The cost of living continues to soar in many places across the world. For example, the typical American household spent $709 more in July than it did two years ago to buy the same goods and services.
Interested in what drives this number, Reddit user Just_Some_Troglodyte made a post on the platform, asking everyone, "What is horribly overpriced?" It immediately went viral, and as of now, has over 5.7K replies. From groceries to funerals, here are the most popular ones.
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Groceries
It is so stupidly expensive to buy groceries right now. Even if I just need a small list, specifically for the dinner I’m making that evening, it’s always $50–$75. I feel like in the past two years, groceries have skyrocketed.
Being alive. And I’m not even having a good time.
Gasoline. So sick of hearing about record profits by oil companies almost every quarter.
The fact that these companies have the audacity to boast about it to the public...
Concert tickets.
Ticketmaster gave me a $75 service fee. Why does it cost $75 for you to send me a digital ticket when these venues are probably paying them to sell their tickets anyway?
Diamonds. Contrary to popular belief, they’re not a rare gemstone and their perceived value is almost entirely artificial.
Blame Debiers. They've had the monopoly since slavery was still legal.
Subscription plans.
Five dollars per month doesn't sound so bad, until there are 10 of those you have to use, and every one of them has an 'ultra-premium' tier for 10 dollars that has all of the feature things you actually care about.
Our rule is sign up for one subscription until we're done with that one. But lately we're trying to go the free route. Tubi has some of my favourite shows and zoechip has That 70s Show I'm binging on with my daughter. That plus youtube, and the 200 movies we have at home is a lot of media to last us a long while. I'm often busy working or doing other things anyways.
Anything for weddings. If you say "wedding" to any vendor or business, the prices go way up. It's ridiculous.
Me and my fiancé are trying to plan a cheap wedding. Yeah, we are going with the eloping idea right now.
My parents got married by the county Sherriff in my dad's front yard in the '70s. Still together after almost 50 years.
Insulin
In America...
Women's self-care/cosmetic products. It's the same exact stuff as men's just with a different smell, but it costs SO much more. Don't believe me, read the ingredients.
And in my experience, it doesn't even work. Also, the packaging is excessive (thick non-recyclable glass jars, bottles with pumps that don't reach the last 10%). Hate it.
Airbnbs are through the roof. I used to get great deals for under $100 for nice places. Now, it's impossible to find something decent under $200.
When I was a lowly unpaid government intern in 2017 in another state, I really wanted to explore. I managed to find so many $20–$25 Airbnbs. They were rooms in people's actual houses or their basements, and so many of them made me dinner. Now, it's $130 a night for a literal shed in Kansas and another $150 for a bullshit cleaning fee. No thanks, I'll sleep in my fucking car.
I won't use an Airbnb. If I go on holiday, I want someone else to look after my room, clean, make the bed etc... I do that stuff every single day at home, a holiday is to get away from 'that stuff'
Funerals
Mortician here. Go to a privately owned family mortuary. They actually give a shit most of the time about what families want and are generally more flexible than corporate mortuaries. Private mortuaries rely on returning families so they have to do a good job to survive.
NEVER go to an SCI location. I worked for that company for two years too long, and it's astounding how little they cared about people. They had NO issue nickel and diming everyone while doing the bare minimum if that. They regularly buried people without their belongings and never told the families. They had numerous occasions where the body was not ready for a funeral, bodies were used as doorstops, people were put in the wrong urns, etc. They do not care about you and are no better than car salespeople. Family-run mortuaries do what they do because they care.
SCI=Service Cooperation International (I had to Google that one)
McDonalds. It was made to be cheap and fast. Why am I spending close to $5 on fries? That's when I realized corporate greed was getting bad
The housing market.
Without inheritance you are damned. Or you have to be a millionaire. It is like they want us to be homeless :D
Just saw Oppenheimer at 11:00 am on a Sunday. $43 with a popcorn and soda.
This is why I don’t go to the movies. And I have four kids. My three girls want to see the Barbie movie, but I know it would cost a month’s worth of rent to take them all.
I swear that it would be cheaper to melt some platinum and pour it into a printer cartridge than to buy some regular printer ink.
