Examples of current inflation - add yours!

[Walt34]

Part of the McDonald's pricing strategy is to drive people to use the app.
<snip>

There's all that you mentioned, but I also think a large part of it is that the customer does the time-consuming tasks of placing the order "Um, I'll have... no, lemme make it... aw, just a burger. But no ketchup" and payment "Now, I know I have that nickel in my purse somewhere..."

And of course they've automated the food prep as much as it is possible to do now.

I do have the McD's app on my phone, but only because there's one near the R/C site where I fly model airplanes. I actually only use it maybe once a month or so. More in the summer of course.

 

[AudiDudi]

Dr. Bronner's pure Castile soap (bar) - was $3.98 last time we bought maybe 8 months ago - now $4.98. Used to see it on sale for $2.98 occasionally.

 

[Chuckanut]

I remember that book. And the cheesy (no pun intended) video our management showed all employees, trying to get us to accept "changes" like layoffs and benefit cuts.

I actually sat down and wrote my own "who moved my cheese" story. Mine was about a family-owned cheese producer getting bought out by some faceless corporation. The Cliff Notes version: The long-term employees showed up in the morning to find all the high-quality cheese they'd been making moved out, replaced by a machine which could make Cheeze-Whiz.

Yeah. I like to call BS on corporate double-speak.

For the record, that is not what the book is about. But, I see how that company tried to manipulate people using its ideas.

 

[jollystomper]

Ahh, the good ole days, when you could get a meal and still get change back from your dollar. It's like a different world out there today, especially since the pandemic.

Reminds me when that (" buy a meal you can get change back from your dollar") was an ad campaign of theirs back in the late 60s/early 70s.

Soon it might be "buy a meal, you can get change back for your firstborn" .

 

[Al18]

Aja888,
The problem with your breakfast is you picked the wrong restaurant. There is a Cracker Barrel in Conroe, TX where you could have ordered a 10 oz NY Strip Steak, two eggs, hash brown casserole and two biscuits for $18.49!

 

[Closet_Gamer]

At a Connecticut McD's:

View attachment 51211

I saw these exact prices at the I-95 rest stop McDs in CT today. Insane. I went to the Sbarro next to it and got a big slice of pizza and 16 oz Diet Pepsi for about $9.

Then I went into the rest stop convenience shop and paid $6 for a giant bag of Doritos to eat while I drove. LOL.

 

[aja8888]

Aja888,
The problem with your breakfast is you picked the wrong restaurant. There is a Cracker Barrel in Conroe, TX where you could have ordered a 10 oz NY Strip Steak, two eggs, hash brown casserole and two biscuits for $18.49!

I know, but my friend picked the place, and it was his turn to buy. Next week, Denny's will be my pick!

Oh, and myself and friends eat lunch at that Cracker Barrel after golf at Panorama. The special lunches there are $7.99!

 

[Gumby]

I saw these exact prices at the I-95 rest stop McDs in CT today. Insane. I went to the Sbarro next to it and got a big slice of pizza and 16 oz Diet Pepsi for about $9.

Then I went into the rest stop convenience shop and paid $6 for a giant bag of Doritos to eat while I drove. LOL.

It's the highway rest stop. Prices there have always been much higher than the normal McDonalds, because they have a captive customer base. Same with the gas at the rest stop.

 

[Jerry1]

View attachment 51223

Interesting. A cheeseburger cost 4 cents more. That’s more than 25% more for a slice of cheese. Not sure about todays prices, but I wonder if that was complained about back in the day.

 

[More Cowbell]

A 1 lb box of See's chocolates cost $29.95 on the week of Mother's Day. I remember that 1 lb used to cost under $20. I understand that chocolate prices have increased dramatically due to poor harvests.

I used an old gift certificate for 1 lb of See's chocolate that I bought at Costco ages ago. Still have a few more that I found while cleaning my home office. See's apparently hasn't offered these for years.

 

[Koolau]

I value your contributions to this site, so let me recommend an oldie but goodie book to you, Who Moved My Cheese?. It's a small book, entertaining, and a short read.

Fast food joint apps are not a hill to die on.

Heh, heh, no intention of dying (at least not on a hill) but no intention to return to McD's either. Thanks for the book recommendation. I have heard of the book but have not yet read it. Thanks again.

 

[Koolau]

Yeah. I like to call BS on corporate double-speak.

Heh, heh, it IS what they do best! I remember those days at Megacorp.

My best example was when they told us they were going to give us a new "benefit." (When I started, you earned vacation for the next year. So new folks had no vacation until the next January 1.) The new "benefit" was that you started every new year with full vacation and could begin taking it right away - even new people.

Someone asked (in a Division meeting) why Megacorp was being so generous. The rep stated that it was going to save Megacorp $100million dollars! That made no sense to me, so I investigated further. It turns out that the new "plan" no longer allowed one to save over vacation (use it or loose it) AND if you now had saved vacation - it was GONE. (I lost 4 weeks of saved vacation!) Suddenly, $100 mil savings made more sense.

To this day, I don't know how that could have gotten past the legal hurdles, but it became the new "normal" at Megacorp to increase profits by taking benefits from empl*yees. (For instance, they cut the 401(k) match in half and (some years) gave NO match at all.)

