price got ridiculous.
Coffee is / was the big one. I used to stock the cheap, store brand stuff for when I needed a morning lift. That was pre-tariff $9. I'd also stock the good stuff, the brand and variety that I really like a lot, usually around $12 a bag. Tariffs kicked in, the "cheap" stuff went to $20 per lb immediately. The good stuff went to $22 (but only like 12 oz or something). So, no more name brand, and I cut way back on coffee consumption. Fucked up part, tariffs are done and the prices dropped, but nowhere near the old price. The cheap stuff is still $14, so $5 more than 1.5 years ago.
My preferred soap, shampoo, and personal care products are largely the same story. I stopped buying the products I like, switched to store brand stuff that doesn't smell good and doesn't work as good / dries my skin & hair. But I'm not paying what the name brands want for their shit.
I used to keep a lot of candy and snacks on hand for guests, as we always have someone stopping by, including adult children and relatives. The candy stockpile was super popular. But the prices on that stuff has sky rocketed, and they fill the variety bags with a bunch of unpopular (to us) shit that just sits in the candy basket and goes bad. I haven't bought any of that stuff, sans once or twice for myself in over a year.
I don't buy canned tuna at all. Technically, I cut back on that b/c of mercury concerns years ago, but every once in awhile I'd still have a can. It's gone down to 5 oz from 6 oz. The cans have changed in size so that my strainer doesn't fit anymore. The prices have gone way up. Canned fish in general I've almost completely stopped buying.
I'm trying to hold off on buying new shoes. I desperately need a new pair because the old ones I use for daily outdoor activities are falling apart and stink to high heavens. But I looked at prices recently and said oh hell no. Unfortunately I wear an odd size so even looking around from time to time at the second hand shops hasn't been successful, and even so I feel weird about second hand shoes.
Odd, tinned fish is still pretty cheap here in the UK. I guess that's tariffs again? Though I thought the US did a lot of its own fishing? Mind you, when I say 'pretty cheap' it very much depends on the type of fish, the quality, and the sustainability of the fishery.
Second hand shoes are fine, just put them through the washing machine and you'll feel much better about them!
Canned goods in general went up, price of aluminum.
I get my tuna at Costco, they use the big cans and you can get good deals, especially if they put them on sale. When they go on sale I get two or three eight-packs at a clip. Not like they go bad.
Coffee is / was the big one. I used to stock the cheap, store brand stuff for when I needed a morning lift. That was pre-tariff $9. I’d also stock the good stuff, the brand and variety that I really like a lot, usually around $12 a bag. Tariffs kicked in, the “cheap” stuff went to $20 per lb immediately. The good stuff went to $22 (but only like 12 oz or something). So, no more name brand, and I cut way back on coffee consumption. Fucked up part, tariffs are done and the prices dropped, but nowhere near the old price. The cheap stuff is still $14, so $5 more than 1.5 years ago.
Holy hell, where are you buying coffee? I still get most of my coffee at TJ Maxx / Marshalls where they often have 12 oz. bags (on clearance) for $5 or so. Even LiDL coffee is only $6.50 for a 12 oz. bag.
i think coffee has always been pricey, especially if look at brand name ones. its also coupled by the fact that coffee farms, are suffering from climate change too.
Haven't reached that point, yet. Would love to have stopped buying new HDDs the other day, but I needed more storage and they won't be getting cheaper ...
Netflix (though that was cause of password sharing), PS plus. I upgraded my pc so its better than a PS5 now. Just need to rebuy the Fromsoft catalogue and I be peachy. And emulate Bloodborne. Spotify. Cause its shit now. AI music was what made me quit. Then I went to Tidal. And my god the sound difference.
Fresh pineapple. The local supermarket has a machine that turns a fresh pineapple in slices or pieces. They started over a year ago with €3.99. Then, some months ago, it went up to €4.99. Then it was "Special Offer: €4.99". And now the special offer is history, and the pineapple costs €5.99.
Back then, I bought one every weekend. Since it is €5.99, I have given up on them, and, by the looks of it, quite a number of other customers, too.
Way too many things to go in to here. Starting with foods lets start with beef steak. I can buy a weeks worth of food for the price of a few decent steaks.
Used to buy the 12 box from a local chocolatier that is absolutely fantastic. The owner was trained in France and Belgium and her creations are as good or better than anything I've eaten.
Six years ago, the price for a 12 piece box was $24. Today it is $36. I used to keep a box around almost constantly. Now it is only for holidays and birthdays.
Personal Computers: As an IT professional, I've always been a miser when it comes to computer hardware. I usually buy something 2 or so generations old and refurbish it myself, then use it for several years till it suffers a catastrophic failure. I'm not a serious gamer, so I don't care if it can run the latest games at trillions of frames per microsecond. Now, even 4 generations back the machines are abhorrently expensive. Costing as much as they did when new, which is ridiculous. The manufacturing burn through due to AI is idiotic. When the investment into AI finally crashes, which I'm shocked hasn't happened yet, these manufacturers are going to be scrambling to get back into the consumer market.
That's interesting - your friend is running the game on the cloud, not locally, and streaming to their device? Like google stadia used to do? I would have thought that would take much more bandwidth.
Yes exactly. He uses Nvidia's services. I would have thoguht it would take more bandwidth But it works okay so it's nice. I don't think it would work on competitive games but if you're just there to have fun I think it's quite okay
Just about everything really. I often even let whatever is on sale at the grocery store dictate my diet these days, up to a certain point at least. I can't think of a single thing I really buy anymore that isn't a base necessity to function in the modern world. I'd drop having a phone if I could without ostracising myself.
alcohol prices are coming down because nobody is drinking anymore. i've seen scotch going back down to like 50 a bottle when it used to be 80. and some whiskeys have come down back to 30 a bottle.
i bought a bottle of High West Rye two months ago for 35 bucks, that would have been like 80 a few years ago. i stopped drinking that stuff because it go so expensive, but now it's like cheaper than beer.
beer prices, on the other hand, are now like 20 bucks for a four pack, and even shitty light lagers are like 16. insane. the past year i have switched to only buying cheaper 4 packs or 6 packs that are 10 bucks or so, but the selection at that pricepoint is severely limited.
thats why(alcohol lobby, who also is behind mitch when he introduced that legislation a while back) they are passing legislation to try and ban weed, and glp-1
Yes. Dont buy any crisps anymore. Now only self made. Milka chocolate the same. Anything tech unless something important broke.
Anything Kinder
So yeah sweets and snacks and stuff like that probably other things too but it doesnt come to mind rn
Edit: oh yeah. Eating out.
So many restaurants have high prices and food really is shit. Ordering the same. But i still have to get into the rythm of then not being lazy and just cook something simple instead of ordering even when im very low on energie myself which luckily is once in a blue moon
I dropped the only frivolities I used to get during the pandemic, and never picked them up again, which were only eating out once a week, and movies occasionally. I also dropped red meat, and processed foods for health reasons around the same time.
I don't feel like I'm suffering because I never really engaged with the consumerist culture to begin with.
A lot. And it's not limited to money.
Netflix: The best series are getting stopped produced or go into the shitter. And then they rised the price for non-ad versions.
Reddit: Deleted my account when they stopped giving API away (RIF my beloved). And now I can't even read threads without an account. (Also: yay, finally made it here!)
Facebook: Deleted my account years ago already and not looking bad. Bad and confusing algorithms, spreading of misinformation and conspiracies, fake globetrotter, stealing and selling personal informations to advertisers and whatnot... I don't need that in my life.
Twitter/X: It already got slightly bad, but Musks takeover was like 5 of the 10 nails in the coffin. And seeing how quickly it went down... Good riddance.
YouTube Premium: I thought I'd give something back to content creators for all the years of entertainment. But Googles fight against smaller creators, Ad-Blocker and apparently it's own user base made my back down, cancel my subscription and use Firefox instead. It's bad that the only choice is an Android or Apple Phone, the choice between a rock and a hard place.
Microsoft: okay, I didn't fully transition. I took my gaming notebook and installed Linux CachyOS on it to try things out. It works great, and It feels better that using windows. But I guess for my PC, I'll do a dual boot or something first.
About the microsoft thing : you're absolutely right. Dual boot all you want, don't go too fast and take your time. If you switch in five years so be it, if it's sooner all the better. Don't be afraid to distrohop to find what's best for you. Oftentimes you start with a distro and end up with something else.
I started with Ubuntu in ~2006, never got to get my modem working with eagle-usb and had to abandon ship. Went back in 2009 with Fecora then OpenSuSE : was quite thrilled because it was way better than Win7 lite on an eeePC equivalent. Then switched PCs and against all odds really liked Windows 8.
I never quite got around Win 10 when it came out and slowly started looking at Linux again. Went through Zorin (best for starters!) then Mint, Debian, Ubuntu again, Fedora again, Pop!_OS, then quite find an interest in Manjaro but shit broke too often for me so I said "fuck it, it relies on Arch so how hard could it be?" (Spoilers : really hard when you try working with btrfs and LUKS and you're quite a novice).
Finally I tried NixOS and thought that anyone who got time for that shit ain't got life outside of that so went back to Arch.
Anyways I use arch btw and thanks for listening to my TED talk.
Not so much stopped buying but never bought, but these bags in Japan that kids take to school.
They're stupidly heavy and way over priced. In my kids' school, using one is optional, so we just went with a regular back pack from Muji. Such a stupid culture imo.
Retro gaming handhelds. I bought the Ayn Thor Pro off Swappa for close to $630, only because it came with the UEFS 4.0 processor prior to the current 3.1 downgrade. With that, my Steam Deck, and my Switch 2, I think I'm good in terms of gaming.
Also, any console or PC that's priced over three digits. I just got an ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 motherboard from a friend with 16 GB ram that I plan on turning into a Steam Machine of my own.
