- 15 minutes
College. It was so much easier paying for my college education as a broke kid, then it is trying to pay for my kids college education at what’s supposed to be my prime earning years
- 11 hours
Fast food. I basically can’t leave a fast food restaurant without spending over $20 for my family of 4.
- 9 hours
That is incredibly cheap compared to my area… McDonalds, 1 medium sized burger menu is like $15
9 hoursFamily of 4? Dang, I’m happy if I’m under $40 for my family of 3!
- 12 hours
I haven’t seen someone say yet but used good. Like garage sales and thrift stores and auctions, everything is hiked up to be almost the same price as if you’d buy it new.
- 14 hours
I stopped buying chips when prices doubled. I stopped buying minced meat and chicken. I only buy eggs and coffee when it’s finally discounted. Now frozen vegetables doubled in price. I can’t just stop buying things.
Also, came back to Netherlands after a few years. Cigarettes over €10 and €7.50 for a beer wtf
- 16 hours
Phone service in America. A 1 month sim here in vietnam with a number and 8gb/day costs ~10USD. Its cheaper if you buy longer. Meanwhile Verizon is charging 35-50 dollars a month.
- 6 hours
We can get around 15-20 but most aren’t interested in carriers that don’t have physical presences or aren’t “name brands”.
- 14 hours
Okay, but Verizon is not the best option in the U.S. right?
I’m paying €15 for 200GB/month and 1500 minutes to all EU countries and the UK
- 7 minutes
Best option for coverage. Best option for “not as sleazy as other phone services”.
Very much not best for price
—-
But i can’t decide if this is good behavior or bad behavior …
- recently i had a $100 call to London because my plan doesn’t include international. Yikes!
- but I could retroactively sign up for international service for like $10, and my $100 call became like $5. Yay!
- but that service is auto-renewal and you have to cancel it by specific day. Dammit!
- 11 hours
Best option in price? No. Best option in coverage? Yes.
At least that was true at one point. Not sure if its still holds true today. For awhile they were basically the only ones with coverage in many rural areas.
SSDs as well. I stuck 2TB in my PS5 for under 100 quid.
Now they’re closer to 300.
- 9 hours
Me getting excited for a deal on an NVMe SSD for under 400USD total recently was… sad. I have a receipt from when we built my partner’s computer… two 2TB NVMe drives for 85 each. Can uhhhhhh I please have bought ten instead of two?
Similarly, SD and microSD cards. Much like RAM and storage, I wished I threw away my adult responsibility a bit and stocked up on them
- 17 hours
I actually had to look up M2 drives to see if the image above was those.
M2 has the connectors on the end rather than the side, but they don’t look too different otherwise.
RAM is the new component to become overpriced.
It is <2016, 2019, 2026>*. I’m using a 1050Ti.
* new, re-used in otherwise new build, and not buying anything respectively.
- 16 hours
utility bills, it has gone up because of AI datacenters, and all forms of insurance, health, car,etc looking at parents costs. we have the wierd property tax here, that the state likes to tax on for some reason, and target the actual billionaires.
also the cost of schooling for different grad programs, one grad program in health is under 15k for a state school but highly competitive as a result due to very limited space and schools(like most state schools ever only accept 30ish applicants per semester or year) out of likely hundreds or thousand+ people applying and the industry is a shortage(likely intentional to keep the salary high, much like with MDs licenses) they recent started a “abridged program” which i dont think it solves the problem. while pharm school very expensive yet earns almost the same as the grad program i mentioned and 4 times as long to finish.(1 vs 3/4 years), since everyone wants to come our state the shcools are severely impacted because theres only ever 9 unis that teach this program for CLS.
I just spent $109 for a Valvoline oil change in the Los Angeles area. I found this old coupon from 2014. Crazy how much it’s increased.
- RattlerSix@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
Was it synthetic oil? Synthetic used to be a little more uncommon and was more expensive, now it’s more common and the same price as conventional oil. But oil change places still charge double for synthetic.
- terranoid@lemmy.cafeEnglish24 hours
In this economy I learned how to do my own maintenance. I refuse to pay someone else over a $100 to unscrew something then screw in something else.
- 24 hours
Same. Did my brakes last weekend and saved like $700. And it’s about as hard as an oil change.
- 22 hours
Its kinda crazy what mechanics charge in the US. I get that they have significant tooling costs to recoup, and every job isn’t so straightforward and that all gets spread out, but shit I paid $5 for 2 new footpegs and bending my shifter back onto place with a torch, then $4 for an oil change after I got hit by a taxi.
- 22 hours
Last year they said I needed a new turbo. Quoted me $2300. I got the part and tools for under $1200
Turns out that didn’t fix it and it was the catalytic converter - bad misfire clogged it with gas. Replaced the downpipe for $800 and then sold the old cats as scrap for $250.
Now I know that I can do all that stuff and I saved $550.
- 15 hours
It’s not the mechanic making the money, it’s their boss. Mechanics are undnerpaid as fuck. Go to independent mechanics if you can
- 22 hours
I knew how to change oil before I even had a license. You need to be able to handle your own shit because you’ll be gouged every single time otherwise
The way I see it if anyone opened a drivers school that also taught basic maintenance they’d make a killing here.
I’ve only ever once paid someone to change my oil, and that was because I physically couldn’t do it. A filter is less than $10 and 5 quarts of full synthetic is less than 30. The whole job takes longer to find all my tools than to just do it.
