Prices are rising for many Americans, with 65% of consumers saying the increases are outpacing their income, according to a J.D. Power survey of 4,000 U.S. adults conducted in February 2026.
Recent inflation data adds to that pressure, with the annual rate rising from 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March, according to consumer price index data released Friday. The increase was driven largely by a surge in energy costs as gasoline prices spiked amid the Iran war. Gasoline prices rose 21.2% in March, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the overall increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The cost of a 2 bedroom apartment has doubled over the last decade. Groceries are up 50% and I have found that the food I buy is spoiling way before the best by date, as if stores are not properly handling their merchandise due to cut regulations.
Despite getting small yearly raises my spending power has not increased at all.
Things also may be spoiling faster due to grocery stores chronically understaffing too save money (read: 🤑 📈).
A lot more spoilage happens when employees don’t have time to properly sort and manage inventory.
I was in the store about 30 minutes and these had been out prior to me getting there, and were still out when I left. Never saw an employee interact with the pile. I squeezed the Tillamook ice cream container on the corner and it was significantly melted. Kind of hoping this was for disposal and not sale.
Crap is also friggin shrinking too. A bunch of packages of things I buy are now a little bit smaller than they were like 5-10 years ago.
Triple whammy: prices up, sizes down, quality down
most noticable were toothpastes, he had massive shrinkflation, and they also go through cheapflation and try to disguise it as a new products. 8.2oz are considered “old” version they have mostly 5.4 for the normal ones. sensitivity toothpaste suffered the same thing some went from 4.6 to 4.3(stannous and potassium nitrate) oz per tube, plus they use cheaper ingredients and overload it with mint oil(they use mint oil to give the taste) to mask the taste no doubt, too much chemically produce oil actual can cause allergic reaction in people.
I got a box of ice cream pops a few weeks ago.
It had three in the box.
I could swear I’ve bought the exact same kind before and it had four. Not only did the shrinkflation annoy me, but 3? Something about that rubs me the wrong way, but I can’t quite articulate it. It just seems like a very weird number to pick. Right? Am I alone in thinking this?
My mom has a box a day habit of those little Dove ice cream nuggets. A while back they went from 10 in a box to 6, and the price stayed the same. You can’t do that to an addict, they don’t take it well.
And yet for all of eternity we have had different numbers of hot dogs and hot dog buns.
same goes with bars, like gronala, fruit bars,etc. i have seen from 6-5,. the bougie ones like gomarco,etc are too expensive for a fruit bar.
Having a prime number in the box makes fights more likely since it isnt divisible. If you are sharing, somebody is going to miss out.
In a somewhat related prime number incident, we have the term “baker’s dozen”, meaning 13. This is because bakers were found to be reducing the size of loaves of bread, and the government required that they include 13 when they sold 12 to make up for the discrepancy. So shrinkflation has been going on basically forever…
Any prime number is divisible by itself though? So you can split a box of 3 amongst 3 people. Remember that 2 is also prime, and you can’t split a box of 2 or 4 between 3 people.
Anyway, I think the bigger issue is the 25% reduction from 4 in a box to 3 in a box, and we can be plenty annoyed and/or outraged at that. 😆
Shrinkflation
cheapflation as well.
I make about $800 more a month now than I did two years ago and I have way less money on hand today. This administration stole my raise from me and will continue to do so :(
I’ve been noticing this too. Bags of potatoes are going soft after only a few days of purchase.
i suspect alot of them could be sitting in storage facilities for a while before actually shipped to the store as new? some of them come rotten or infested with pest(fungi)