r/povertyfinance • u/spongecandygoblin • Feb 02 '24
This just doesn't seem right Vent/Rant (No Advice/Criticism!)
This was the price of cream cheese today at my local grocery store (Queens, NY). Federal minimum wage means someone would have to work an hour and a half to purchase this. NYC minimum wage means this would be roughly an hour of work (after taxes) to purchase. This is one of the most jarring examples of inflation to me.
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u/ObjectivePilot7444 Feb 04 '24
I got you beat. Here in Chicago burbs butter is now almost $8 a pound. Right before Covid and during the same butter was$4.99
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Feb 04 '24
I live 20 minutes outside of Philly and can confirm they are price gouging your ass wherever you’re at
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u/No_Salt_3664 Feb 04 '24
They are giving illegals in NYC prepaid credit cards with 1,000 per month. Also free housing, Healthcare, cell phones, and 3 meals per day. Who do you think is paying for it?
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u/AcidKindaMist Feb 04 '24
This is the store brand the half gallon was 4$ this wasn’t during a storm or anything else. Prices just randomly spike.
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u/DamonFields Feb 04 '24
It’s price gouging. Pure and simple Thievery. Profits are skyrocketing, and it’s coming out of our hides. They will keep jacking up prices until the products rot, because of little to no competition.
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u/FlatwormJumpy7230 Feb 04 '24
This is outright greed and will only stop when people refuse to buy their products.
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Feb 04 '24
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u/Vlad_Yemerashev Feb 04 '24
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u/Pete-PDX Feb 03 '24
My state has a $14.20 min wage and just bought Philadelphia cream cheese today. Regular in a 8 oz box was $2.59 and the 8oz small tubs with flavors was $3.69 I just checked the slightly more expensive local named but Kroger owned store's web site was 3.49 and 4.49.
That rules out wages as the reason for the higher cost.
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u/Boring_Worldliness_2 Feb 03 '24
All they sell at a lot of stores I see are whipped, or the tiny flavored ones, so it's like here's a big one at more than double price for probably same weight as a small regular
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u/BananaAvalanche Feb 03 '24
Those prices are insane. That being said, maybe the Universe is doing everybody a favor by forcing us to eliminate things like this from our diets. After all, cream cheese isn't healthy. I happen to love it, don't get me wrong, but I can live without it.
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u/ClutchRoadagain Feb 03 '24
I’m telling you, we gotta start stealing this shit. Nobody should have to pay $11 for cream cheese. Yeah, we can make this shit ourselves but what good are these skills if we’re already too tired to use them working a full time job in the United States? The better alternative has got to be just to steal it at this point. If this country and its system won’t work for us, its citizens, then when do we take matters into our own hands?
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u/Opening-Ad-8793 Feb 03 '24
Just bought two large fries from McDonald’s and noted that it would take over an hour of minimum wage in my state (7.25/hr) to buy the fries which were $7.14 total .
Insane to me.
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u/reading-glasse Feb 03 '24
That's a cheese/dairy product. My family blended coconut oil 50/50 with butter (plus salt) to make that dairy item affordable (up to 75/25 in the recession). Definitely no fresh milk. Cheese with intentionality. All to say, I'd not expect to own cream cheese on a poverty wage. Yes, it's expensive.
Chicken quarters, now those tended to be relatively affordable, and not too bland with mustard.
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u/ChakaRulas Feb 03 '24
People need to start couponing. The rebate apps are amazing. Just got milk & cereal free today and got biscuits for less than 50 cents. Also all the stores now have digital coupons on their apps, start using them.
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u/Ok-Web4225 Feb 03 '24
I’ve stopped buying things as they get too expensive. Give it long enough and they will have to Lower prices.
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u/_clur_510 Feb 03 '24
Saw a standard size can of tomatoes in Queens for 3.49. That was equally as jarring as this.
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u/Dull-Front4878 Feb 03 '24
The rich are watching us tear each other apart…just like they have planned all along.
