What are you seeing economically in your area?

originally posted by: vNex92
Egg prices have gone up for the past couple of weeks in some stores.

Probably also because feed costs have risen by at least 25% over the last few years. I work at a nursery thats also a feed store and I've overheard hobby farmers, many who also have jobs, say that the eggs used to supplement their income but now the profit is gone and with winter factored in when hens aren't laying, it's actually costing them. A few sold out their birds.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Groceries for sure. Not only do they cost more, but things also come packaged with less than before. Compare ounces or pounds today from last year. They no longer sell 10 lb bags of potatoes around here. Instead, it is an 8 lb bag for the same cost or a little more.

Utilities have gone way up.

Crime seems to be on the rise in my city too especially shootings and police chases. I have the benefit of a police scanner because I drive a tow truck. Police chases used to be only a few times a year in my county. Now they are ridiculously common place. Our county is not very populous. We have a few small towns and my city which has a population of around 40k.

Everything seems more expensive. Other than groceries, fuel, and utilities I can't put my finger on it, but i made more money last year than previous years and our budget is tighter than ever. Our spending habits have only gotten more restrictive.

a reply to: filthyphilanthropist

You're right about things being packaged much less than before. A bag of Fritos or Cheetos for example at Wal-Mart. It's pathetic, like the size you'd find at a gas station.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I noticed an article the other day titled "what is a short sale". having done one in 2012 due to the implosion of 2008, I remembered what led up to it, and it looks like that same thing is about to happen again. Remember, real estate was booming, prices going up like crazy, everyone was buying, credit was cheap and easy. IF any of that sounds familiar, it's cause it is. And the fall brought about some amazing deals when the marked corrected. THAT was the time to buy. Lessons learned.

a reply to: JAGStorm

CRIME was the thing we most noticed increasing when we moved from the mid-west last October.
Here in Florida, neighborhood crime is almost non-existent...although it's a 'gated' community of much higher-end homes.

At the grocery, here, we're not finding certain brands of things...with prices going up on everything.

IA here - food prices and food shortages on certain products but nothing to concerning.
Building material is astronomical right now and I still can't believe people are still building houses. This could lead to a massive housing crash down the road when people are upside down in their homes. It seems new builds are probably $75k-$100k over what they were 2-3 years ago.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I live in one of the fastest growing regions in North America. The economy is booming. Construction is booming. Cost of housing is skyrocketing. The average price of a home now exceeds $1,000,000. As a younger person who never had the chance to buy - it sucks knowing I'll spend my prime working years paying someone else's mortgage.

originally posted by: joejack1949
a reply to: JAGStorm

I live in one of the fastest growing regions in North America. The economy is booming. Construction is booming. Cost of housing is skyrocketing. The average price of a home now exceeds $1,000,000. As a younger person who never had the chance to buy - it sucks knowing I'll spend my prime working years paying someone else's mortgage.

Things are weird but as I’m seeing foreclosures now, something is going to happen with housing. These prices are not sustainable.

a reply to: Wookiep

Yeah ... 'shrinkflation'. That is the situation here also.

I love to eat frozen burritos, and could live on them if I had to do that, quite happily!

However, the &*&$*& burrito producers for the ones I like best have kept the same price, but are now selling smaller individual burritos in their packages. That really ticks me off, because what: now I must eat a burrito and a half to get the same volume of food that I used to get in one burrito? I would rather just pay a little more for the same size burrito, which had worked perfectly for me for years. I would like to find whoever thought that shrinking my burritos was a good idea. I might have some very harsh words for them, and would try hard NOT to wring their neck!

I live in Illinois.

Twin cities here. Prices on almost everything is up. Lots of Restaurants closed during the shutdowns and never came back. Some of the Big Box retail stores I visit have been looking for workers for many many months which typically have no issues filling positions (Example: Target and Menards) Staffing levels just judging by the amount of checkout lanes open and the amount of stuff blocking aisles to be stocked and empty shelves seem to be down quite a bit. They built a new Raising Canes restaurant near my home and has been constructed and ready to open for a few months now but they don't have enough staff to have it open so they have resorted to making announcements at my Son's high school to recruit staff. The last I heard pay was between $15-$20/hr)

How much of the restaurant business is down I can't say as we have always cooked predominantly at home and I know a few friends that used to eat out almost once a day that have started cooking once the pandemic started. So I think some of the restaurant business that was lost is just people cooking their own food and not relying the restaurants.

Building has slowed down quite a bit in my area. Just before the pandemic a new development had started a few miles from my home. Ground clearing, streets/curbs and utilities went in fairly quickly on one side of the road but they have a couple model homes being built and not one of them is done and I want to say they started building early summer. The other side of the road of teh same devlopment still has trenches dug for drainage and piles of rock that need to be cleared.

My wife who works for a big company had nearly 100 people leave due to toxic work environment as well as vaccine mandate pressures. Many of those people retired but others were able to find jobs and many for better wages so I think in some areas the job market is still good but all service based jobs seem down.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
Things are weird but as I’m seeing foreclosures now, something is going to happen with housing. These prices are not sustainable.