That's why you need to buy an Epson EcoTank. The ink lasts through literally thousands of pages. I bought one in March 2020, went all the way through school and didn't buy ink again until January 2022. Plus, when you do buy the ink, all four bottles are, like, $50.
Inkjets are terrible for running out/drying up ink. Get a lazer jet. Cost more to start with but the ink doesn't dry out, so if you don't use it much, it will still work when you next go to use it.
Housing, healthcare, and food.
The stuff that matters.
Went for lunch, ham cheese bagel and water 11 euro 🤯 went to dunnes bought 4 pk of bagel ham cheese and crisps 6.50 stayed home and invited friends over so now we take turns making lunch in eachothers houses, cheaper and more relaxed and dosnt cost an arm and a leg if you want seconds
Airport food.
I travel a lot for work. I leave the house at least 2 1/2 hours prior to my flight just to get food before going to the airport. Usually, like a Subway footlong or something that fills me up for half the day. Also, bring your own water bottle.
US healthcare
Yes! Even with insurance, I have a bill for my child’s birth at around $30,000. My OB didn’t even pick up the phone when I went into labor. Nor did her backup. I had to get an emergency C-section, so I was charged accordingly.
My heath insurance is 54€ per mounth. Went to the ER last month, in an ambulance, spend the night there. Need surgery next week, I'll stay a week in the hospital. Total bill with the medication and a nurse visite at home a whole week : 0€. Not to mention the birth or my 3 kids, 0€ too.
Women’s clothing 😩 including vintage and secondhand these days
You can thank the ppl who comb thru second hand/charity shops to sell online. Was in a charity shop a few weeks ago, just having a nosy, and saw a lot of Primark clothes, but not at Primark price. Why in hell would I buy old clothes that are double/triple the price when I can walk 10 meters down the street and actually buy new from Primark?
Groceries are insane they go up every week a noticeable amount. I don't know how people on fixed incomes afford to eat.
Existing as a single adult.
F*****g 100%. Where I live, if I would’ve had a partner with a median salary, we could spend almost half as much per person on housing and get a nicer apartment! Combine that with everything costing less when you buy in bulk, and bachelor life starts to look not too appealing.
Prescription drugs. At least here in the US. It’s disgusting what some companies charge. I know it takes years to develop medications, but when the cost of the medicine carves out entire subsets of society, that should tell you something. Here if you don’t have great insurance, you’re basically F’d.
My mum takes 12 different meds plus insulin every day. She would be dead if in USA, not only that she has had 6 major surgeries, including a bypass in the last 5 years. All for a government capped cost of $500 per calendar year for meds, zero costs on anything else, doctors, paramedics, home nurses, specialists, surgeons, all tests, all extensive hospital stays. She just spent 13 days in hospital again for fluid on lungs and low kidney function. They did every test you can think of and adjusted her meds until they got the balance right.
Anything for disabled has inflated price like were all rich and living off the government. 🤣
To be fair, anything for a minority group will cost more as the overheads (including special design, testing, legal compliance and insurance ) are shared between fewer purchasers.
COLLEGE and if you disagree I’ll give you a crumb of an example: my university was charging $50 extra per credit for online courses (even tho literally everything including hw, quizzes, exams were already virtual for every class through an app called canvas). One class I had to take for my major was strictly only available online and it happened to be 4 credits (50x4=200) so that was an extra $200 ~ on top of the original price ~ tacked on just because! <3
That's nothing. My university decided to build a new stadium. Nothing wrong with the old one. Did they use ticket sales of the previous stadium to pay for it? Nope. Charmed every student that started after 2004 an extra $1,000 until it was paid for. Would I have been able to use that stadium? Nope. Did I have an interest in sports? Nope. But I paid $4,000 towards that damn stadium!
Even cheap icecream is like 10 bucks.... I cant even stay slightly overweight in this economy
Cant even stay slightly overweight in this economy is the sentence of the year, i love it so true 😂🤣
Low end cars like Kia. There’s absolutely no reason whatever to spend 55k on a Kia 😂
Kia is the third most reliable car made. Going to have good resale value. I found the 2002 Toyota Camry I bough for $6000 when it was four years old is still selling for $6000 today. My credit union will not even give me a used car loan unless it is for over $20K! And the car has to have under 100K miles.
