We are eating out about the same amount. We do local places that aren’t super expensive though I’ve noticed prices have gone up and serving size has gone down. We order takeout a few times a month from a local natural food cafe. With the salad they gave an option of picking one, two or three containers of salad dressing. My husband likes a mix of their tahini and Italian dressings. The salad now comes with just one container and the 2nd was 50 cents.
We work in property management and expenses have gone up and in Ca we still have Covid protection for tenants in some areas. Vacancies have been filling up but rents haven’t gone back to pre pandemic from what we have seen.
I live in a small city so don’t drive a lot of miles. Husband has an electric car so no gas buying for him. One of my kids has a long commute and she is feeling the increased cost of gas. Last week she spent $140 on gas and she has a dent fuel efficient car. She has horses and the price of hay continues to rise. The drought isn’t helping and increased transportation costs. She fears by late summer there will be a shortage.
At the end of the day I feel it but I remind myself that I’m incredibly lucky to not be living in Ukraine. We have so much.
We survived a few recessions already, especially after the dot com bust, we were both unemployed, we even had to pay for health insurance, our quality of like was not decrease then, so I have experience in dealing with no money. Some of the habits we still keep to save money, like do all the errands on one trip.
We don’t eat out because of the salt content at these places, every time I eat out I gain weight. Plus the food quality is down. Honestly my expenses went down and my income went up since I retired,but that doesn’t mean I like to throw money away either, because you”ll never know about things in life. I try to be conservative or efficient at the way I use money.
Yes and more than ever given the combination of factors. I wish I had long term bonds with fixed interest at a good rate.
Yes, the reason we don’t do it.
Not sure about the largets bubble, but certainly one of the worst run economies in many decades and heading down fast over the last year. I’d love to see a swing toward US production and nationally produced energy ( including gas and oil). I’d love to see fiscal responsibility toward spending. I think there are many who don’t want to increase the deficit but they don’t seem to be very vocal.
Agree. When all is said and done, we’ll have a huge investment in our kids education. They know it’s valuable and they know that’s our primary focus.
We have three farm stands and a cow farm near us so we can always buy things fresh or in bulk. In Summer these places push up prices for the tourists on Fridays right before the weekend. But it’s also offset by lot of stock so price are lower than the supermarket. We don’t have Amazon fresh ( too rural).
Getting tired of spending $80 to fill the gas tank. We are seriously looking at a hybrid for our next car.
If I fill-up at half-full, it’s only $40. Sure I’m spending the same amount of money, but I feel a little less depressed.
Haven’t filled up at Costco in a long time, but I remember ours used to have a $100 limit on gas purchase, so basically no more than 50 gallons at $2/gallon.
Just looked it up. Closest Costco near me, $4.55/gallon. Wow, if it was anywhere close to $2.00 there’d be a line down the highway.
It’s nearly $6 here at Costco, a hair away. We wish it’s $4.55
The key word here is “used to” 
I’m talking about prehistoric times. I had no idea there was a $$ limit until a guy next to us stated yelling profanities when he couldn’t fill up his giant rig and a few large containers.
I wonder if the limit is still there and if it is still $100.
Our grocery store has fuel points- up to $1 off a gallon, limit of 30 gallons. We took both cars over. DH didn’t put in the zip code for the credit card, so it stopped at $125. Two gallons shy of the 30 gallons 
There would be a line down the highway for $4.55 a gallon where I live. It’s sad!
Seems like East coast is cheaper than West Coast. We have friends in Houston, wonder what it is there. Usually a lot cheaper.
I know I give thanks for the privilege I have to weather these increases. Even though it’s unpleasant, I really don’t have to make that many crucial choices and my life hasn’t changed that much.
They are more annoyances than real pressure.
It is affecting us in a very negative way!!
We have saved a lot because we cancelled travel throughout the pandemic, that we have extra spending money. I don’t think we are alone. D1 works at a major tourist destination. Her hotel is booked full every night. This hotel is not cheap. So far they have not seen a drop off of visitors and they don’t expect to for a while.
I too am very thankful we are in a good place. WFH saves so much- I think it’s kind of a shame so many companies are choosing now to make people go back to the office when gas is so pricey.
I am lucky in that my job is recession proof, and I don’t need to drive. Groceries are definitely a challenge to keeping within a budget, but it’s only me and I can adjust to deal with weekly sales.
The difference in gas prices can be due to state taxes. Very low in Missouri, very high in California.
The perfect storm of that happening just when some petroleum supply left the market (Russia).
You can’t just take the current price point of raw material to infer and or extrapolate current retail commodity prices. The current cost of the raw material is a lagging indicator. Crude has been trading well above $105 for some time with futures markets anticipating continued upward pressure. Gasoline being sold today was refined from crude sold weeks ago at higher prices. See chart…
In addition all of the component prices of refining and delivery have gone up significantly such as labor and the cost of transportation to the pump. In order to maintain the profit margin you reference these incremental costs are transferred to the consumer.
I am not suggesting some opportunism isn’t at play but it isn’t just a simple back of the envelope exercise to determine the extent of it.
Well, we had a win today. On the retirement thread, I’ve mentioned that dh took a part-time retirement job at a beloved grocery chain. We are planning a trip in August to see the kids, and he remembered that his employer offers a rental car discount. I figured it would be akin to AAA or AARP, but wow! We are getting a week for less than $300, including fees, when our other searches were quoting more than $700.