30 Things That Have Gotten Too Expensive And People Think Are No Longer Worth The Money
Interview
Current prices continue to stress out Americans, even as inflation eases from four-decade highs. In fact, 67% of the country's workers say the increasing cost of living is outpacing their salary growth, according to a survey from last month.
Reddit user GuyWhoStillHasNoName got interested in which products and services people have crossed out of their shopping lists, so he made a post on the platform, asking, "What is no longer worth it because of how expensive it has become?"
From live entertainment to various foods, here are the most popular answers he has received.
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At this point? Food... Im no criminal, but its getting to the point where I often wonder "If I just walk out the store with a full grocery cart, is anyone really gonna stop me?"
When food becomes too expensive, stealing it becomes a moral obligation. Making food so expensive that its unaffordable is the real immoral and criminal part of it.
Streaming services, we're back at cable like again.
Haven't worn a pirates hat in many years but I can smell the salty air.
Yeah, and those low cost plans with ads are a trip, its like being back in the 90s when you only had free to air tv and there were ads all the time except now you PAY to watch them. Talk about a dystopia.
We got in touch with GuyWhoStillHasNoName and he was kind enough to tell us more about his now-viral post.
"I was just outside in a random place when I thought of the question," the Redditor explained to Bored Panda. Contrary to what you might think, he said he "wasn't at a store or anything, the question just came to me in the middle of nowhere."
How everything is now a subscription. Ok, I guess I don’t need it.
*gestures broadly at everything*
Yeah, noticed lately that unions are starting to rise up in USA. Writers, actors, auto workers, medical workers. At least 453,000 workers have participated in 312 strikes in the U.S. this year. It is time to raise the minimum wage with a COLA (cost of living adjustment).
After scrolling through the replies, GuyWhoStillHasNoName said that fast foods was probably the most popular one, adding that it was the first answer that he himself thought of to his question too.
And understandably so. Fast food prices jumped about 13% in 2022, according to Pricelisto, a website that tracks menu prices for US chains. That's even more than the cost of groceries, which bounced roughly 12% last year.
Going out to eat. I just make all of my own food, now. I look up recipes of the dishes I used to get at my favorite restaurants, and I learn how to make them at home (except for sushi, I just don't eat sushi anymore.) It's definitely less expensive, although the cost of food is still higher than it should be. We're definitely living in the Silent Depression, and it's due to Corporate Greed.
Cost of living/housing. We may as well just all f**k off at this point
Here's a giant red flag for you, in the USA in 2020 roughly 40% of homeless people had jobs. Now, just 3 years later, it's 53%. It's not that more homeless people went out and got jobs, it's that more employed people are becoming homeless due to the increased cost of housing.
GuyWhoStillHasNoName thinks the huge popularity of his post is indicative of a wider context, as "there are almost endless numbers of problems that can be reflected because they are money related."
Indeed, Americans remain guarded about their personal finances, with the majority (55%) saying their financial situation is "only fair" or "poor" rather than "excellent" or "good" (45%). More also report that their financial situation is worsening (50%) than improving (37%).
Concerts! By the time all the extras and fees are applied they're out of reach.
To be fair it is now the main way musicians make money since they no longer make much from album sales. Not saying it is right, just saying that the prices of concerts have gotten higher as album sales got lower.
Air BnB
All of the add-on fees usually drive the cost higher than an actual hotel stay in the same area.
I've never encountered a hotel that charges $100 cleaning fees, but that also expects you to leave the room vacuumed, beds made, and dishes washed
most fast food
Cheeseburgers, onion rings and medium drinks for 2 people........$40!!!
fixing things, which i used to love doing.
it's often much cheaper to just buy another one.
Boxed cereal. A box of Cheerios for $7+?? Get the f**k out of here with that nonsense. I'll buy the store brand for $2 that comes in a bag instead of a box, at least until that gets too expensive as well. I need to figure out something else to eat for breakfast that's not boxed cereal.