- 21 hours
You’re paying for the labor, the time to check everything else and giving you actual decisions. That’s where the rest of that 50 bucks is going. Yes you do need ONLY the oil change, and maybe you don’t need anything else but the one thing I learned about cars is that they’re like fickle people. They won’t open up unless you deliberately ask them all the right questions lmao!
- 22 hours
Do oil changes yourself. It’s very simple and kind of fun. First time took me 45 mins. Every time after that, about 10 mins, and most of that is sitting around waiting for the oil to drain before screwing the plug back in.
Really, for most cars, if you can pump gas then you can do the oil and oil filter, fluids (coolants, brake, power steering, etc), air and cabin filters. They generally involve unscrewing or unclipping something, then popping it back on. Brake pads are also very simple. These are parts designed to be replaced regularly so are quick and simple with 1 or 2 tools, if a tool is even needed.
- 15 hours
I’m with you, but keep in mind that some people live in apartments, so no garage to work in, or a driveway, and also they have nowhere to store any tools they buy.
And the initial investment is something, right? Get a decent jack, get a drain pan, learn how to dispose of the used oil, buy the wrench, buy the paper towels or degreasers or whatever.
And if you fuck it up, your car is ruined. All that being said, more DIY is probably a good thing, but we all gotta find out own comfort zones and decide what’s worth trying out.
- Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.netEnglish19 hours
Oh my god. I know that’s a coupon for a discount but oil changes became 10 times more expensive no wonder why it always felt like such a burden. We really need to break card dependency because it’s just playing old not affordable
- FishFace@piefed.socialEnglish14 hours
Americans seem to do oil changes way more often than anyone else… Maybe this is the sign that you should cut down!
Yeah, I’ve been making it a habit to budget $300 for routine maintenance when I have to go to Valvoline. At least the car runs well, even if I’m hungry.
- 21 hours
Politicians, they used to be expensive. Now it’s almost downright affordable.
- 16 hours
they still are the “bribes are just small cash donations” they dont account things like million dollar RVs, homes, yachts or investments(stocks, or real estate) which the public cant get the full scope of and other backdoor deals they do.
- 24 hours
Bread. Even bread is too expensive now. Rice has been climbing but is still affordable. For now.
- 23 hours
I came here to comment “bread”. We have gone from 99¢ to $3.99 for a loaf of french bread in a bit over a decade.
- 17 hours
I don’t eat much normal sliced bread, but buns got just as stupid.
- 15 hours
same, im not a fan of any bread, because dont like all that sugar intake.
- 22 hours
Where do you live that a 10 kg sack of rice is expensive?
Bread being expensive in the US is so awful, they gave us wonderbread and because it was cheaper and we have fuckall for bakeries, it let the few bakeries increase the price of fresh bread.
I am in a country that doesn’t grow wheat, yet the price of fresh bread is less than I paid at the only non-cake bakery near me, Publix, in America
- 15 hours
maybe at asian stores? is more affordable if you buy it in 50lb bags?
- 12 hours
50 lb sacks aren’t common in American grocers, presumably due to their size. I only ever saw them in the big Asian grocers.
Related, thats a 5L l bottle of water.
Already said a lot, but should be said again. Food.
Food, my weekly grocery bill has risen from ~80€ to ~130€ and I’ve started to limit and reduce snacks. Store is the same, amounts have gotten smaller, only difference is time. Few years ago when the first Lidl(Aldi) was opened and became the closest store to my home. Overall weekly bill never reached to triple digits, nowadays it never stays below that.
And i bloody hate triple digit numbers, my heart weeps every time i need to pay it and think about quitting eating all together.
I’ve had to change the priority of stores I shop at. Not even gonna touch international stores at this point. Only going to Aldi first, then Lidl for anything not stocked at Aldi.
Lidl has a larger variety than Aldi, but Aldi’s groceries are more affordable.
I though those are the same brand? Mostly because every time i mention Lidl in online discourse people automatically switch over to using Aldi or every time there’s a picture of some goods that for me are sold in Lidl, the description says Aldi.
- 19 hours
They’re different stores, but they cover the same niche with broadly the same market strategies (having very affordable in-store brands, packaging products in boxes to make re-stocking the shelves more efficient etc.) So a lot of people talk about them interchangeably.
- 20 hours
Food is so expensive. I’ll be like I’m going to cut back and save money this week, so no meat, no fresh fruits or veggies, no snacks, no prepared meals and only 1 meal a day this week. I’ll leave the grocery store with one small bag of food and a $85 bill and I’m scratching my head going “how the fuck?” It feels like no matter what I buy it all costs the same
- 23 hours
Sounds weird but, chocolate chips.
Oh, and a $70k Toyota Tacoma. $70,000, for a taco. The fuck is Toyota smoking?
- AskewLord@piefed.socialEnglish8 hours
A SR5 5x5 still cost 36K. The 4x2 is 32K.
The 70K one is Pro level one that’s full of incredibly expensive add-ons. The seats alone in that car cost like 5K. It’s basically a factory modded vehicle, nobody with any sense will buy that one. It used to top out at 50K, but that was before they offered it as racing truck from the factory. It’s basically trying to be a Ford Raptor.
They buy the mid-range ones that are around 40K, which is right in line with the average new vehicle cost.
Agreed on chocolate chips.
I found getting the small bags of ready-made cookie mix is more affordable at this point.
- 20 hours
Them luxury bones. Had to get a front tooth root canal and crown and it was $1,600 WITH insurance.