Children from basic care until university
Yes.. People should think of this before having five of them.. -_- overpopulation is not a good thing either.
Insurance
It's the most successful scam in the world! As has been explained to death on this site.
Lego
When I was little, I used to be really excited to earn money and then be able to buy all the Legos I wanted. It didn't work out, of course.
Food, rent, petrol.
Yeah.. Basically everything you need for staying alive :( It is crazy how I could buy clothes from some shetty ultra fast fasion compan cheaper than if I want to buy meat or veggies or simply food... :'(
Parking at events.
In June I saw Avenged Sevenfold at the Forum, and Blink 182 at the BMO Stadium. Both venues charge $60 for parking. $120 just to park my damn car. That's highway robbery. Literally.
Sports, too. Here in Boston, there are two gas stations across the street from Fenway Park. They shut down on game days and jam cars in them - for $100 a spot.
GoodWill
Goodwill got bought out and most locations are no longer non-profit. They higher people to go through donations, sell the decent stuff online and the c**p at the store. It was a very noticeable change at my hometown GW
Yeti makes a completely average cast iron 12”
Skillet. Average price for a very nice one $25-$35. Yeti price $400
Having worked for multiple retailers that sold Yeti, I can almost guarantee that Yeti did not make the skillet. Someone else made it and Yeti had their name stamped on it.
A lot if medication. The asthma medication my doctor tried to prescribe when I had a weird dormant asthma flare-up would've been $700 a month with insurance
Unless you score some crazy deal - most airline travel. Expensive as hell and the quality is garbage.
Life - that much money to live in a s**t hole? Yeah no thanks
Can I cancel my subscription please, or at least switch to a lower tier.
bean burrito plus sour cream. $3.38, I’m good Taco Bell those were like $.79
Taco Bell has really gone up. I swear my old order used to run around $10, now it’s $20.
Oh, those cheap tacos after a night out while in college were fabulous.
Cars.
It's the main reason why I still drive my 21-year-old car. It gets me where I need to go and no fancy computer extras that I couldn't care less about. 🚗
For awhile, eggs were. Like, christ. A simple 12 count of large eggs used to run for $5 when they were $1.20
Living a decent life.
FIRST!!! Ok, so, ANY "life", decent, average, or fixed income, makes no difference. It's ALL exspensive!
Cup of Coffee
I remember when it was rare to see someone walking down the street carrying a cup of coffee. It was not that many decades ago. You've all been sucked into a daily (or multiple times a day) addiction previous generations survived without. And all those disposable cups make me want to cry.
graphics cards
Blame the crypto miners. They wrecked the GPU market for the last decade. Makes me want to punch a crypto-bro in the face. If I knew one at least.
I have an obscure one: sliding screen doors for sliding glass doors. No one wants to ship them assembled, but the kits are not DIY friendly. The big box stores have eliminated selection to a couple of one-size-fits-all-but-never-fits-properly. So you can either up your DIY skills, or you can buy a custom fit screen door for, oh... about $400 minimum. Never would have imagined sliding screen doors would become an entitlement of the rich, but here we are.
I had my a/c replaced recently, and the welder doing the air handler cut the line to my icemaker, caused some flooding and fried my tankless water-heater (I paid cash for a "side-job" - so of course he never answered my calls). Got estimates, $1300-2500. Found out my neighbor was a plumber, $155 online for new water heater, beer and pizza for labor + a new friend!
Load More Replies... Half the entries are b******t. You don't stop buying insulin for example.
I have an obscure one: sliding screen doors for sliding glass doors. No one wants to ship them assembled, but the kits are not DIY friendly. The big box stores have eliminated selection to a couple of one-size-fits-all-but-never-fits-properly. So you can either up your DIY skills, or you can buy a custom fit screen door for, oh... about $400 minimum. Never would have imagined sliding screen doors would become an entitlement of the rich, but here we are.
I had my a/c replaced recently, and the welder doing the air handler cut the line to my icemaker, caused some flooding and fried my tankless water-heater (I paid cash for a "side-job" - so of course he never answered my calls). Got estimates, $1300-2500. Found out my neighbor was a plumber, $155 online for new water heater, beer and pizza for labor + a new friend!
Load More Replies... Half the entries are b******t. You don't stop buying insulin for example.