Thrifting has become crazy expensive. All of the thrift stores I used to go to have increased prices. On top of that garage sales are crazy, My favorite is pulling up to garage sales and see the owners have just printed out random listing from ebay. "No Bob, I am not gonna pay $100 dollars for a microwave from 2010 because it sold for that on ebay 5 years ago".
Even weirder is to see items still shrink wrapped with the original price still visible and the op shop (charity / thrift store) has their sticker on it with a higher price (Vinnies seem to be the worst for this)
Rent is the big one- renting should be a decent deal for people who don't need or want to own a home yet. It's a fine deal as long as it's reasonably priced. But if it's eating 50% of your income, then it's just a financial burden that prevents you from saving $ and takes away the hope of owning a home. I have no issue with renting housing conceptually, but the way it's ended up, it just sucks for the most part. It's gotten genuinely unethical.
Renting has always sucked. My dad was paralyzed, so we rented. We lived in the historic district of a very, very rich town, and our house looked very, very out of place. It was about 1800 sq ft ranch on an 8000sq ft plot 1 block from the town center, 3 bedroom two bathroom, tiny gally kitchen that had a 40in path down the middle with counters on each side, whole interior was dark wood. Floors, walls ceilings. All wood. I'm fairly certain it started out as servant quarters or a stable that belonged to the house next door. My parents paid $800 a month, from 1989-2000. $105,000 in rent. After we moved, after paying $105,000 in rent, the landlord sold the place.....for $80,000. It sold a couple years ago for $400,000. Being in your teens or 20's renting a $hitty apartment so you can save to buy? Acceptable, grown a*s adult renting a house when you could afford to buy? Nope!
Junk food. $6 for a bag of Lays? I’ll eat some damn baby carrots and hummus for less. Can’t remember the last time I had a Coke either.
This would be OK, as an incentive to stop eating junk food.. if the Healthier options WEREN'T EVEN MORE DAMN EXPENSIVE
Health insurance. We pay about $12,000 year in premiums, and also have an HSA that we contribute about $8,000 a year to. We have a deductible of like $10,000 that we have to hit for the insurance to pickup most of the costs. So in a bad year we are out at least $20,000 for medical insurance. We have 2 kids, and are pretty healthy, but seem to hit this every year now.
Seems like universal healthcare is just not possible. No country seems to have a solution. Oh .. wait ...
It's wild how many of these answers are food related, that's so scary to me. Past a certain point, what do people eat? Even instant noodles have gone way up
As an American TV preacher once said: "Who are we to save people if god wants them to starve?" Food prices have gone up elsewhere, too. But when the UN general assembly voted to declare food a human right in 2002, there was exactly 1 (ONE) country that voted against it. Guess which one (if you do not believe that read it up, the protocol is online: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/482533).
I honestly don't know how to survive anymore. Everything is getting more and more expensive, yet no one is getting a raise. Something has to give.
Farmer's Markets.
Everything was like 1/4 what it'd cost at the store, grown closer, and by smaller local farms.
Then everything changed when it became trendy; now it's more expensive than stores and I question if it's even from local farms and not Costco.
We had a couple investigative reporters show fraud at farmers markets. One guy had an overrun farm, but sold stuff he bought at Eastern Market (Detroit) as organic/pesticide free. Another had UPC stickers on their products. When I saw that, I pretty much stopped unless I could SEE the plants from the stand.
Children.
The cost of living is so high, and the job market is so volatile, that I wish I didn't have kids because the stress is insane.
I lost my job yesterday cos I work in the games industry and it is genuinely bleak and terrifying.
I love my kids but living in the UK is awful right now.
Eating out. Everything is f*****g $50 for two people AT A MINIMUM
If you think that's bad, try Stockholm, even before the crisis, for one person.
Buying a new car. Even the c**p entry level models with no options will run you near $30K. Who the hell is buying a $70K Ford F150 ?