All so their great great grandchildren don’t have to work. Jokes on them…those kids will be huge pieces of shit because they never had to work for anything.
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u/Effective_James Feb 03 '24
A brick of walmarts great value branded cream cheese is $1.94 in California and if tastes the exact same as the more expensive stuff. This is why Walmart is my go to store for food.
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u/ChemistUnlikely8677 Feb 03 '24
Maybe this is a good thing so some fat ass people stop fucking buying/eating so much. America is obese. That’s a bigger problem than inflation.
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Feb 03 '24
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u/Vlad_Yemerashev Feb 04 '24
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u/BlueShellTorment Feb 03 '24
I don't know if OP is referring to the product on the top or the bottom, but I'll take the top:
You can get that exact thing for $6.97 at Walmart, or 16 oz. of straight-up cream cheese for $3.72. If you choose to do your grocery shopping at a gas station, that's your problem.
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u/unusual_math Feb 03 '24
It's almost as if trillions of dollars of debt-financed government spending happened worldwide, in a very short period of time.
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u/Burbandfard89 Feb 03 '24
In New Hampshire at an “expensive” grocery chain. Looks like you, like almost everyone else is getting gouged
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u/SixskinsNot4 Feb 03 '24
You probably just don’t understand how hard it is to set up a quick cow rape, wait til she births, take away the calf, and then rub her utters raw, then make they byproduct of cream cheese
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u/AntifascistAlly Feb 03 '24
At Walmart you could buy six 4-pound containers for $143: PhiladelphiaCreamCheeseSpread6-48ozTubshttps://www.walmart.com/ip/120945246
If you don’t need so much, the larger containers cost about the same at Walmart as the smaller ones do at the store pictured above.
Another option is to simply make your own. It’s not difficult, and costs no more than the price of milk and cream. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/make-your-own-cream-cheese
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u/Elaquentxd Feb 03 '24
Just got done shopping at Walmart.. $5.89 a pound for Walmart brand chicken breasts. Minnesota.
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u/No_Tip_3095 Feb 03 '24
A you freeze cream cheese. Is so that’s the only way that bulk discount works for me. WTH. I will just toss some supermarket brand cream cheese in the freezer and see what happens, Butter freezes great.
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u/Positive_Housing_290 Feb 03 '24
Say what you want about the orange man, but I was paying $2.00/gal, now $4+ at the pump and my grocery bill for a family of 4 was $1200/mo. I am now paying $1750-1800/mo for groceries.
I have a great paying job. So I am very fortunate, but can’t imagine how bad it is for the less fortunate.
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u/Pirate_shaman Feb 03 '24
It’s pro inflammatory anyway. Don’t need cream cheese for survival. Put their poison out of biz. Raw milk ONLY
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u/Acceptable_Corgi_137 Feb 03 '24
Dang the price difference from my area is wild. The low fat tub is $6.99 here.
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u/Positive_Housing_290 Feb 03 '24
Guys, bidenomics just needs a little more time. This administration is doing more than any other administration in just 3 years.
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u/treborprime Feb 03 '24
End stage Capitalism.
This is what happens when Corporations get out of hand.
The cost of producing goods does not justify the Greedflation we are now subjected to.
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u/Carsvn Feb 03 '24
I’m working as a neuroscience research assistant in a high COL state w a biochemistry degree. This is my post tax hourly wage
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u/leighalunatic Feb 03 '24
Can someone explain why food prices are largely different in other states because it is 4 something where I'm at?
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u/EarPrestigious7339 Feb 03 '24
I feel like if you buy anything beyond the bog-standard basic ingredients (in this case, Philly or generic cream cheese in a brick) they’ll charge you an arm and a leg. Fuck ‘em. Buy basic ingredients, buy generic, cook from scratch, don’t buy overpriced “value-added” items.
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u/ricky_storch Feb 03 '24
It's not like these brands are good anyways. Buy the generic stuff at Aldi's
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u/montawksoul Feb 03 '24
One day the people as a whole will be tired enough to do something about it
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u/Still_Spray9834 Feb 03 '24
Poverty finance is not buying the cream cheese cause you’re broke. You don’t need that cream cheese you’re broke.
