Originally Posted by tommymonza

Its every phuking thing .

I do all the shopping for just the two of us and the dogs but it’s still $200-300 a week depending if we’re eating beef and I don’t buy premade crap or coke and chips.

Where we live I have a Walmart, target , Publix ,Aldi and Costco all with in a mile as well as Home Depot and Lowes .

I hit Costco for booze and some $5 rotisserie chickens for lunch and the dogs and Bi weekly a beef tenderloin. Then fill up with fuel at Costco . Go next door to Aldi and get some of the basics that are cheap that I like .
Hit Publix biweekly for some of their BOGo items we like and steaks or pork chops they have on sale.

Then hit Walmart for all the other basics and canned and boxed goods. I could skip Aldi but there is some items I like that are better quality than Walmart . ALDIs problem is such limited selection .

I’ll never set foot in a Target again and if I only shopped at Publix my food and essential bill would add another $125 a week easily and it is not that much more work as I shop on a mission.

Recently Put tires on the Escalade and my conversion van that was $2900 at Costco .

Every time I buy a car part I don’t even react that they are twice as much as I paid 5 years ago.

My wife and I are both 60 with perfect driving records with State Farm all our life no points no accidents

2003 conversion van $ 87 . 2011 Infinity g37 $ 108. 2012 Escalade $162. All with $1000 deductible.

Our condo Hoa has doubled in the last 3 years granted a bit of that was insurance but now we are getting hit with another increase because of lawn and pool service as well as water increase . Also because of inflation our projected reserves are way behind so reserves are being doubled.

Insurance on my 20 year old trawler went up to $415 a month with a $10thousand deductible. Then just last month my slip fee got a $200 increase.

Property taxes on Michigan home are stupid for what and where it is .

The increases are relentless. But you can’t blame anyone for the increases as it works it’s way down the line. we didn’t own our Krap we couldn’t afford to live.

I know most of this is fuel and bar money to many of you but tough for us if we quit working and try to retire .

I was a real estate appraiser down here as well as my wife during the 2008 crash and years before that.
After the properties current real value fell back down to the real values from 5-6 years previous which was about %25-33 people who remained in their homes started questioning their recently inflated appraised values.

After much complaining the county adjusted the value down to real market value but then voted to double the millage .

Inflationary values rarely go away.

I listen to my wife on the phone all day with her high end Naples insurance customers and them having meltdowns about their insurance increases . We’re talking some having 2 million in car coverages and 10-15 million in home coverages. Some more and many less but still millions. And forget about boats.

There comes a breaking point.

Originally Posted by tommymonza

So this is the latest brilliance spitting out of CumHolla’s mouth.

She suggests that the government should take over grocery stores to regulate prices. Oh how the liberal freeloaders will cheer this on but they have no idea.

Up until 10 years ago I used to spend a chit load of time on a sailboat at marina Hemingway in Havana at the time we had multiple connections because we had green backs .

There is plenty of food in Cuba if you have foreign money.

Let me explain the Cuban socialist and monetary system . First off it’s illegal to use foreign money and for Cubans to possess it. You have to trade your US dollars for 80 peso’s so the government can skim %20 off the top. With this currency you can buy anything as it is like gold to Cubans .

Now the piddly monthly allowance given to Cuban citizens is also a Peso but not the same peso as we foreigners exchange , it’s like a casino chip and is only of value if used in the government stores where the shelves were mostly empty of food items and what was there was horrible .

The first night I came into marina Hemingway I was exhausted and later was partying at the yacht club. Drunk as Phuk I ordered a Cuban sandwich and it was delicious. Next afternoon I ordered another and made the mistake of peeling back my roll and looking at the meat. Not pretty meat.

There was a a typical marina supply store at marina
Hemingway that was packed floor to ceiling with cheap Chinese pool toys and other worthless crap to make it look well stocked. No food but a ton of Crystal Beer which is a Cuban beer .

Anyways after 2 years we decided to bring the boat down to Mexico and needed some provisions and one of our connections brought us some government hams that were so disgusting after opening one I thought the only thing it was good for was bait if we got ship wrecked. There was a huge black market and that’s how most Cubans lived .

So libs enjoy your Government Cheese.

Originally Posted by Brad Christy

Price controls never work. If a MFR is capped on pricing for Commodity A, but can make more producing commodity B instead, they will commit their capital to that instead, and those that need commodity A are just azz out.

Originally Posted by tommymonza

Or the government will heavily subsidize certain things like they do the dairy industry.
I used to haul raw milk in the Midwest and if the government wasn’t subsidizing it a gallon of milk would have to be $20 a gallon for dairy to be profitable.
I would haul 5000 gallons of raw milk 400 miles to Wisconsin from Michigan as I pass tankers hauling the same from Wisconsin to Michigan.

Reminded me of one person digging a hole while another fills it .