RAM sticks. This may sound cheesy but I have always upgraded my PC RAM. I Bought a laptop in jan. 2025 and told myself "okay I could buy these 64 GB RAM but I could also buy X instead, so I'll buy X then in a few months I'm gonna buy some RAM to do Gen AI, it's not like I'm in a hurry". Well, I guess this was a mistake because I can only run a limited set of models on 32 GB RAM and prices have... well... you know.
I live in a civilised country, where the cost of things isn't crazy relative to income with the notable exception of housing
I'm lucky enough to own my own home, and I did horrible hours of damned hard work to get where I am
I buy seasonal food where I can (because of environmental reasons rather than just the price), I don't buy junk food or takeaways apart from very rare occasions
I don't smoke and I buy beer from local brewers and enjoy a wine club that is within my means
If I want something, I buy it, but I'm not frivolous with money
My TV is too old to connect to the internet, I don't have fancy clothes, the last console I bought was a PS2, I have no Netflix or any such subscriptions
I see people struggling, but I also see a lot of money spent on what I consider to be bullshit
And while I'm older, I'm not a boomer before anyone suggests otherwise
Went to the local hardware store yesterday to pick up some necessary nuts and bolts for building a bicycle trailer (itself being built so I don't have to spend money on gas as much). And fully half of those nuts and bolts went into my pockets instead of the little bag they give you to go through the checkout. The more expensive half, of course.
Until the Epstein class is behind bars -- or better yet, 6ft underground -- I will continue to do everything possible to keep my money out of their pockets, which includes stealing things when feasible.
442 Comments
dlsloop@lemmy.zip · 239 pts · 15d
Streaming services of any kind. I've got a jellyfin server now that has everything I need.
It was fine when they were $5 a month, but this $20 a month bullshit is insane. And what do you mean I can't share one account with the family if we're not on the same network, get real.
yesman@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 15d
My family will rotate Steaming services. We sub for a month or two when we wanna see a show or something, then cancel in favor of something else.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 22 pts · 14d
yeah, this is the way. i got lectured yesterday buy some weirdo about how doing that is 'too inconvenient and a massive waste of time'. and then doubled down when I pointed out it takes seconds to do this, and were like 'it shouldn't have to take me seconds'. OK buddy... like i guess if you feel you must be subbed to 8 different services at once and forever because you can't ever cancel or swap, it must be really tough to be you.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 14d
yup, which is why the money boys are desperate to make bundles. annual contracts with cancellation fees are in the future. line must go up!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 14d
dam thats like 100+$ of streams, its an addiction. good thing im satisfied by all the stuff being uploaded to YT in clips, basically tells you the whole story/seasons anyways.
Identikit@leminal.space · 16 pts · 14d
Do you have any information that could help me understand how to self-host my own music streaming using jellyfin? I’ve been meaning to learn this as I’m over Apple’s last increase.
ryper@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 14d
If you only want to stream music you might be better off setting up Navidrome. !selfhosted@lemmy.world is a good place to look for advice on this stuff.
dlsloop@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 14d
You bet! If you only need to get it working on your home network then it's really easy. The Jellyfin website has great documentation on the process and there are also great YouTube videos as well. It's pretty much download the program and tell it where to look for the files, then visit the localhost link it gives you and bam you're golden.
If you also want to be able to access it from outside of your home network then things get can get a bit tricky and you will need to set up a reverse proxy of some kind (Caddy, Nginx, Pangolin, etc).
Prancingpotato@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
Or tailscale to ease things, really easy to setup, only caveat is that devices that will access the server must also be on the tailscale "network"
Identikit@leminal.space · 2 pts · 11d
Thank you so much! I should have just looked into it myself but it felt daunting as I’m new to it all but really want to own my own data and media again.
AskewLord@piefed.social · -5 pts · 15d
I don't have that problem. I share netflix/HBO with my sister who is across the country with little to no issue.
but we never sub up more than two services at once.
snooggums@piefed.world · 11 pts · 14d
I'm in the US and have to watch a few seconds of something on my phone while connected to the wifi in each location for two houses less than 3 miles apart every single month or it gets signed out of every device at one of the two locations. I only do that ao my daughter can watch shows at two places.
I will most likely cancel this fall after catching up on my backlog. It isn't the cost that will be the dealbreaker, it is the hassle.
AskewLord@piefed.social · -13 pts · 14d
yeah and i have to mfa for my work vpn once a month... that's pretty standard stuff dude.
you seriously think once a month auth is awful burden you can't live with?
snooggums@piefed.world · 7 pts · 14d
It is an annoyance for a thing that up to a couple years ago required zero effort and at that time the company promoted sharing accounts. Now they are so against sharing that they penalize people who use more than one wifi network.
I'm not even sharing accounts, just watching it in two places. If I could just mfa once at either location to confirm it wouldn't be so bad. I have to remember to take action in two places and track it so it doesn't get cut off in the evening at the other place while I'm going to bed and my kiddo is trying to watch a movie.
Also I'm paying for Netflix. Your job is paying you to do that.
AskewLord@piefed.social · -14 pts · 14d
yeah the world changes. nothing stays the same. what seemed like a good idea 5-10 years ago seems utterly stupid today. that's how life works, including business.
I mean, I get it, 1st world problem of mind inconvenience is a moral outrage. But I don't own two homes, I can't possible imagine how difficult and awful it must be to have to manage my netflix account across multiple properties...
oh wait, you could just create a vpn and network your two homes so they appear on the same network! wow... almost as if there is a solution to every problem.
snooggums@piefed.world · 7 pts · 14d
I don't own two homes, what the fuck are you talking about?
My daughter moves back and forth between two homes, like a lot of kids do. You do understand that family situations can be complicated right?
Netflix's "solution" is to have a second account, but then if she watches something at my place and then at her mom's it would require signing in and out of Netflix constantly to have access to her personal profile. Netflix tying accounts to wifi networks is stupid and frankly you would fit right in there.
AskewLord@piefed.social · -9 pts · 14d
I don't work for netflix but I do understand a lot about tech and I do very well in my career, yeah.
Because I don't tolerate entitled requests from users who think their convenience is all that matters. They have to sign into the account everytime they they move locations because it's a necessary security precaustion and contractually obligated by our insurance.
but right, I'm a dummy and you know better. you know you can just setup your daughters phone with a netflix account and have her stream from the phone to any tv without having to re-auth right?
but hey sorry for trying to help you out, when clearly you didn't want a solution, you just wanted to be embittered at netflix because how dare you be inconvenienced.
You could just... no longer subscribe to them. but that would be even more inconvenient.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 14d
you act like having 2 homes is a normal thing.
DempstersBox@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Yeah, that's super asinine. Do you remember when the internet worked without seventeen thousand layers of bullshit?
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 14d
Lol meanwhile I have to punch in a code if I want to watch Netflix at work because I'm not on my home network. Somehow Netflix invented landline streaming services.
alibloke@feddit.uk · 159 pts · 15d
PC parts
AskewLord@piefed.social · 34 pts · 14d
my nephew build a pc this winter. he paid like 2K for roughly the same spec that my older nephew built in '23 and paid like $800 for.
only thing that wasn't a massive price increase was motherboard, case and power supply.
trebach@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 14d
Newegg was bundling other parts with video cards to deter scalping. I got a Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT 16GB and 750W power supply for $630 a few months back. It's now "on sale" by itself for $790. Months before that it was closer to $500!
The Seagate Exos 20 TB hard drives I paid $350-$400 each for over a year ago are now $793.
It's absolutely insane.
markz@suppo.fi · 8 pts · 15d
Yeah, I think the only new part my pc sees between 2025-??? is the case.
RaphaelSchmitz@feddit.org · 3 pts · 14d
You're lucky to have kinda the opposite of my situation.
I used a second hand office machine with a low power graphics card added, because that came out quite cheap. Until about 2 years ago, when I saw that really good looking cases, with the glass and LEDs and everything, are quite affordable now, got one for 60 bucks, I think.
The problem was that that office machine was not made to be upgradeable. Power supply that delivered pretty much exactly what the current parts needed and no more, with custom connectors to the mainboard.
So I thought ok, I do it in steps, after all that's the whole point that that's possible. Start by getting a nice modern bequiet PSU, and finding a more standard motherboard, that fit with my CPU and RAM. In some obscure webshop no less, because stuff is old, I'm working with DDR2 here.
And the plan was that later I would look at upgrading motherboard+CPU+RAM, because I'd have to do those together.
And then the data centers happened.
I'm just lucky that the old machine was a beast for its time - the back then impressive 16GB RAM are still decent now. Battlefield the WW1 one ran fine, that game where you upgrade your jeep was too laggy - gotta be a bit more selective about what I run now, because my upgrade plans are on ice until we storm the data centers.
markz@suppo.fi · 1 pts · 14d
Oh, I need new cpu/motherboard/ram, I just can't afford that. It's not ddr2 old, but I have been running out of ram.
DrPop@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
I want to upgrade, but i can at least comfortably play every game that is out so I can eait.
alibloke@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 14d
The assumption is that prices will come down again. I suspect not :(
CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 14d
Prices could come down during the upcoming crash of the economy. Trouble is, that means consumers won't have money, and billionaires will buy it all up on the cheap.
Talaraine@fedia.io · 121 pts · 15d
Soda. Wtf are they even thinking at this point. Hell, I ran into a Dollar General to get carbonated water the other day and the only product they had was $9. For carbonated. Water. GTFO
mrmaplebar@fedia.io · 11 pts · 14d
Totally. I will only buy soda when it's on sale for half off. Otherwise it's like $1 per can and that's too damn much.