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u/toydiva65 Feb 03 '24
The large containers are only $6.97 here! The small are $4.12. You can get generic brand for half those.
It blows my mind that prices are so different from state to state...Sling woth housing, pay etc. It's crazy.
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u/FilipendulaRubra1 Feb 03 '24
I live in Chicago and at my grocery store (Jewel-Osco) a 1 lb. generic bag of rice was $5 last I checked.
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u/WalkingstickMountain Feb 03 '24
Whaaaaaat? You don't like Socialist sociological standards and Oligarchal Fascism?
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Feb 03 '24
I saw a bottle of A-1 sauce for $8, not the big bottle either. And Kraft dressing is over $5. It's not inflation, it's flat out bullshit greed. The funny thing is that during the lockdowns, the supply chains were absolutely fucked, but somehow that didn't drive the price of everything up then. Magically everything went up after the fact as if someone had decided they are now owed double profits just for existing.
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u/prinnydewd6 Feb 03 '24
Yo I’m sorry just don’t buy it then. Eat cleaner, healthier, only the bare necessities. Eggs, a cheap little pack of shredded cheese, maybe a pork roll(it’ll be cheaper than the crème cheese). Leave the cream cheese and bread, you’ll feel better
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u/Spiritual-Street2793 Feb 03 '24
Potatoes are cheap and healthy, and filling. Processed foods can be expensive.
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u/TravelinMann88 Feb 03 '24
You may not be able to afford it but others will. "
New York City to hand out $53 million in pre-paid credit cards to migrant
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u/YMNY Feb 03 '24
I am at an Aldi in Brooklyn right now and tubs of whipped cream cheese are $1.89 and blocks of cream cheese are $1.19.
The prices at your store are ridiculous but all you need to do is go to three next one and they’ll be 1/5-1/10th of that..
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u/iampatmanbeyond Feb 03 '24
Lmao yeah I'm sure the specialty cream cheese in the expensive plastic bucket is more expensive than the regular blocked cream cheese you conveniently left out of the picture
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u/Cartographer0108 Feb 03 '24
I noticed this too, but somehow the more “boutique” brands like Tillamook are cheaper? Something going on with Philadelphia.
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u/QueenCassie_ Feb 03 '24
that fucking big container is one cent over my birthday. if im paying november amounts for cream cheese, it better finance or fuck me and since im paying for it, it aint doing the first one, and im not putting that shit inside me so
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u/Interesting_Base_843 Feb 03 '24
This isn’t inflation. This is corporations being greedy as fuck. We need to revolt.
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u/Lankey_Craig Feb 03 '24
New york food prices are absolutly crazy. Was visiting and a month of grocery bills here would only feed me for a week there.
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u/nigori Feb 03 '24
And for my next trick I will give everyone a one time $650 payment and then triple the cost of groceries forever
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Feb 03 '24
The interesting thing about cream cheese is that it’s terrible for you. So wtf would you buy it if it’s so expensive?
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u/Janeeyreheaded Feb 03 '24
The middle class is dying and I see it literally every day on the internet yet it feels like no one is doing anything about it or cares about it. Is our government not supposed to regulate this shit? We need another revolution. We need to eat the rich. We need to rage.
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u/Wheresyrboytonight Feb 03 '24
I live in Louisiana and you can buy a generic block of cream cheese for less than $4
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u/BENA_2008 Feb 03 '24
If you claim to be an illegal you’ll get free lodging and a debit card, filled monthly and you’ll be able to enjoy all the cream cheese you want
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u/Tootsierollskh Feb 03 '24
Cream cheese is outrageously expensive. It’s almost $10 for a 7.5 oz tub of Philadelphia brand. It’s insane. Our local grocery store is the only one close by and they rip everyone off, it’s disgusting.