Why not? People are making more money.

Gas And Electricity x3 since last year. My latest letter.

Scotland.

Southwest Michigan. Groceries up but stocked well. Gas $3.39 was $1.81 1 1 2021. Crime way up but police are not backing down. Lots of Chicago people bringing rudeness and crime with them. Signs on business doors to be nice or go home.

Home prices up about 50% a home that sold for $300k 3 years ago has been updated and they want $1.4 mill. Neighbor bought his house for $125k 10 years ago sold for $1.2 mill and haven't seen anyone there since the sale.

Wages up 3% they say this year but nothing official yet.

Lots of empty strip malls. What used to be mom and pop shops are either empty or filled with what the wife and I call temp-shops. Some gimmicky burger chain, or something similar, that opens and closes in six months. I cant think of a single strip mall in my town that doesn't have empty units.

Grocery prices are rising rapidly and options are limited. Some empty shelves here and there but nothing really scary yet. Beef prices are through the roof though. Even the typically cheaper cuts of beef are up 40-50% in the last six months. Gas is $3.59 right now. Our favorite pizza place has taken the actual diameters off the website and now only calls them medium, large, x-large and family. They are each 2" smaller in diameter than they previously were and the price has gone up. When you take 2" off the diameter of a pizza you lose about 1/4 of the pie. That is a big difference, especially when you pay more for that much less food.

Worst of all though is the crime. Smash and grabs, car jackings, home invasions, etc. Criminals here are much like everywhere else. They seem to think they have been given free reign to do as they please, and they take advantage of it every chance they get.

Fuel has always been crazy expensive here ( Netherlands ) we are always in the top countries with fuel prices.

Hitting 2 Euro a liter , average price in gallon is broadly around 7.50 euro per gallon.

Does not impact me a lot since my work is 5 minutes away and i do close to one month with a full tank.

And coffee is getting expensive , rose 10 % just the last few months.

a reply to: JAGStorm

forclosures

SWFL here.
Not many so far that has made any report or news in the area.However this area has a 60%+ cash buys of real estate and at one time it was close 80% of the home purchased .

food prices
People are also complaining about building supplies and how hard they are to get and also the prices
I was actually told by contractor to just wait don't build anything right now

Same here including our contractor who advised us to wait to remodel if possible.

I've noticed the houses being built are super expensive and look extremely low end and cheap, we're talking close to
million dollar houses only having five cabinets in the kitchen and very low end finishes.

Same in this area . The local board of real estate MLS put out a report that the medium home price is $730K in the area.

I've noticed people are complaining about utilities. Somehow this has not affected me personally,

Same here havent noticed much of a difference yet.

CRIME...........this is the worst, it's happening

Not much of an increase in the area that i have observed and its typically pretty low as it is. The guy getting his arm bitten by a tiger after he put it in the cage was the big story for the area.



Labor shortage:

Its real . We have had to walk out of several restaurants including big chain ones like carabas, outback , etc due to staff shortage and extremely long wait times.

The local wait time at hospitals is ridiculous but not due to covid. Its due to shortage of nursing staff. The nurses have been abused and not compensated and have had enough. The solution they are talking about now is capping their salaries . Yeah lets give the ceo a 20M dollar bonus but lets cap the nurses wages who are needed most during a so called pandemic , lol.

a reply to: HODOSKE
As a fellow mechanic. Nobody wants to work a trade. They're all hurting. Also mechanics are tire of working on a flat rate. I work on forklifts now. Pays well and is hourly. What is up with people paying so much for houses though!?

a reply to: JAGStorm

Forgot to mention the other big Red Flag i've seen.

People are asking where to sell gold, and places are soliciting again.
People also do not realize that 99% of jewelry isn't really worth much.

I'm in southern Maine and it is ridiculously expensive. Our rent went up $200/mo, gas is almost $4/gal, food is almost double what it was in 2019/2020. It is getting to the point that my wife and I are moving to coastal SC this year. We found a nice house in Georgetown for $300 less than what we are paying in rent. I can't understand how anyone will be able to afford to live here if this trend continues and it will because the communist administration wants us all to own nothing and be miserable. I bet all you democrat losers are happy that there's no mean tweets though. Leftists make me sick, this situation is entirely your fault. Trump had the economy booming, unemployment at record lows and a secure border now look what you did..

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: JAGStorm

Forgot to mention the other big Red Flag i've seen.

People are asking where to sell gold, and places are soliciting again.
People also do not realize that 99% of jewelry isn't really worth much.

And what a lot of the gold sellers do not realise is that a gram of gold is not a gram of anything else it goes by the Trojan weight and all that sparkly stones in rings are worth more than the gold , I watched one day in a jewelry store years ago as some idiot got conned by the jewelry store owner ,he had a big pile of rings chains etc she conned him good and proper by not using the proper setting on the electronic scales , when he left the shop I turned to the lady and pointed it out with a nice sekonda in my hands ,long story short I got the watch for my favourite price Free .

I remember thinking back in 2007 when house prices are going up more per week than you earn in wages things got to give and they did soon after it's like 2007 again with 1939 mixed in