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 14d
You can pick up a used ball keg, probs $25-30, a cheap regulator, some tubing and a carbonating cap (you can skip the carbonating cap, which last I looked is some $25, just hook the CO2 line to the dip tube, it’ll take longer to reach carbonation saturation, but it works fine), and a hand faucet for $1 and rent a CO2 tank (last time I filled a 5lb cylinder it was $30 which includes the cylinder) and make gallons of the stuff for decreasing spend.
Upfront cost is moderately high, yes thats true, but the more you use it the less it costs per gallon. And no plastic bottles, no questionable water source, no shipping pollution. You just have on demand carbonated water. If you add fruit puree, you can make “Italian soda”, or you can buy the soda syrup businesses and such use if you want, though you’ll want something in a pump bottle and not a box that hooks to a big system..
One 5lb tank of co2 is enough for 5-10 batches, depending how heavily carbonated you like, and each batch is 5 gallons, assuming a standard 1/8 barrel keg, so the math is pretty appealing if carbonated water is a thing you like.
Talaraine@fedia.io · 9 pts · 14d
Yep, I've altered a decade old Sodastream to use a 20 lb Co2 canister. This is the way.
blackbrook@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 14d
You can also get a soda siphon that takes co2 cartridges. I'm sure it's more expensive but takes less space. Also you can feel all cool and retro.
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 14d
Those co2 cartridges are like $30 for 20 16-gram charges. I have them for my ukeg (pressurized growler). They keep 2 gallons of beer pressurized and dispense it, but I’d assume they are only enough for about 2 liter to carbonate from still. So roughly 10 gallons for $30 vs 25-50 gallons for about the same price (only considering ongoing CO2 costs) with the keg setup.
So you can, yeah, but it’s substantially more expensive in the long run, and a 5 gallon keg plus everything else really doesn't take up a lot of space. They are tall and narrow, and you need to put the soda syphon thing somewhere, too, and I assume that’s taking precious counter space, rather than sitting in a dead space corner behind a door, or tucked into a closet or something.
Really it’s just a matter of how much you’ll use. If you don’t go through 5 gallons of carbonated water in a reasonable timeframe, like monthly so you can clean everything out, it doesn't really pay to make a big batch. You can get a 2.5 gallon keg if you want a smaller batch, but those are tough to source used and are thus pricier (place I've bought from before has them for $120, about the same price as a full-size keg of the same brand)
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 13d
Italian what?!!
Please tell me more, I have tried lots of things in carbonated water (lemon or cucumber is good) but never fruit puree!
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 12d
The way we made it at the place I worked was to puree fruit, then reduce it a bit over heat (no added sugar), then put like 2tbsp or so over ice and topped off with the carbonated water.
So it'll only really work well with flavors that don't degrade in heat, but you may also have luck with just straight pureed fruits like watermelon, not super sure how that’d turn out.
You can also use fruit syrups that you buy or make yourself, tons of recipes out there.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 11d
Thanks!
AskewLord@piefed.social · 6 pts · 14d
huh, i but carbonated water for like 50 cents a liter at the regular grocery store, and that's not even the cheap shit.
village604@adultswim.fan · 6 pts · 14d
Dollar stores are just large convenience stores. Very few products are cheaper than an actual grocery store.
lefaucet@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 14d
A lot of items are more expensive per unit.
Like a roll of aluminium foin is half price at the dollar store, but only has 1/3 the foil.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 14d
That's the poverty trap. Spend 'less' up front but way more over the long term whether we're talking about aluminum foil or car loans.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
its shrinkflationed to maximize the cost. and then larger chains started doing ti to. like with carbonated drinks 8pk vs 12pk, and fruit, energy, protein bars. 5 vs original 6-8. same goes with alot of toothpastes too. og is 8.2 to 5.4, and 5.1 to 4.6, and finally 4.3. i noticed that with foils too at the discount(grocery outlet) they used to have wafer thin for 200sqft, removed to 150max.
they play the same trick with TOILET paper too. try to trick people by reducing the ply and keeping the rolls the same, or the amount of paper the same.
target used to have very good instore brand thier up and up, i stopped buying it when they switched to"deal worthy"
jaycifer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
They are great for cheap cards though. I only go there when Mother's Day or someone's birthday is coming up.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 2 pts · 14d
Yeah they do seem mostly exploitative, but I don't have any experience going to them.
They didn't exist where I grew up even when I was poor. We just went to the regular grocery store and clipped coupons religiously.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 14d
They used to be halfway decent, but the line must go up.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 1 pts · 14d
blessed be the line.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
even the famous brands are cheap. and they often have sales/deals all the time.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
soda is overpriced everywhere, people also stopped drinking them for the most part. i think some places have added tax too. i mostly drink sparkling water with flavours, of different brands. i usually dont mind stevia infused ones much. even in discount stores they are expensive asf. sparkling water is cheap compared to soda, like most of the time its half the price.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Sparkling water with flavours is soda with a different name, friend. And it used to cost less around me, but now it's the same price as any other soda. We don't have a special soda tax here.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 14d
Haha what, 1.5 L of store brand soda water is roughly 30 US cents here, and I live in an expensive country.
sudoer777@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 14d
Soda at the movie theater near me costs $11 now. The entire place is also falling apart and looks like it's on the verge of bankruptsy even though it's one of the most well-known locations.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 102 pts · 15d
Beef, almost completely.
tmyakal@infosec.pub · 35 pts · 14d
Red meat in general. Even pork has gotten out of hand.
My family is eating poultry two or three nights per week and entirely vegetarian the rest of the week just to cut spending.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 14d
Costco prices still seem reasonable compared to what I'm used to. regular grocery store prices for meat in any form are fucked. the prices they have on tiny hams or pre-packaged sliced meat are fucked.
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 14d
Pork is still decent in my area. The most expensive stuff has gone up but the cheap stuff hasn't. Beef it's across the board.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 1 pts · 14d
i haven't seen much of a price increase in poultry or pork or fish.
i'm still paying like 2-3 dollars per chicken, 5-6 for pork, and 10 for fish. same as it was 5 years ago.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
red meat is super expensive, especially most of them(the good meats) tend to be imported.
bedwyr@piefed.ca · 11 pts · 14d
Beef is price fixed in an illegal trust.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 15 pts · 14d
But, also, beef is pretty much the worst meat when it comes to environmental impact of producing it. So it probably should be the most expensive.
zwerg@feddit.org · 6 pts · 14d
Beef is still to cheap IMHO, at least here in Europe.
bassad@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 14d
I do not understand how beef can still be cheaper than chicken or pork, in some places (not basic giga farmed chicken/pork of course)
AskewLord@piefed.social · 9 pts · 15d
i can still get stew meat and sirloin tips for a decent price. but those were never nice cuts anyway. they are only abotu 8-10/lb though still.
i used to get strip streaks sirloin and now those are 20/lb+
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
I only get steak if it's close to expiration and marked way down. Ironically it's better at that point anyway since it's been aged (as long as you eat it right away). Otherwise I'll buy top or bottom round and hammer the shit out of it with a tenderizing mallet and flash-seer it; taste is quite good and you let the mallet do the work instead of your teeth.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 1 pts · 14d
There are deals to be found, for sure.
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 97 pts · 14d
Pizza. Getting pizza for the family shouldn't cost over $70. Hell, eating out and fast food are exorbitantly expensive.
i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca · 58 pts · 14d
And yet the workers are still making shit wages. It’s absurd.
Endarys@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 14d
Welcome to capitalism.
modus@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 14d
Maybe you should tip more. /s
nullify3112@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
I hate this comment so much 🥲
scytale@piefed.zip · 25 pts · 14d
I now just buy the large ready-to-bake supreme pizza at Aldi and just enhance it by adding mozarella and other toppings at home. $8 plus maybe $2 worth of extra stuff I put on it. Just like sushi, I really can’t justify paying too much for it when eating out.
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 14d
Costco pizza is legit too
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
You mean from their food court, or their Kirkland brand freezer ones? I have wanted to try the food court ones, but if I get it home and it's not good then I'm both frustrated and need to find something else to eat, so I always pass it up since I don't know if it's good or not...
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 14d
The food court one. It’s $10. What have you got to lose other than $10?
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
For me, time, effort, and of course the $10. I'm disabled so take a standard costco run, make it take 4x as long and physically difficult. Add taking a gamble on dinner as I leave and it's a make-or-break decision.
I'll have to give it a go the next time I'm there. I've had their ice cream and it's very good, but that's not a meal :p
nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 14d
if you're worried about it, just buy a slice.
they're weird so they slice it into 6 but that makes it a huuuge slice. well well well worth the $2 imo, it's certainly a loss leader for them (meaning the cost for them to make it is more than they charge you for it)
legitimately the best pizza I had in the years I spent living in Georgia.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Ooh, I didn't know you could get it by the slice. Nice!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
the food court is a loss leader to get people to shop in the store, it works.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
remember the combo supreme.
blarghly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
Just get a slice next time you go through. Its $2, and you get a snack + qa. Imo, better than a lot of dedicated pizza shops, and cheaper
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
I didn't know they sold individual slices, I only saw people with full pies or hot dogs. I'll definitely grab one next time :D
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 14d
Try the pizza while you're in the store? It's not amazing pizza, but it's better than it should be.
garbagebagel@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
The Motor City Pizza (if they sell at your Costco) in the frozen aisle is good too if you like deep dish. It's too meaty for my taste, but will do the trick in a pinch.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Yeah, that's the only frozen pizza that I like. It takes up a good chunk of the freezer for me though.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
the freshly made one is so-so, not great but for its prices its pretty good.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 14d
Yet people will pay 10 times the cost of the ingredients to have food delivered to them cold and half-eaten.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
I've paid $70 for the pleasure of driving and picking up myself. Shit's ridiculous.
garbagebagel@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
Oh god for me it was frozen pizza. I fucking love frozen pizza as an easy dinner night and used to be able to find Dr Oetkers for $4 a pizza. That shit is $13 now.