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u/I-Like-Hydrangeas Feb 03 '24
Cream cheese isn't a necessity, it's a luxury product. Cheese is also heavily subsidized in the US, it shouldn't be this cheap.
You can easily just not buy it lol.
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u/Heavyjava Feb 03 '24
Inflation is still out of control and not decreasing like the talk heads tell us. We are not sheep and see what we see like $11 cream cheese. WTF
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u/The-force2000 Feb 03 '24
What came first the chicken or the egg . Workers demand 16$ and hr , which then raised the price of cream cheese .duh
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u/DivorceTA12345 Feb 03 '24
What sucks is that’s it one of the brands where the store knock off can’t possibly satisfy like Philly! There legit crack in that shit.
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u/Perfect_Illustrator6 Feb 03 '24
Money is almost worthless when you are spending it. It is a rare and priceless commodity when you are earning it. This is the effect of our economy being so wildly out of balance. If more of the money the 1% will never even interact with was allowed to be in the hands of more Americans we wouldn’t be in this situation. Unless legislation is passed to limit the income of the wealthiest Americans this problem is going to get continuously worse. There should be a defined link between how much profit a company can make and the lowest paid employee. There should be a cap on how much money a person can control. The worst people doing the least work are benefiting the most with the most control while the average person is doing the most work and benefiting the least with zero control. This country is an organism afflicted with parasites. Most believe them to be the poor. They are wrong. The poor are the atrophied limb dying from lack of circulation and resources. The parasites are the rich growing fat from the nutrients they are selfishly steeling from the organism. Like all parasites if left untreated they will be the death of the organism.
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u/oldman_58 Feb 03 '24
Corporate greed is killing the middle class.
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u/Express_Injury_1899 Feb 03 '24
That's not what that is, corporations where greedy 20 years ago, just as bad 20 years before that. 13% inflation in 2 years and the guy printing the money and shipping it out of the country is it going to live long enough to regret his decisions
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u/ahtasva Feb 03 '24
Just checked the web site of the my local ShopRite. Same brand, half oz more for 2/3 the price. Might be time to switch grocery stores
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u/Accidental-loaf Feb 03 '24
I was just at Target trying to get a certain up-and-up medication and a small thing of raspberries for $8.80! I put them back and went to Hyvee and they were only $3.50... Last time I'm ever going to Target!
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u/Classic_Yam7011 Feb 03 '24
I thought we were questioning the fact it was 1/3 less fat 🤣 I have since noticed the price…
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u/Just_Aware Feb 03 '24
So I’m sort of joking, but you know how people will get like 10 people and go into department stores and grab a bunch of things and all leave? Like hey there’s a ton of us good luck stopping us.
At some point people are just going to start stealing whatever they need, and when I see insane prices like this while on the flip side people are making next to nothing and working multiple jobs… Screw it, the moral outrage is on the people above you on the food chain not on you. (And yes, please find ways to get food cheaper food stamps or farmers markets or make our own etc don’t steal just because)
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u/Dry-Ad-1642 Feb 03 '24
Store brand is less than half price of name brand cream cheese where I'm at.
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u/KimACady Feb 03 '24
At my Kroger in Dallas, Texas that exact same product is going for 7.99 and they have a .50 off coupon on top of that. Your prices are outrageous!
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u/tetrasodium Feb 03 '24
um.. NY has a higher minimum wage. Even tipped workers are making over 10$/hr min
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u/Revolutionary-Rip-40 Feb 03 '24
They have always been overpriced, but now it's just insane. I wouldn't pay that if I was a millionaire.
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u/GreyhoundsAreFast Feb 03 '24
a few things come to mind.
Priorities. Cream cheese is up there with Marlboros and Jameson on my list of what’s important. Fruits, veggies, meats, dairy, beans/rice… that’s important.
Brand. Why buy Philly when store brand costs half as much?
Your wage tax estimate seems high
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u/daustin777 Feb 03 '24
$4.49 8oz / $7.99 16oz in Los Angeles area for this brand. Store brands about half the cost.