Uh, literally everything. The greedflation is out of control. People are too stupid and every market is completely insane. It makes me want to just check out of this garbage psychopathic society.
BP could be a bit more selective with these lists. There are a dozen 'food' entries and most of the rest are "everything".
Amazon prime. It use to be the go to for everything. Free 2 day shipping and good quality products for cheap. Now it's just s****y Chinese products with prime increasing their annual fees. Honestly, just not worth it anymore
movies in the theater
Stopped going after a pest control guy said he has to treat theaters for bed bugs all the time.
I used to like dropping by Starbucks for a coffee but f**k the $6 lattes or whatever it is now
Concerts.
I went to hundreds of concerts in my teens, 20's, and early 30's. The most I ever spent on a ticket, until recently, was $150 to go to Woodstock '99. I tried to get nosebleeds for Elton John's farewell tour last year and it was $250 to get in the building.
Live music is one of the greatest pleasures known to man and Ticketmaster/Live Nation ruined it. They own the distribution, management, venues, event planning, etc. Its a vertical integration monopoly.
My husband and I are dual income, no kids. We make a comfortable salary and spend pretty freely. If you would have told me 2 years ago I would be passing by simple grocery products because of the price I would have been shocked. I was at the store yesterday and saw new Haagen Dazs ice cream cones I wanted to try. $8.99 for a pack of 4? Just can’t do it.
Streaming services as a whole like Netflix, Disney, hulu, even my Spotify went up in price and it's frankly tiring with these services. definitely dropping my Netflix and Hulu though for a vpn so i can finally sail the seas and use Plex for my media.
I rotate the streaming apps. I'll have Netflix for a month or two, then swap to Disney+ etc. I can only watch one at a time so it seems daft to my finances to pay for more than one. If they were cheaper, I probably would have several at the same time though.
Note: this post originally had 65 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
How about damn well everything. It sucks to wake up everyday with anxiety wondering how you are going to afford everything.
Name brands. If it has an advertisement for a product then the company has paid a fortune for that advertising, and passed the inflated prices on to you. I never buy any product with an advertisement.
Load More Replies... Damn this was depressing to read. Even more depressing to live it out in real life. Things very well may get worse (at least in the US) regardless of the outcome of the '24 election. I'm not counting out a civil war, which would make everything skyrocket in price. People say it can't happen... until it does.
I'd say alcohol, and the price going up is admittedly one of the big reasons why I quit drinking for the most part (barring out special occasions). A 375 ml bottle a few years ago was around $12-$15 (depending on the brand), now they're pushing closer to $20, if not cost more than $20. Plus, this could probably just be me noticing this recently, but I think the alcohol could be getting weaker as well. I got a 40% 375ml Captain Morgan's Dark Rum for Thanksgiving (Canadian), and I drank it all in one night mixed with some Coke Zero... felt fine the following day. Not even a hangover.
How about damn well everything. It sucks to wake up everyday with anxiety wondering how you are going to afford everything.
Name brands. If it has an advertisement for a product then the company has paid a fortune for that advertising, and passed the inflated prices on to you. I never buy any product with an advertisement.
Load More Replies... Damn this was depressing to read. Even more depressing to live it out in real life. Things very well may get worse (at least in the US) regardless of the outcome of the '24 election. I'm not counting out a civil war, which would make everything skyrocket in price. People say it can't happen... until it does.
I'd say alcohol, and the price going up is admittedly one of the big reasons why I quit drinking for the most part (barring out special occasions). A 375 ml bottle a few years ago was around $12-$15 (depending on the brand), now they're pushing closer to $20, if not cost more than $20. Plus, this could probably just be me noticing this recently, but I think the alcohol could be getting weaker as well. I got a 40% 375ml Captain Morgan's Dark Rum for Thanksgiving (Canadian), and I drank it all in one night mixed with some Coke Zero... felt fine the following day. Not even a hangover.