It kills me cause I still love it but I won't buy it :(
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 1 pts · 14d
Wtf? That's so fricking much...
chrisashtear@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 14d
A lot of my grocery stores have pizza dough ready to go thats about $2.50 and can be frozen. So if you buy your ingredients and a pizza stone, you can have some REALLY good pizza any time.
I like to put the sauce on, then toast the crust for about 4-5mins before putting the rest on. Keeps the crust crispy.
Also, a dough ball isnt as hard to fit in the fridge.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Pizza in my corner of the world is still a reasonable price. First, there's cheap but delicious Little Caesars -- that's a go-to that I'm not at all embarrassed to admit. Then my local pizza shop can get me a XL pie and cheesy bread sticks for less than $20 out the door. My family of three always has leftovers from that for lunch the next day for someone but not everyone.
Any of the bougy "wood fired" blah blah blah boutique pizza grift stills costs a fortune here. But my little local pizza shop is a good NYC style slice, with normal pizza shop ingredients.
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 9d
This is how I know you are full of it
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9d
Dude, if you were honest with yourself and the world, you'd agree.
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8d
It's not BAD. I don't mind it for the price. I would never claim that it's "delicious" either though. I'm from Detroit too. The Little Caesar's pizza at Little Caesar's Arena hits different. Albeit it's $30 more.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8d
I, too, am originally from the Metro Detroit area. My Metro Detroit area chain pizza takes: Hungry Howies used to be better, I think (or I'm suffering rose colored hindsight). Jet's Pizza is still pretty good. Dominoes was never really good and despite their commercials, they've not gotten much better.
Hot take: Buddy's Pizza is overrated greasy dog shit.
I now live out of state, but I visit my family in SE Michigan every other month or so. I have a preference for Coney's too.
PissMissile@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
Best Detroit Style: Cloverleaf with a close second being green lantern.
Best Non-Detroit Style: Supino's in Eastern Market.
Best Coney: Duly's, but honestly National Coney Island just feels right.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
try costco pizza. 9.99. costco loves you.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world · 88 pts · 15d
Raspberry PIs.
MushuChupacabra@piefed.world · 18 pts · 14d
I have three that I purchased prior to the insanity.
I might sell one and buy yacht.
Appleseuss@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 14d
I just looked them up, that's crazy they're that expensive now.
somereaduser@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 14d
I'm going to go on a rant here, but I was disappointed in the launch of the Pi 5 and even more frustrated at the lack of pushback by the tech community.
I'm forgetting the details now, but it launched much later than it was supposed to (they used covid as an excuse, but I'm not sure). That's not the issue; the issue is that it was only slightly more powerful than the Pi 4.
Given that the Pi 5 was launched 4 years later, it should have been more powerful. But considering it wasn't, it meant they were using cheaper silicon.
But the real kicker is that I think it had a $10 (like a 25%) price hike.
So more expensive for marginally better power...screw that.
That along with the locked down nature of arm, I was done with the company. Especially considering the strides x86 has made in low power applications.
It just sucks can't afford anything right now.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
I have a super old model with such old connections it’s not even useful for anything.
_deleted_@aussie.zone · 70 pts · 15d
I stopped smoking thirty years ago partly because cigarettes were $7 a pack and that’s just ridiculous. Now the same size pack is over $50 (Australia)
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 15d
So story time.
I smoked in high school and early college and quit before I graduated.
I then joined the Army and went overseas and did not restart smoking. So I oblivious to the cost of cigarettes.
I came back to the states and the first time I bought cigarettes since early college was for my brother around 2001/2002. He was broke and came over for Thanksgiving so decided to get him a carton of cigarets as he was out.
I was floored. A pack of cigarets was 10 bucks a carton cost 100 dollars. 10 bucks a pack.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 15 pts · 14d
Cigarettes (and to some extent alcohol) are one thing I think should be very heavily taxed, and therefore very expensive. The high prices are intended to encourage people to quit smoking, and more importantly, discourage people from getting addicted in the first place. Heck, a handful of countries are finally starting to ban cigarettes altogether for people born after a certain year. This is good.
I know I'm speaking from a point of "privilege", I've never smoked in my life and never been addicted to any substance. I know it's just not feasible for some people to quit, and for them, the high prices really suck. But on a society level, I still think it's better if cigarettes are expensive enough to remind you you should quit every time you buy them.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 14d
Yeah much of the cost of cigarettes is the deterring tax and I agree wth you on using them. Smoking is terrible and one of the best things I ever did for myself is quit smoking them.
I don’t know if there are similar taxes on other tobacco products.
That is what is so disheartening about all the vaping. In this that we had cigarettes and smoking beat. The numbers were going down and then vaping came along and everyone thought/thinks it is safe and now smoking is everywhere again.
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 14d
I agree that tobacco products should be heavily taxed, but should cigarettes be banned outright? I'm not sure banning is the right way to go, I mean just look at what the prohibition of alcohol back then did. A thriving, unregulated black market. People should be able to buy cigarettes, that way they can be sure of what it is they are smoking.
Just my opinion tho.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 14d
I don't think it's quite the same thing. Smoking has almost zero redeeming qualities. Alcohol has a lot of social value, cultural heritage, crap like that. If you're going to break the law, there are more attractive substances than tobacco.
There are other benefits too: restaurants stop having to dedicate space to smoking tables; people are far less likely to smoke in public places (like bus stops), which is already against the law but people do it anyway, if smoking is banned altogether they'd do it less.
If people are gonna smoke tobacco, I'd rather they do it in secret than out in the open. Also I think even "failed" prohibition likely reduces actual usage by a lot.
Delphia@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Nah, because then you have the situation Australia has now which is that the financial incentive to bring in illegal cigarettes and sell them which creates organised crime groups who keep firebombing each others shit.
trebach@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 14d
The US has the importation issue on a smaller scale because the tax on cigarettes varies between cities and states. Crooks will drive box trucks full of cigarettes from Virginia (which has the second lowest tax on them) to New York City (which has the highest).
A form has to be filled out above a certain number of packs so they'll buy just below that amount at different locations to avoid having the purchases recorded by the state.
olafurp@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Taxing cigarettes without proper redistribution is tricky because taxing cigarettes is also technically taxing poor people since they are the majority of smokers.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 14d
If the goal was to prevent people smoking, just put it behind a prescription or something. That way the people who cannot quit smoking, which is a very strong medical addiction, can still exist without paying exorbitant costs. But there's still a deterrent for anyone to start smoking, and it changes public perception of the habit. You also have to convince a doctor to give you the script, which any good doctor will not prescribe cigarettes to a 16 year old who never smoked before.
This "sin tax" bullshit can fuck off. It doesn't actually work or help anyone, as evidenced by the tobacco industry still being obscenely lucrative. Most people I know who used to smoke, still smoke. It's not something you can stop just because it gets expensive, that's not how addiction works.
If the focus was actually on public health, there are many better options, I've only listed one possible alternative. The true goal is and always will be money. The government makes a shit load of sin tax dollars, and the tobacco industry has a captured and addicted market so they don't really care what the final price is.
SPRUNTnsfw@fedinsfw.app · 5 pts · 15d
I the mid-90's I could get a carton of Camels at the reservation for $14.25. Last time I went (around 2004) a carton was $125. I quit smoking long enough ago that I have to assume the price now is somewhere in the $300 range.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 14d
It blows my mind.
I figure I quit smoking around 1990. I am not sure what I was paying for a pack, but the number that keeps popping up in my head is 4:25USD.
I smoked Camels filtered and Marlboro Reds.
I was shocked by how much the price had jumped.
mojo_raisin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
I remember cigs being about $2.25 my first years of smoking from '93 in southern California. I used to be able to steal quarters from my brother's jar to buy a pack.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 14d
Yeah I can’t remember the exact number but it sure wasn’t 10 bucks.
Magister@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
I stopped 20 years ago... I smoked ~3 packs per week and the cost was less than 10$ (Canada), when it was more than that, I stopped. It is now 20$ for ONE pack.
minfapper@piefed.social · 1 pts · 14d
Left Australia a decade ago, so I'm curious what the price of vapes/e-cigarettes are.
I assumed all the smokers would move on to them because that's what tobacco companies are pushing these days.
_deleted_@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 14d
No idea, sorry, as I’m not in the market. I have a vague memory that vapes are now only available on prescription.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 52 pts · 14d
Honestly as much as possible I have just checked out of consumerism.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 4 pts · 14d
Nothing made me care so little about buying things than the corporations desperate want for me to buy them.
New games? Eh I'll replay mass effect or skyrim. New hardware (before the crisis), looks real nice, don't think I need it. The more they pushed me to buy the less I cared. If they all started chilling out maybe I'd get back into it, but doesn't look like it.
MonkRome@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
This, mostly what I buy are things that save me from needing to buy things. Tools, server hardware, looking for a food dehydrator for my garden, etc. I can't stand giving any money to a corp that backed fascism so I avoid them at all costs.
bobbbu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 13d
Quality tools are such a good investment. They last close to a lifetime, and save many multiples of their pricetag.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 47 pts · 13d
Hard drives. I have a movie hobby and that takes a lot of storage and well, storage now is 3-5 times more expensive than not two years ago and I can't afford it anymore.
But on the flip side, people can now finally nudify my daughter, so that is totally worth it!
Fuck everything about AI.
akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone · 46 pts · 15d
RAM and storage for computers.
jtrek@startrek.website · 40 pts · 15d
Not only has shit gotten expensive, I got laid off from a good paying job and could only land a middling salary. I used to buy more varied food. I'd order delivery when I had guests over. I'd buy seltzer.