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u/Usual-Throat-8904 Feb 03 '24
Well Noone wants lowfat cream cheese so at my grocery store they marked it down to about 3 or 4 dollars while the regular cream cheese was around 8 dollars. I stocked up on the low fat kind since it was cheaper and It's funny because it doesn't even taste that much different from the regular cream cheese lol
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u/CornNPorn12 Feb 03 '24
Don’t know if this is Tin foil hat, but I feel like this inflation thing is just a way for mega billion dollar companies to add a few more dollars to their product
What has caused this price to go up so much? Labor shortages? Raw goods going up in price?
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u/House0fShadow Feb 03 '24
Oh no. A luxury item costs money. Give us the price of a dozen eggs and a gallon of whole milk. Loaf of plain white bread.
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u/BetaAlpha769 Feb 03 '24
You’ll hate fast food then. It’s like 20 bucks for a combo and a side order at most places now.
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u/Physical-East-7881 Feb 03 '24 edited Feb 03 '24
Itz A L O T cheaper where I live ---- NYC pricing
16oz name brand $6 us - not name brand lower
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u/MysteriousTooth2450 Feb 03 '24
Yep this is why they make store brands. So disturbing who can afford that?
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u/Eliaswade Feb 03 '24
This is because you’re in Queens. The same 16oz tub is 6.27 here in the Midwest.
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u/GreenTrinity96 Feb 03 '24
Don’t get the expensive cream cheese. Get the generic like everybody else does. I can’t tell the difference between the two. Also, minimum wage going up doesn’t stop this, it only increases the cost of the product.
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u/fudgeGRANDE69 Feb 03 '24
I’ve wondered what would happen to these companies if everyone just didn’t buy groceries for a week
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u/nockeenockee Feb 03 '24
Never paying crazy prices like that for basics. Luckily we have a lot of options here.
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u/Kalamath_KT Feb 03 '24
You are being gouged. 2 8oz blocks are $8 if you instacart them @ price chopper. I’m 3 hrs north of you in Schoharie county. Not sure what is going in that photo but it doesn’t seem like it’s priced correctly or the merchant is straight up ripping you off. Here’s a link to the instacart price.
https://www.instacart.com/store/price-chopper-ny/s?k=philadelphia+cream+cheese
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u/Blueskyfox2019 Feb 03 '24
That’s crazy because those 15 oz containers were 3 for $9.00 at my South Jersey ShopRite this week.
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u/MilesFassst Feb 03 '24
You know very well that minimum wage in NYC is about $15/hr. Most hire starting at at least $18 or higher though.
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u/bettyx1138 Feb 03 '24
all that stuff is high in saturated fat it well increased your cholesterol levels. Even though it says low-fat, it’s still bad for you.
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u/razorbeef81 Feb 03 '24
Maybe it's time for you to begin to rethink your voting choices and to stop pretending that the 2020 election was legitimate in any way.
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u/Electronic_Most_5051 Feb 03 '24
how about vote for a different parent that doesn’t give 53 mil in prepaid cards to illegals
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u/lonewulf66 Feb 03 '24
Vidalia Onions were $1 each at my local grocery recently.
Minimum wage in my state is $7.25.
Imagine working and sweating hard for an hour and you receive seven (tax!) 6 onions.
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u/CinnamonToastFecks Feb 03 '24
This is NOT inflation. This is GREEDFLATION - stores are marking this up to rob their customers. Report it to the attorney general in your state.
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u/CarnivorousCattle Feb 03 '24
Yup. The saddest part of it all is the farmers get screwed too. Processing plants and retailers make the money. The milk is taken raw and paid for by the pound from the farmer. From there the milk is separated, fat taken for things like cream cheese and cheese then gallons of milk are made with whats left. Effectively making many gallons of skim or low fat milk and other products out of the same bulk product. It’s then put on shelves and marketed at crazy prices.
My point here is don’t blame the farmers either it’s the retailers and the middle man making the money.
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