At least they didn't try to tell us that reducing the match was a "benefit." Not even Megacorp could pull off BS like that.

 

[aja8888]

Heh, heh, it IS what they do best! I remember those days at Megacorp.

My best example was when they told us they were going to give us a new "benefit." (When I started, you earned vacation for the next year. So new folks had no vacation until the next January 1.) The new "benefit" was that you started every new year with full vacation and could begin taking it right away - even new people.

Someone asked (in a Division meeting) why Megacorp was being so generous. The rep stated that it was going to save Megacorp $100million dollars! That made no sense to me, so I investigated further. It turns out that the new "plan" no longer allowed one to save over vacation (use it or loose it) AND if you now had saved vacation - it was GONE. (I lost 4 weeks of saved vacation!) Suddenly, $100 mil savings made more sense.

To this day, I don't know how that could have gotten past the legal hurdles, but it became the new "normal" at Megacorp to increase profits by taking benefits from empl*yees. (For instance, they cut the 401(k) match in half and (some years) gave NO match at all.)

At least they didn't try to tell us that reducing the match was a "benefit." Not even Megacorp could pull off BS like that.

Employers don't really have to give employees any benefits at all unless it's contractual and even that could be subject to certain performance or other conditions.

 

[AboutThere]

I just surrendered and downloaded the McD's app on Friday, and saved a bunch of money over what I had been paying. I drive a lot and eat at McD's too much. When the story about Big Mac meals costing $18 came out, I noted that I paid 9.59 for my last Big Mac meal that week. I think a fair number of the inflation stories are outliers designed to enrage people and garner clicks.

I'll say that I really haven't seen the crazy pricing that others are reporting; my biggest increases have been moderate-to-fancy restaurants charging crazy prices, so now I rarely go and I cook more at home.

 

[GenXguy]

Banquet pot pies shot up to $1.49 at local grocery store. They had already recently jumped from around $1 to $1.25.

The inflation stories and examples are real.

 

[Al18]

Walmart is still selling Banquet Pot Pies for $1.00. Bought some last week.

 

[AboutThere]

Eh, it might be "real" to say that somewhere on the planet a Big Mac meal once cost $18; however, it is also misleading as that then becomes "a Big Mac costs $18 now" when I just paid $5.39 for mine and when the typical price for a meal is - as Mcdonald's points out - less than $9.99.

 

[latexman]

I saw a Buy One, Get One deal on TV recently. The second Big Mac cost $1. That's a bargain!

 

[Gumby]

A non-negotiable requirement of my life since the day I left home at 18 has been that I will always be able to buy what I want at the grocery without having to know or care what it costs. I would hate to go through life needing to care whether a Banquet Pot Pie costs $1.00 or $1.49

 

[Time2]

Menu at a local music Festival. It's hard when you remember $0.30 cheeseburgers.

 

[GenXguy]

Walmart is still selling Banquet Pot Pies for $1.00. Bought some last week.

Yeah, but they have been that price there for a while. That's where I bought them last time. No way I'm paying $1.49. lol

I wish I was rich and didn't have to be concerned about how much money I spent on anything, like my 103% increase in homeowner's insurance in 3 years, but this thread is all for examples.

 

[GenXguy]

Menu at a local music Festival. It's hard when you remember $0.30 cheeseburgers.

I would just go without, or maybe just break down for the drink if I really needed a drink but otherwise starve myself for a while. They are really trying to take advantage people who are there. We have something like that here, but the prices aren't that crazy.

It's often not a matter of whether you can afford it, but a matter of reasonable value. If I was paying $24 for that sandwich, I would not enjoy it just knowing it was highly overpriced.

 

[GenXguy]

I saw a Buy One, Get One deal on TV recently. The second Big Mac cost $1. That's a bargain!

The McD app has buy one get one free. It was on there before, and I thought it might be because I was a new app user, but now that the original deals expired, it looks like the new ones that popped up are mostly the same. Still $2 breakfast sandwiches also.

 

[CaptTom]

"Now, I know I have that nickel in my purse somewhere..."

That's the person I always get behind in line! And the reason I'm a big fan of self checkout.

Interesting. A cheeseburger cost 4 cents more. That’s more than 25% more for a slice of cheese. Not sure about todays prices, but I wonder if that was complained about back in the day.

I can only speak for myself. Yes, I did complain about it. By that time it was 10 cents more, which was an outrageous price for one slice of American "cheese." Luckily I hate that stuff, so it didn't really affect me.

At least they didn't try to tell us that reducing the match was a "benefit." Not even Megacorp could pull off BS like that.

Oh, my MegaCorp most certainly could. Every time they cut our pay or benefits, it was present as somehow doing us a favor.

BTW, nobody suggested any MegaCorp was required to offer a certain level of compensation or benefits. But a little honesty would have gone a long way. If you're going to cut my pay, which is what all these benefit cuts amount to, at least have the testicular fortitude to tell me plainly.

 

[Turbo29]

Interesting. A cheeseburger cost 4 cents more. That’s more than 25% more for a slice of cheese. Not sure about todays prices, but I wonder if that was complained about back in the day.

I vaguely recall the hamburgers being 19¢ and the cheeseburgers 29¢ when I was a kid. I very distinctly remember my father saying we would get hamburgers and take them home and put cheese on them because they were charging way too much for a slice of cheese.