No more. Fuck em. If they don't want to pay me I'll keep my spend to a minimum.
SGGeorwell@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Yes! I view saving money as a fuck-em strategy for self preservation.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 40 pts · 14d
E V E R Y T H I N G
Furbag@pawb.social · 40 pts · 14d
Fast food is hilariously overpriced. You pay about as much for a sit down meal at a restaurant for some crappy burgers. I remember the days when they had a true dollar menu. Now they just call it a "value menu" or whatever.
Used to be able to get two double cheeseburgers for $2 at burger king. Add fries and a drink and you were sitting at about $8 after tax. That same order today will run you about $19 before taxes. I'm not even that old, this all happened within the last two decades or so - prices literally more than doubling and all the while the quality getting worse and portion size getting smaller and smaller.
It's probably better for my health that I can't stomach the idea of paying that much for greasy unhealthy food, so it's an occasional treat to let me have that nostalgic taste.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 14d
Burger King is the worst offender of Restaurantitus.
They forgot they are fast food, so now try to sell 10 dollar burgers and other ridiculous shit at sitdown prices.
McDonalds is the worst offender for just plain price gouging. Their 99 cent menu doesnt exist anymore, all the shit that WAS on the 99 cent menu is now like 4-5 bucks.
Which is what a fucking bigmac used to cost, and we'd groan about the big mac being 5 dollars.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
I got lunch for my mom and myself at Five Guys the other day. Two burgers, one order of fries, two fountain drinks, $44. I wouldn't even have minded the price if it had been, y'know, fantastic food, but it was just mid. Burgers were bland, fries were limp and greasy -- so greasy that the bottom of the bag broke open when I got it home -- and even the drinks were watery. For $44!
I tried Taco Bell yesterday for the first time in years. At least it was "only" $11 for a mexican pizza, two tacos and a large drink. Unfortunately it was utterly disgusting, everything tasted like stale wheat flour which was weird because I don't think the food actually had wheat flour in it anywhere.
Prathas@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 14d
Never eat out without a coupon!
Clutter@sh.itjust.works · 35 pts · 13d
McDonalds. It used to at least be cheap. Now it's both expensive and still tastes bad.
Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 14d
McDonald's. It used to be cheap.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 14d
they shrinkflationed it so much people stopped buying, also people started eating healthy cutting in thier profits. and they have closed franchises near me, that have been here decades.
winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 14d
Wendy's too
Strider@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
It's also cheap used.
😜
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 30 pts · 13d
Any streaming service.
It's not even about the money specifically, if that's what it actually cost or if it was going to a good place. It's the greed of constantly trying to find that line on how hard they can squeeze and at what price point people will keep taking it.
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org · 30 pts · 14d
I have a small garden for a hobby and mental health. I spent $30 on 2 bags of fucking DIRT yesterday. What am I doing? Dirt was $30!?!? I guess I can't even afford dirt anymore. 😭
Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca · 28 pts · 15d
everything but the basic food for survival.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 14d
Private islands. I started buying them and discovered I couldn't even afford the first one, so I stopped immediately.
ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
The fuel consumption of the helicopter from Valley Forge is a total bitch.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 13d
The main thing I've stopped buying is the lies.
Balldowern@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 14d
No more streaming subscriptions. No more chocolates. No more alcohol. No more decorations.
No dining out unless it's an occasion. We meal-prep regularly.
I don't drive anymore. Only public transportation or car-pooling.
Exercising more often so my body remains the same physique (less need for new clothes)
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
depends on which chocolate, i mostly buy the pure chocolate bars, like 85% and up when its on sale, i dislike milk chocolate. WF SELLs the bougie chocolate meant as "gifts"
Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 24 pts · 14d
PC upgrades.
_haha_oh_wow_@piefed.social · 23 pts · 14d
Vehicles.
Most days my ride is a bike and when I do drive it's in a manual that's almost old enough to get a driver's license itself.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 6 pts · 14d
Bruh. As far as I'm concerned, a car under 20 years old is a huge luxury.
DempstersBox@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Almost? All the best cars are old enough to have graduated college
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
I drive a roadster and people assume I'm incredibly rich. I bought the fucking thing nine years ago for $8000 -- tell me what new car today costs less than $1000 a year to own and operate.
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
I have a 2010 Wrangler, does that count as a self-driving vehicle now!?
_haha_oh_wow_@piefed.social · 2 pts · 14d
Is that the one that shows you advertisements when you stop?
calcopiritus@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 13d
It's been more than 10 years it feels like since you could just buy a raspberry pi for a little side project.
Now you better have a good use for it, since it's a good chunk of money.
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 14d
Name brand potato chips. Doritos over $5 a bag is insane. They were 2 for 5 just a few years ago.
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 9 pts · 14d
I mean, Doritos aren't even potato chips.
mojo_raisin@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
I see them at like 4 bags for about $10.
I think this is their sneaky way of raising prices. They know most people aren't going to buy 4 bags of Doritos and 5 12-packs of soda to get the lower price on the shelf, and the single unit price is crazy.
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
Buy 3, get 3 free. On 12 packs of soda. So it's a "12 pack" but really it's a 72 pack if you want the price to make sense.
mojo_raisin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Diabeetus
yoyoyopo5@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
I’ve seen them go for $7-8 a bag. They’ve lowered prices slightly this year. Completely stopped buying them a few years back.
1984@lemmy.today · 21 pts · 14d
PC upgrades of course, but also I refuse to pay for a coffee out these days. Sometimes I do it if I'm with someone but never alone. It's very expensive.
Also burgers out, I never buy them, but also because they are not very good and the price is ridiculous. Last time I checked, Burger King double whopper menu was 14 dollars in my country. Probably more expensive now.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 14d
Sit down places are over 20 where I'm at. I've seen a burger for $27. Fuck that. Ground beef is also pretty expensive but it's not even close. I use my grill and it comes out better anyway.
1984@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 14d
That's truly insane, 20 dollars.... Wtf.
I guess they rely on the truly stupid and lazy to pay those prices.
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 14d
How tf are those places still in business, are the majority of people in this area making six figures a year, or what
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
My mom for this last year had a home helper who was making around $21 an hour. She would order lunch every day through Grub Hub, usually $15-$20 just for the food and then another $10 for the delivery. She was willing to work for an hour and a half just to pay for her lunch. And she would always complain about how shitty and cold the food was. Even weirder is that she was a great cook herself, I provided whatever groceries she wanted, and she had plenty of time to cook whatever she wanted, and she still did the Grub Hub shit. I just do not get people.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
People treat eating out as an activity/entertainment, I think. I think that's how they're still in business with a $27 burger.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 13d
DNC excuses.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 15d
Red meat steak.
It's over 20 bucks a piece now. It's ridiculous.
YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 14d
Same here, the price of steak is absolutely ridiculous. I find it hard to believe they sell any at all.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 4 pts · 14d
it will keep going up.
Beef cattle are declining in numbers for years due to policy, and screwfly is here now to reduce them further.
Cheap beef is over for the foreseeable future unless government policy goes pro-beef again. Trump supposed reversed Biden's anti-cattle policies, but even if that's true you won't see an impact for years.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
I glanced at a porterhouse for sale at my local grocery a few weeks ago. $54. The fuck? I'd balk at paying that much at a steakhouse, cooked and with sides and a couple of beers.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 13d
I've not stopped but heavily worked to cut fast food out of my daily meal plan. The cost of most burgers out there I can buy buns, ingredients, and meat to cook myself to how I like it. It'll be juicier, thicker, and tastier as well.
Longmactoppedup@aussie.zone · 19 pts · 14d
Chocolate.
Also PC upgrades and streaming services.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 14d
I love aldi chocolate. Cheap, good, ethically sourced
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 14d
Dark Lindt. It got a premium, but it's a justified one. Also, dark choco is healthy.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 13d
At aldi I go for the Moser Roth chocolate
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 14d
A pet. My dog died a few years ago. I'd love to get another, maybe adopt, but I couldn't afford the healthcare now. It got pretty expensive towards the end of her life and I just couldn't do that now. I also can't afford the time that a dog deserves - I'm working more overtime and still feel like I have less money.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
My cat had an enlarged heart near the end of her life and when I took her to a chain vet they quoted me $3500 to do what they could and she still would have been in pretty bad shape. I could tell the vet didn't really want to do it and when I asked about euthanasia instead she immediately said "that's the right thing to do" and went off to get the process started without asking me again about the expensive treatment. I will always be indebted to her for this.
I used to take my cats to my sister-in-law's mother, but she had to sell her practice (to this very same chain, in fact) in order to have something for her retirement. The chain told her quite openly that they were buying her practice to shut it down and remove local competition. Corporations are such a fucking cancer.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 14d
oh yea pets are expensive, especially if it has chronic conditions, or is old. or if you rescue it with unknown health history. also certain breeds tend to be unhealthy= more expensive medical cares.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
yep.
Even with the vet donating supplies and instructing me on how to do a lot of the work, the last month of my old pets life still ran up a 10k bill, which I am still struggling to pay down years later.
I don't think I'll ever have a pet again, the financials just dont work out.
Strider@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 14d
Raspberry pi, Gpus, new components
And I was one of the crazy ones and still could dispose money on this. I just choose not to pay ridiculous amounts. Let's see where that gets em when the bubble is over.
(I know... Wishful thinking)
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 14d
Im on fixed income at the moment so: Meat, eggs, and unfortunately most fresh produce at this point. I’m doing what I can to grow my own, but there’s a huge project in need of doing before I can really hit the ground on it. I have a small flock of chickens for eggs, and sometimes raise quail for meat (I’m too poor to be vegan/vegetarian; the birds turn waste into eggs and muscle, I give them as good a life as I can, and slaughter humanely with neutral gas when the time comes), but mostly I just eat shelf-stable stuff that I can buy bulk and cheap.
