Cost of living/Price Increse/Shortages

[melbourne_yankee]

Did the main shops for the week today and planned to visit both major supermarkets in the village in order to take advantage of the price specials and bonus points for shopping.

The first supermarket had a spend x$ and get bonus points so planned to do most the shopping there.  Unfortunately, they were out of eggs, the juice I wanted to buy, and crab meat.  So I ended up buying some other items on sale to stock up the pantry to meet the dollar requirement.

Also noticed that one food item we buy once in a while, a prepared beef "dim sim" went up by 15% compared to the last time I bought it which was about two months ago.

So off to the other major supermarket to buy their specials and to buy eggs, juice, and crab meat. Those were all in stock there, but they were out of frozen hash browns. I also noticed that they were out of stock of a lot of their frozen items such as vegetables and fish.

There was an article in one of the local rags about people turning to frozen vegetables as they were in stock and cheaper than fresh vegetables.  The same article also had a list of items that had gone up a lot over the past year.  Potato chips were up some 40%, margarine up about the same, and cooking oil over 30%.

We don't use margarine, but the butter and the butter spread we buy has gone up by about that 40%, potato chips are off the buy list as they are just too expensive and I'd rather spend a little more and eat cashews or pistachios for a snack, and cooking oil we have to buy when we need it so no getting around the prices increases.. 

Gasoline has done its usual cycle and from the recent low of A$1.52 a litre soared to A$1.94 and up again to A$1.99 even though the price of oil had fallen during that time.  We get these cycles here where the price will go up 30 or 40 cents a litre in one day and spend the next three or four weeks falling only to soar that amount one one day again.  What was unusual this time is that it jumped in price one day and then went up again the day after.

It is now back down to A$1.69 which it seems stuck at. 

Just before the big federal election here the government cut the excise tax in half from 44 cents a litre to 22 cents a litre.  The tax is supposed to go up again on 29 September so there will be big a big jump in price after that.  Going to watch the price and if it falls or remains the same I am going to fill up a couple the car and a couple of jerry cans as well before that date.

Of course, the new price increase will be reflected in the inflation stats for the month of September which will make the central bank here want to increase interest rates again.

[mnleona]

Yesterday I bought some cookies at the Dollar Tree that were 16 oz but next to the cookies were the new packages of same cookies at 14 oz.

[NFriday]

I am worried about what is going to happen if the freight train strike starts.  I just heard on CNN that the talks are not going very well.  Here is Chicago, they are threatening to cancel some of the commuter trains, and some of the Amtrack routes because of the potential strike.  I don't understand why the freight train strike would have any bearing on commuter trains or Amtrack.  I buy most of my produce at the farmers market, and farmers don't go on strike, and so the prices should remain the same, and there should be plenty of produce available.

[melbourne_yankee]

Well, not much new in the way of higher grocery prices as I have only been buying the regular staples.  Cabbage was down to A$7 a head the last time I went shopping.

Cucumbers are A$3.90 each for the"long ones".  The Lebanese cukes are A$9 a kilogram, but the quality is so poor that when you touch them they squish.......

There are still spot shortages of this and that so you have to go to two supermarkets to get everything on your list.  At least where I live that means just a couple hundred meters away.

[NFriday]

I buy my olive oil at Trader Joe's, and it was $7.99 before the pandemic started, and I paid $9.99 yesterday, which is a 25% price increase.

[melbourne_yankee]

Did a decent sized shop a couple of days ago and as usual there were numerous price increases. Here are a couple.

Plastic garbage bags were up 31% compared to the last time I bought them. I previously stocked up on the ones we use for the big trash cans so we are good to go for two years before we have to buy any.

Cabbage is up to A$9.90 a head (US$6.40).  Unreal for that.

One chocolate bar bar that I bought on sale for half price a while back because my usual favorite one is no longer being sold is now up to A$7 for one bar.  Off the shopping list for good at that price.  It used to be A$6. (The sale price was A$3) So a 16% price increase.

Found one item reduced in price and that was a cereal.  And the only reason for that was because they are no longer going to carry that particular cereal. I don't think that they sell a lot of it and often it isn't in stock anyway.  The price was reduced by 25%.  So bought a couple of boxes and will have to buy it att he other national supermarket chain, if they wil stock it. Most cereal prices have exploded.

Hash browns were out of stock on the shelves again.

The supermarkets here are replacing a lot of national private brand items with their own "store brands".  These are usually cheaper than the national brands and the reason is usually because they are of cheaper quality. Sugar, flower, canned vegetables are the sort of things that they already have on the shelves.

 

 

[NFriday]

I bought gas eight days ago at Sam's Club and paid $3.84 a gallon.  The first time in ages I paid less than $4 a gallon.  Right now, gas at my Sam's Club is currently $4.19 a gallon.  This is a price increase of $.35 a gallon thanks to the hurricane.

[melbourne_yankee]

Well, gasoline prices are more than likely to go up again once the Biden administration stops selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve <SPR>.

The good ole supply and demand in action.  Increase the supply and prices go down, but then OPEC probably got upset at seeing the US government doing it so they will cut production by 2 million barrels a day.  That is twice what the US was dumping on the market.

And for those that keep track of stupidity, the Democrats refused Mr Trumps request to fill up the SPR when the price was around US$24 a barrel as they didn;t want to "help out the oil companies".  More likely that and they didn't want to do anything that Mr Trump wanted to do either.

In any event, electricity, gasoline, and natural gas are still cheap in the USA compared to the rest of the world.

You guys can start complaining when you pay what we pay for the stuff here in Australia.  How about US$14.75 for a thousand cubic feet of NG?  Or US 25 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity and a supply charge of US 70 cents a day on top of that...................

 

[melbourne_yankee]

Getting tired of seeing the price of almost everything going up.

Store brand juice went up in price by 7%.

Canned tuna finally had its price go up.  I've been waiting on that one for a while as it had been one of the few things that didn't go up.  It went up from $A2.30 a can to A$2.70 a can. So a 17% increase in price.

Honey has gone up in price again too. The "sales price" is now what the regular price used to be.  About a 20% increase in price.

About the only thing that has started to come down in price is fresh vegetables........ that is if and when they are in stock.  One store is out of whole heads of cabbage, but the price is down to A$3.95 for half a head which is in stock.  Green and yellow peppers are still expensive compared to before the bad weather, but the price has come down to A$6.95 a kilogram. They were around A$12 a kilogram at one time.

Spring is here on the calendar, but reality says that we are still having crap weather with cool temps and lots of rain. We get one or two nice days and then a week of crap. So much for clear sunny weather with lots of sun. The northern part of the state is having flash flooding and 100 kph winds. Some places had 4 to 5 inches of rain over the past 24 hours.

So far here in our part of Melbourne we missed most of the rain, but had strong winds last night.  THe next blast is supposed to hit in a couple of hours.  We may lose all of cherries again this year as a result...................

[melbourne_yankee]

Well a trip to the grocery stores today for the weekly shop.

One place was out of strawberry jam again.  They were out last week too. Cabbage was down to A$3.90 a head, but the size was nothing to speak of.

The other grocery store had an amazing two jars of strawberry jam and I bought them both.  This store was out of stock of 1 kilogram pails of honey and almost out of paper towels.   Maybe 5 packs or so left on the shelves. They had hash browns in stock, but the shelf was almost empty.  I bought 6 boxes to put in the freezer.

And the item that moved up in price at this store was tissues.  From $A1.30 a box to A$1.70 a box