And since food is a struggle, I also don't really buy anything else anymore. Too expensive to justify.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 5 pts · 14d
Special secret: grocery store dumpsters are often full of perfectly good fresh produce -- and I mean full. And in most states, it's perfectly legal to take some. Learn the ways of the dumpster, and you'll eat like a king.
Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 14d
Except for the fact that it can be dangerously unsanitary. At my store we sometimes throw produce into the same bag that our bathroom trash gets emptied into. There are toilet paper rolls that were used to clean syringes in there and everything.
Not to mention sometimes the syringes themselves...
If you have to eat that way I get it, but that should be last resort.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 3 pts · 14d
You need to learn the ways of the dumpster:
A) Find the good dumpsters. Some grocery stores have 'compost only' dumpsters, and those are an absolute gold mine. Those ones will be full of food and only food.
B) Of course you need to wash everything thoroughly before eating it. And don't take (unwrapped, unsealed) things that can't be washed.
C) Follow your nose. Billions of years of evolution have actually equipped you pretty well when it comes to determining which food is and isn't safe to eat. If it looks good and smells good, it probably is good. Add a bit of common sense and looking out for signs of a few of the more dangerous things -- like botulism -- and you're pretty well safe. Also pay attention to recent recalls -- if the store is throwing away lots of the same thing, and none of it is expired yet, check for recalls on that product before eating it. (And look at why it was recalled. Recalled stuff is sometimes still perfectly safe to eat. Lots of recalls happen for reasons such as the product being mislabeled and not mentioning an allergen that might be present. In that case, as long as you're not allergic to that particular thing, you're good.)
I've never once gotten sick from eating dumpster food. IMO, unless you have some specific health condition that puts you at higher risk, you're very unlikely to have problems.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
i used to go to store and university bathrooms to get rolls of toilet paper for myself.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 14d
our hides it behind a special yard, and they do mostly donate it to banks.
LemUser@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 14d
Practically everything. My phone, garbage, insurance, food, gas, electric, internet, cable . . . everything went up seemingly at the same time. There are a lot of products and businesses I just outright boycott based upon GOP reasons. I pretty much eliminate grocery stores in the summer and buy from local farms. I partition my trash into small bags and deposit them in trash cans and eliminated my garbage pick up. I compost all scraps. Started a vegetable garden. Grow my own cannabis. Switched to USMobile for $10 a month unlimited. Torrent everything. Cut cable. I used to eat out about three times a week and that is now zero. Overall, I am eating better and even lost about 15 pounds. I discovered bin stores. I find myself buying more stuff that I don't need but want. I found a $500 Garmin watch on dollar day. The only wrong with it was it was missing the band so I found one that fit and got that for a buck. On $3 day last week I found a pair of ar6 walkie talkies sealed. On $12 day I found a 32" TV and leaf blower, both sealed. I can't see myself ever paying full price again, shopping in a store or even online.
Probably_Jayson@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 13d
Subscriptions 🏴☠️
LordCrom@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 13d
Concerts.
In the 90s youd go to the record store that had a ticket kiosk. Tickets were 10 to 20 dollars, youd get a printed ticket.
Now it just sucks. Venues add fees, ticketmaster fees double the price, printing fees, sometimes you cant even get the digital ticket until the day of and hope nithing goes wrong.
It all just sucks now.
I go down to my local dive bar and watch some local guys play rock and blues....for tips.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 14d
Rice Cakes (the circular ones)
They're regularly $3.49 Canadian now... that's absurd. It has one ingredient, rice. Rice isn't that expensive, and it doesn't even use very much of it.
They're not even difficult to produce, the machine to make them is only a few thousand dollars and I'm seriously considering buying one from South Korea at this point.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 14d
There are a couple different round rice cakes, but you can actually make a really good quick rice cake in the microwave relatively easily.
Long cylinder
Or
Mochi style
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 14d
Wrong type of rice cake. Im taking about the puffed kind.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
Ahh, yeah those need a machine. I'm sure you could get one, but I don't know if your neighbors would appreciate it. The ones I've seen the vendors use are pretty loud.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 14d
Luckily my neighbors aren't close. They do seem to be noisy, the motors to pull a vacuum then explosively re-pressurizing isn't quiet.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 16 pts · 14d
Unless I go to WinCo, chips.
I ain't paying $7-8 for a bag of Doritos. WinCo is the only store around here where they are only ~$3 still and regularly on sale for about $2.50.
Tiral@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
I noticed that like a month ago, that whole brand is absolutely insane. I wish people had the willpower to stop buying crap like this.
bobbbu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 16 pts · 14d
This has been a blessing in disguise in some ways. I now make most of our food from scratch. Canned foods, bread, no more soda and instead I make Kefir (which is healthy, too). I bought tools and do the gardening. Same with home repairs. Dumped streaming and will buy second hand DVDs/blurays. It takes a lot of my time, but it's also so fun, gives this feel good vibe. Ended up in way better shape, less pollution, cleaner food, reconnected with nature. Gaming/movie nights/etc took a big hit, but then again, time well spent with the family.
notsosure@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 15d
Quinoa
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 15d
The ironic part is the people who ate it for millenia got priced out first because it was a fad diet...
Like, before we'd even really hard of it, they were already priced out
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
Other countries (like the Netherlands) are starting to grow it now because climate change means it's much harder to grow things like potatoes.
umbraroze@slrpnk.net · 14 pts · 14d
I buy maybe one or two "full price" video games per year. And even then those are probably not exactly "AAA". Buying tons of indie stuff though!
Got rid of most of the streaming services and I'm seriously considering dropping the few that remain. (I'd need to, ugh, call the support to cancel.) The free streaming service from the national public broadcaster is pretty amazing and I have a wall of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 13d
The Chinese buffet. 8.95 for lunch 12.95 dinner. Now 20 bucks at minimum.
Korean karaoke. 20 bucks an hour now 50 an hour or whatever they make up at the time.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz · 14 pts · 13d
Canned beans. I love some bean medley but at $3 a can.... guess I can't even have beans.
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 13 pts · 15d
MicroSD cards
Magister@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 14d
haven't thought of that, I know RAM is more expensive, let's check microSD, I bought last year a SanDisk 128GB MAX Endurance for my dashcam, check invoice... $29. It is now $59 so yeah it doubled! wow!
pulverizedcoccyx@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 14d
I jaw dropped the other night. The smallest (decent brand) card I can get is Sandisk 16gb MicroSD for $25CAD. They were $10 a year ago!
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 13d
I used to be almost addicted to beef jerky, especially the smaller store types where it's made semi-local...until it got to be 29.99 per pound. I love the stuff but will never like it THAT much
TimboSlice@discuss.online · 13 pts · 14d
Gaming subscriptions
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 14d
RS being one of them. eventhough i only paid it once, cant justfiy getting in game bonds even.
YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 14d
Cigarettes. Of course, there were other more pressing reasons to quit, but saving nearly £20 a packet helped.
Agent641@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 14d
I buy a lot less meat, and I consume much less too. I eat a lot more grains, pulses and vegetables instead.
I still get some meat from the supermarket, but I also try to buy direct from the farm or get free meat in exchange for services, like some sort of neopeasant.
When I use meat, I bulk it out by other means, like lentils or barley, and flavor-up with various techniques.
I don't eat pork or beef unless it's provided to me by the person that owned the animal. I still eat a lot of lamb and chicken though.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14d
Yeah pearl barley can't be beaten in a stew or even a curry. And I've started eating beyond burgers instead of meaty ones - I'm not a veggie, I enjoy meat. But I'm not comfortable with the ethical issues, and it's full of saturated fats. They cost about the same, are less unhealthy, and they're tasty. A soon as the alternatives industry can come up with more products like this that I can afford, I'm out.
nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 14d
hell yeah, super based take.
rimu@piefed.social · 12 pts · 14d
Milk, cheese and butter.
My country produces 10x more dairy products than we need. But they're sold to the highest bidder globally and that ain't me.
skeezix@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Bob is not your uncle.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
i notice string cheese has gone up everywhere, and discount isnt as good as used to be.
Soulinyx@piefed.world · 12 pts · 15d
remon@ani.social · 14 pts · 15d
It shouldn't? That sounds quite reasonable ... cheap even.
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 15d
Yeah, $4 a pair for something you wear for hours a day seems pretty reasonable
bedwyr@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 14d
Why do we even have forced laborers making out clothes in oppressive regimes like Bangladesh if we are going to pay 4 bucks a piece?
palordrolap@fedia.io · 0 pts · 14d
Because they'd be ten times the price if they were produced in a country that treats its workers better.
bedwyr@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 14d
No, once they run out the manufacturers in the developed world, they raise prices. Jesus Christ.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 2 pts · 14d
right? i pay like 10 bucks a piece and it's not fancy stuff.
though it lasts like 3-4 years a pair. i only buy like maybe 2-3 pieces of underwear a year.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
i think the newer underwears are cheaply made, compared to how they were made decade ago.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 14d
You’re finding them for $21? I can’t find all cotton boxers for less than $10/pair
YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 14d
No way I’m wrapping my jingly janglies in something I bought from the dollar store.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
So, commando, then?
Cherry@piefed.social · 2 pts · 14d
The recent episode of GB sewing bee had contestants making knickers out of jersey t-shirts they got 3 pairs per t-shirt. Plus some elastic and time of course. But you do also need a sewing machine however its a good machine for life.
palordrolap@fedia.io · 12 pts · 14d
Fish & chips. There were other reasons when I could afford it, but now I'm on government support, it's just not a sound financial decision, even as a treat.
I haven't been to my local chippy in a good long while, but the last time I was there the price was around £10, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it at £15 now. I can eat for the better part of a week for that sort of money.
(The other reasons being that I was putting on a lot of weight, and I always seemed to end up scratching the heck out of my throat on them. And no, I wasn't swallowing them like a gannet.)
BeerStainedBunny@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 14d
Most snacks. I only get them on sale because the servings get smaller and smaller
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
noticed that too. like a bag of the brand name pretzals(the flat ones), i could buy a larger size out a discount size, saving money
CumbrianCucumber@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 14d
I refuse to pump my car tyres from petrol stations anymore because all the ones in my local area have started charging exorbitant prices. It always used to be free with petrol, then a few years ago it became 20p, but now it's randomly shot up to £1.50. WHY??
You can buy devices that pump your car tyres up for you too. They tend not to last very long, so they're not exactly "one time" purchases, but they're far more cost effective than doing it at stations nowadays.!
paultimate14@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 13d
I never liked going out to eat or drink, but its gotten insane lately. Seems like everywhere is $15 or more for a simple cocktail, $10 or more for a Miller Lite. Insulting when the staff might only be making $2.13 per hour, and I need to tip and add tax so that gets close to $20 for a drink I could have ppuree myself at home for probably $1. Bars and restaurants have also started to use Kore and more tactics to make themselves less pleasant to hang out in, enoucoraging faster consumption and quicker turn times to try to get more customers. Louder music, less comfortabke chairs, etc.
I used to build a gaming PC for both myself and my wife roughly every 6 or 7 years. I never needed anything top-of-the-line: I am perfectly satisfied with 1080p 60fps and playing older games. I liked to maximize value. I built myself a PC in 2019 and my wife one in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to hit. At this point I am starting to wonder whether those will be the last PC's I will afford in my lifetime.
I expect Streaming Services will be a common answer here. I started messing around with Jellyfin a few years ago, and my wife and I had slowly been buying DVD's and Blu-Rays, occasionally supplemented by the high seas. This year we finally canceled our HBO and Netflix subscriptions. We also decided to try to cancel Spotify, so I went ahead and ripped all our CD's, gathered our pirated collection (organized separately to make it easier to potentially decide to buy that music later), and started buying more music from artists directly. I'm good enough to cancel today, but my wife has become accustomed to the near-infinite supply of variety that Spotify has so... Yeah
XeroxCool@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 14d
Oil change services for my vehicles. Despite doing tons of my own repairs, I hate dealing with the oil. It always gets on the outside of the container and my recycling locations are always full. The service (including oil) used to be about 50% more than the oil I could buy to do myself. It was worth it to me to spend an extra dinner's worth of money ~4 times a year. But now a service costs at least twice as much as the oil alone, even at independent shops. Plus, I now get oil in slight bulk, so the service is 3x what I pay in oil. I treated myself to a nice catch pan and dedicated funnels as a compromise, still costing less than a service on my first DIY in a decade.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
I'm planning on doing this myself now.
My last oil change was $116 with a $15 off coupon.
I can buy the oil from Costco for like $30. A good quality oil filter is 20 bucks.
Even if it takes me a full hour to do, which it will not, I'm getting paid $70 for that hour.
innermachine@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Not to mention a lot of shops run 55 gallon drums of INCREDIBLY cheap oil. You can spend less and be runing very high quality oil for ur car to help it last as long as possible 🙏 this guess for ur brakes and shit too most shops source the cheapest crap from local parts stores that they can, if you shoot around you can buy quality parts without breaking the bank and not have to repeat as many repairs or replace ur brakes because their rotted not worn etc.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Honestly, it's stupid easy. The worst part for me is shimmying on the ground to get under the car, but I have spondyloarthritis so maybe most folks aren't even bothered by that. It has always been eyebrow-raisingly more cost effective to diy an oil change.
Brake pads are harder but not really all that difficult. Huge cost savings if you diy there too.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
I guess I'm lucky that every auto parts store near me takes used oil for free. I drain my old oil into the "pan," set it aside and do the oil change, and then i pour the pan of used oil into the now-empty jug that had my fresh oil. I take a sharpie and write OLD on the jug. I set that aside in the shed. Then when it's time for my next oil change, I grab that jug of old oil out of the shed and take it to the auto parts store where I dump it and then buy fresh oil and a filter -- one-stop shopping. Easy peasy.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9d
My local stores are always full and can't take more. Still doesn't change how much oil always gets on the outside of the containers
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 14d
I've only stopped buying specific brands completely, otherwise, I'd characterize my situation as cutting back on things where the price got ridiculous.
Coffee is / was the big one. I used to stock the cheap, store brand stuff for when I needed a morning lift. That was pre-tariff $9. I'd also stock the good stuff, the brand and variety that I really like a lot, usually around $12 a bag. Tariffs kicked in, the "cheap" stuff went to $20 per lb immediately. The good stuff went to $22 (but only like 12 oz or something). So, no more name brand, and I cut way back on coffee consumption. Fucked up part, tariffs are done and the prices dropped, but nowhere near the old price. The cheap stuff is still $14, so $5 more than 1.5 years ago.
My preferred soap, shampoo, and personal care products are largely the same story. I stopped buying the products I like, switched to store brand stuff that doesn't smell good and doesn't work as good / dries my skin & hair. But I'm not paying what the name brands want for their shit.
I used to keep a lot of candy and snacks on hand for guests, as we always have someone stopping by, including adult children and relatives. The candy stockpile was super popular. But the prices on that stuff has sky rocketed, and they fill the variety bags with a bunch of unpopular (to us) shit that just sits in the candy basket and goes bad. I haven't bought any of that stuff, sans once or twice for myself in over a year.
I don't buy canned tuna at all. Technically, I cut back on that b/c of mercury concerns years ago, but every once in awhile I'd still have a can. It's gone down to 5 oz from 6 oz. The cans have changed in size so that my strainer doesn't fit anymore. The prices have gone way up. Canned fish in general I've almost completely stopped buying.
I'm trying to hold off on buying new shoes. I desperately need a new pair because the old ones I use for daily outdoor activities are falling apart and stink to high heavens. But I looked at prices recently and said oh hell no. Unfortunately I wear an odd size so even looking around from time to time at the second hand shops hasn't been successful, and even so I feel weird about second hand shoes.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Odd, tinned fish is still pretty cheap here in the UK. I guess that's tariffs again? Though I thought the US did a lot of its own fishing? Mind you, when I say 'pretty cheap' it very much depends on the type of fish, the quality, and the sustainability of the fishery.
Second hand shoes are fine, just put them through the washing machine and you'll feel much better about them!
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Canned goods in general went up, price of aluminum.
I get my tuna at Costco, they use the big cans and you can get good deals, especially if they put them on sale. When they go on sale I get two or three eight-packs at a clip. Not like they go bad.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Holy hell, where are you buying coffee? I still get most of my coffee at TJ Maxx / Marshalls where they often have 12 oz. bags (on clearance) for $5 or so. Even LiDL coffee is only $6.50 for a 12 oz. bag.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
i think coffee has always been pricey, especially if look at brand name ones. its also coupled by the fact that coffee farms, are suffering from climate change too.
rmrf@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 13d
I only get wings from one bar on a deal night where they're 50c each
I haven't really bought new computer parts in forever, I just trade/sell what I have.
Soda, even from wholesellers it's too much money
Lots of video games. I wait a few years usually.
Honestly I live a simple life in general, what upsets me is housing because nobody can escape that
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 14d
Mostly alcohol, I make it instead. The tax on alcohol is insane.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 14d
Coca Cola
Yakuza_Wolf_ReRise@thelemmy.club · 9 pts · 14d
Games on PSN, tho that's less for price & more out of protest against Sony
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 14d
Movie Theatre Popped Corn.
Snapz@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14d
Buying. We've stopped buying.
remon@ani.social · 8 pts · 15d
Haven't reached that point, yet. Would love to have stopped buying new HDDs the other day, but I needed more storage and they won't be getting cheaper ...
Boingboing_r@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14d
Netflix (though that was cause of password sharing), PS plus. I upgraded my pc so its better than a PS5 now. Just need to rebuy the Fromsoft catalogue and I be peachy. And emulate Bloodborne. Spotify. Cause its shit now. AI music was what made me quit. Then I went to Tidal. And my god the sound difference.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
I’m paying for HIDIVE, but now that I comment I’m sure someone will point out some horrible genocide AMC is responsible for…
rumba@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 13d
Kids wanted 5 guys, wife + 2 kids.
2 hot dogs, 1 burger and 3 orders of fries and drinks, (i skipped a fucking burger because I saw the price) $70
Never even considered going back.
Though Mytical kitchen just did a price check per ingredients and while they're expensive AF, they're not screwing you as bad as mcdonalds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOmh9F4xcs
edit: fixed a typo, but i'm going to leave the monstrosity of a line one for everyone's enjoyment
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 13d
Fresh pineapple. The local supermarket has a machine that turns a fresh pineapple in slices or pieces. They started over a year ago with €3.99. Then, some months ago, it went up to €4.99. Then it was "Special Offer: €4.99". And now the special offer is history, and the pineapple costs €5.99.
Back then, I bought one every weekend. Since it is €5.99, I have given up on them, and, by the looks of it, quite a number of other customers, too.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 7 pts · 15d
fast food. lottery tickets. everything that is not a necessity really.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 7 pts · 14d
Hard drives
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 14d
This sucks... I wanted to upgrade my NAS but I guess I'm SOL.
BillCheddar@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
Sex.
Did they get a fucking union or something? It's cheaper to get married and divorced.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 14d
Married? That religious thing, where you can't have sex before...? Ah, gotcha.
architect@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 13d
It was not started by religions. Marriage is closer to a business contract than a religious tradition.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 13d
Sure, yes. But they're the ones who still hold it, in western parts.
DudeWhoYapsTooMuch@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 13d
Laptops or anything gaming after the jump 3k. Nope I’m out!
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 13d
Way too many things to go in to here. Starting with foods lets start with beef steak. I can buy a weeks worth of food for the price of a few decent steaks.
Canopyflyer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 14d
Used to buy the 12 box from a local chocolatier that is absolutely fantastic. The owner was trained in France and Belgium and her creations are as good or better than anything I've eaten.
Six years ago, the price for a 12 piece box was $24. Today it is $36. I used to keep a box around almost constantly. Now it is only for holidays and birthdays.
Personal Computers: As an IT professional, I've always been a miser when it comes to computer hardware. I usually buy something 2 or so generations old and refurbish it myself, then use it for several years till it suffers a catastrophic failure. I'm not a serious gamer, so I don't care if it can run the latest games at trillions of frames per microsecond. Now, even 4 generations back the machines are abhorrently expensive. Costing as much as they did when new, which is ridiculous. The manufacturing burn through due to AI is idiotic. When the investment into AI finally crashes, which I'm shocked hasn't happened yet, these manufacturers are going to be scrambling to get back into the consumer market.
Ashiette@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
As much as I love them, I think PCs are starting to become a thing of the past... Cloud is what people look for, even in gaming.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
That might work when everyone has fast internet. There's a significant amount of infrastructure needs improving before that happens though.
Ashiette@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
My riend has a 15MBps internet and while it might not be enough for competitive games it's perfect for BG3 and for him to play casual games.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
That's interesting - your friend is running the game on the cloud, not locally, and streaming to their device? Like google stadia used to do? I would have thought that would take much more bandwidth.
Ashiette@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
Yes exactly. He uses Nvidia's services. I would have thoguht it would take more bandwidth But it works okay so it's nice. I don't think it would work on competitive games but if you're just there to have fun I think it's quite okay
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
Huh, good to know, thanks. I guess it's more feasible than I'd thought!
AskewLord@piefed.social · 6 pts · 15d
nothing.
i have cut back on eating out by 50% , and starting buy less/cheaper cuts of meat. so i'm spending the same pretty much.
other than food i have not really seen much inflation in my expenses.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14d
eating out has always been expensive. i know someone that couldnt stop though.
Rawrosaurus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 14d
Just about everything really. I often even let whatever is on sale at the grocery store dictate my diet these days, up to a certain point at least. I can't think of a single thing I really buy anymore that isn't a base necessity to function in the modern world. I'd drop having a phone if I could without ostracising myself.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
Doritos.
My steak consumption is half what it used to be. Pork is the new steak.
Computer parts.
chocolate bars.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com · 5 pts · 14d
Whiskey, even the average stuff costs way too much now.
AskewLord@piefed.social · 4 pts · 14d
alcohol prices are coming down because nobody is drinking anymore. i've seen scotch going back down to like 50 a bottle when it used to be 80. and some whiskeys have come down back to 30 a bottle.
i bought a bottle of High West Rye two months ago for 35 bucks, that would have been like 80 a few years ago. i stopped drinking that stuff because it go so expensive, but now it's like cheaper than beer.
beer prices, on the other hand, are now like 20 bucks for a four pack, and even shitty light lagers are like 16. insane. the past year i have switched to only buying cheaper 4 packs or 6 packs that are 10 bucks or so, but the selection at that pricepoint is severely limited.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 14d
thats why(alcohol lobby, who also is behind mitch when he introduced that legislation a while back) they are passing legislation to try and ban weed, and glp-1
kalpol@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 14d
Beef. 7dollars a lb for ground beef is silly. God help you if you want a nice steak or a brisket.
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 14d
Yes. Dont buy any crisps anymore. Now only self made. Milka chocolate the same. Anything tech unless something important broke. Anything Kinder So yeah sweets and snacks and stuff like that probably other things too but it doesnt come to mind rn
Edit: oh yeah. Eating out. So many restaurants have high prices and food really is shit. Ordering the same. But i still have to get into the rythm of then not being lazy and just cook something simple instead of ordering even when im very low on energie myself which luckily is once in a blue moon
OpenPassageways@programming.dev · 4 pts · 13d
Steaks
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
I dropped the only frivolities I used to get during the pandemic, and never picked them up again, which were only eating out once a week, and movies occasionally. I also dropped red meat, and processed foods for health reasons around the same time.
I don't feel like I'm suffering because I never really engaged with the consumerist culture to begin with.
Jayve@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
Vowels
Katana314@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Razor blades. Much better to go with a single-razor housing, even if occasionally the multi-razor shaves feel like a smoother result.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 12d
needs v wants and I live a simpler life.
DerEnder@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 14d
A lot. And it's not limited to money. Netflix: The best series are getting stopped produced or go into the shitter. And then they rised the price for non-ad versions. Reddit: Deleted my account when they stopped giving API away (RIF my beloved). And now I can't even read threads without an account. (Also: yay, finally made it here!) Facebook: Deleted my account years ago already and not looking bad. Bad and confusing algorithms, spreading of misinformation and conspiracies, fake globetrotter, stealing and selling personal informations to advertisers and whatnot... I don't need that in my life. Twitter/X: It already got slightly bad, but Musks takeover was like 5 of the 10 nails in the coffin. And seeing how quickly it went down... Good riddance. YouTube Premium: I thought I'd give something back to content creators for all the years of entertainment. But Googles fight against smaller creators, Ad-Blocker and apparently it's own user base made my back down, cancel my subscription and use Firefox instead. It's bad that the only choice is an Android or Apple Phone, the choice between a rock and a hard place. Microsoft: okay, I didn't fully transition. I took my gaming notebook and installed Linux CachyOS on it to try things out. It works great, and It feels better that using windows. But I guess for my PC, I'll do a dual boot or something first.
Ashiette@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
About the microsoft thing : you're absolutely right. Dual boot all you want, don't go too fast and take your time. If you switch in five years so be it, if it's sooner all the better. Don't be afraid to distrohop to find what's best for you. Oftentimes you start with a distro and end up with something else.
I started with Ubuntu in ~2006, never got to get my modem working with eagle-usb and had to abandon ship. Went back in 2009 with Fecora then OpenSuSE : was quite thrilled because it was way better than Win7 lite on an eeePC equivalent. Then switched PCs and against all odds really liked Windows 8.
I never quite got around Win 10 when it came out and slowly started looking at Linux again. Went through Zorin (best for starters!) then Mint, Debian, Ubuntu again, Fedora again, Pop!_OS, then quite find an interest in Manjaro but shit broke too often for me so I said "fuck it, it relies on Arch so how hard could it be?" (Spoilers : really hard when you try working with btrfs and LUKS and you're quite a novice).
Finally I tried NixOS and thought that anyone who got time for that shit ain't got life outside of that so went back to Arch.
Anyways I use arch btw and thanks for listening to my TED talk.
ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 14d
LEGO. I’m going with other brands now, like Bluebrixx. They are like a third of the price.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 14d
Most things except booze. I might have a coping problem.
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 14d
Not so much stopped buying but never bought, but these bags in Japan that kids take to school.
They're stupidly heavy and way over priced. In my kids' school, using one is optional, so we just went with a regular back pack from Muji. Such a stupid culture imo.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13d
Beef. and pork.
The only meat I can afford at the moment is chicken, and even then thats mostly in processed form like chicken nuggets or chicken patties.
Routhinator@startrek.website · 2 pts · 13d
Beef, Pork, Bacon, anything in a box.
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Retro gaming handhelds. I bought the Ayn Thor Pro off Swappa for close to $630, only because it came with the UEFS 4.0 processor prior to the current 3.1 downgrade. With that, my Steam Deck, and my Switch 2, I think I'm good in terms of gaming.
Also, any console or PC that's priced over three digits. I just got an ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 motherboard from a friend with 16 GB ram that I plan on turning into a Steam Machine of my own.
fodor@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 14d
🦃
FunStuffIsFun@eviltoast.org · 1 pts · 13d
Mostly dining out.
Ashiette@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 14d
RAM sticks. This may sound cheesy but I have always upgraded my PC RAM. I Bought a laptop in jan. 2025 and told myself "okay I could buy these 64 GB RAM but I could also buy X instead, so I'll buy X then in a few months I'm gonna buy some RAM to do Gen AI, it's not like I'm in a hurry". Well, I guess this was a mistake because I can only run a limited set of models on 32 GB RAM and prices have... well... you know.
FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 14d
I'm going to get some hate for this, but: nothing
I live in a civilised country, where the cost of things isn't crazy relative to income with the notable exception of housing
I'm lucky enough to own my own home, and I did horrible hours of damned hard work to get where I am
I buy seasonal food where I can (because of environmental reasons rather than just the price), I don't buy junk food or takeaways apart from very rare occasions
I don't smoke and I buy beer from local brewers and enjoy a wine club that is within my means
If I want something, I buy it, but I'm not frivolous with money
My TV is too old to connect to the internet, I don't have fancy clothes, the last console I bought was a PS2, I have no Netflix or any such subscriptions
I see people struggling, but I also see a lot of money spent on what I consider to be bullshit
And while I'm older, I'm not a boomer before anyone suggests otherwise
Sibbo@sopuli.xyz · -3 pts · 15d
You mean you just steal everything now?
(Originally the question was missing the first word, that's where this comment is coming from)
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 2 pts · 14d
Legit, yes.
Went to the local hardware store yesterday to pick up some necessary nuts and bolts for building a bicycle trailer (itself being built so I don't have to spend money on gas as much). And fully half of those nuts and bolts went into my pockets instead of the little bag they give you to go through the checkout. The more expensive half, of course.
Until the Epstein class is behind bars -- or better yet, 6ft underground -- I will continue to do everything possible to keep my money out of their pockets, which includes stealing things when feasible.