How are you handling rising food and energy costs?

[dvcgirl67]

Lol. I think you just misinterprete everything. I like the term fantasticall apocalyptic funny.

You: “Eventually no one will be able to afford to eat out so that minimum wage won't matter they wont have jobs.”

 

[DCLMP]

You: “Eventually no one will be able to afford to eat out so that minimum wage won't matter they wont have jobs.”

I guess you don’t understand sarcasm. I’ll put a disclaimer on there next time. If fast food places had to pay a livable wage….well you tell me what would happen.

 

[dvcgirl67]

i recall my father telling of one of the more popular things he and others used to order at restaurants back then-order a cup of tea and tell the server 'i will steep it myself'. server brings you a cup with a tea bag to the side and a small pot of water. fill cup with water, add the catsup, salt and pepper from the center of the table, blend and you now have tomato soup. repeat several times. pocket teabag to use for a future meal. those were his recollections of going to a restaurant during the depression as a young man.

Ha… that’s interesting. My FIL is 91, and his earliest memories of Christmas is getting a pair of socks, mittens and and orange.

 

[fortwildernessishome]

Apparently the State is implementing more programs for low income people. We are on the ME border and they are seeing tremendous demand as well. With winter temps sometimes -20 for weeks in a row the furnace runs constantly. On our worst days, we use 3 gallons a day for a 1450 sf house. I don't know how they will have enough funds to cover the need. This is along with a 112% increase in electric rates.

This winter will be brutal. I wrote to our representatives in the spring and got ridiculous excuses, and well I suspect by Wednesday they may be looking for a new job LOL. Karma.

What in the world????

Unless you live on the top of Mount Washington there is no where in NH that has -20 degrees for weeks in a row!!!

 

[QueenIsabella]

What in the world????

Unless you live on the top of Mount Washington there is no where in NH that has -20 degrees for weeks in a row!!!

Not the OP, but when I lived in upstate NY (Saratoga County), we would have a week where it would get down to 20 below. At night, with a daily high of about 10. Then we moved to southwest New Hampshire, where we would have a week of about 5 below, and a high about 20. When we moved there, I commented, "The winters are so much milder here!", and people thought I was nuts. There was also a noticeable difference in the length of winter temps--in NY, I would try to hold off on starting the furnace until October 1, but could never do it. Spring didn't start until April, no matter what the calendar said.

Given that a lot of NH is the White Mountains, I can totally believe the OP has temps like that.

 

[MICKIMINI]

What in the world????

Unless you live on the top of Mount Washington there is no where in NH that has -20 degrees for weeks in a row!!!

You weren't here in December 2017!

Edit to mention: That is air temperature. Wind chill makes it feel worse...just sayin' LOL!

Just looked up oil usage for 2017-18: 480.7 (+14%)
2021-2022 411.5

 

[Colleen27]

I was thinking what a contrast in the 2 threads. Posters on this thread worrying that people won’t be able to heat their homes or feed their families within months. And posters on that thread planning several cruises or multiple trips around the country & world. Things must not be as bad as some would have us believe.

The DIS is a pretty affluent place on whole, though, and the middle is hollowing out. I'm on both threads but I doubt that other one is representative of any sort of overall whole. We've been lucky in a lot of different ways over the years and do a lot of traveling, but many of my kids' peers have never even left our state.

Right now we are fortunate that we haven't really had to cut down much. But (and this goes with the other thread about generations living together), my daughter lives with me, I take care of her and my youngest son also lives with us. Even though my daughter and I are on fixed incomes (her-disability, me-pension and ss), we are fortunate that we pay a small amount yearly for home tax. We are seeing a higher cost of electricity and will soon see our gas/heat bill jump. I do her food shopping and definitely see the increases in prices, especially eggs, butter. We have cut down the driving as gas prices are still over $5 a gallon here. What I don't understand is when did working at McD's, etc become a living wage to support a household? When I was growing up and into my 40's, it was extra income, teenagers, etc. The only people that it was a living wage for was the store manager. I worked at Jack in the Box as a teen, then McD's after married for extra income and as a vault manager for a retail store. Not one of those jobs was a living wage and I never expected it to be. If I wanted to rent an apartment and pay bills, I had to either get 2 jobs or look for something better.

It always was. The relatively prosperous period of it being "extra income" for teens and seniors was the anomaly. The historical record is really, really clear on the fact that minimum wage was meant to provide a basic living wage, not a floor for kids earning a few extra dollars to cover their video games and energy drinks. The rise of manufacturing and the growth of the post-war middle class obscured that for a time because of the abundance of steadier, better paying work, but there was never a time when the minimum wage wasn't supposed to be a living wage. And as manufacturing has become increasingly automated and offshored, low-wage service jobs are making up a bigger and bigger share of the total employment market. It is hard to quantify the number of such jobs right now because the feds only keep stats based on the federal minimum wage and most of the more populous states have imposed higher state minimums, but 1 in every 3 American workers made less than $15 as of 2021. It is disingenuous to suggest that a full third of the workforce be made up of teens, seniors, and others who don't need a self-sustaining income.

 

[DCLMP]

The DIS is a pretty affluent place on whole, though, and the middle is hollowing out. I'm on both threads but I doubt that other one is representative of any sort of overall whole. We've been lucky in a lot of different ways over the years and do a lot of traveling, but many of my kids' peers have never even left our state.



It always was. The relatively prosperous period of it being "extra income" for teens and seniors was the anomaly. The historical record is really, really clear on the fact that minimum wage was meant to provide a basic living wage, not a floor for kids earning a few extra dollars to cover their video games and energy drinks. The rise of manufacturing and the growth of the post-war middle class obscured that for a time because of the abundance of steadier, better paying work, but there was never a time when the minimum wage wasn't supposed to be a living wage. And as manufacturing has become increasingly automated and offshored, low-wage service jobs are making up a bigger and bigger share of the total employment market. It is hard to quantify the number of such jobs right now because the feds only keep stats based on the federal minimum wage and most of the more populous states have imposed higher state minimums, but 1 in every 3 American workers made less than $15 as of 2021. It is disingenuous to suggest that a full third of the workforce be made up of teens, seniors, and others who don't need a self-sustaining income.

We could not not afford to buy or rent the house that we live in . A livable wage at fast food places would mean 15 dollar Big Macs. I figure you would need to make at least 45k a year to rent a one bedroom in my city. The average household income in my city is 85k. How much are people willing to pay for Chick fila sandwhich or a chipotle burrito? Prices have already reached the breaking point for me. The four of us to eat at chick fila was 50.00. Can I afford it yes is it worth it no. Like I said we rarely eat out anymore. I feel it’s a waste of money.
If the prices keep going up more and more people will feel the same.

 

[Southernmiss]

The cost of food made by fast food workers is not set by the workers, but by those, the corporations, making record profits off that food.

As a society, we need to rearrange our thinking of who to blame. It's not the common person.

 

[fortwildernessishome]

You weren't here in December 2017!

Edit to mention: That is air temperature. Wind chill makes it feel worse...just sayin' LOL!

Just looked up oil usage for 2017-18: 480.7 (+14%)
2021-2022 411.5

I've lived in NH since 1967! We do not have temperatures of "-20 for weeks in a row".

I just googled your memorable Dec 2017. We did get to -9, but that wasnt even for "weeks in a row".

The average for that month was 23 degrees.

 

[fortwildernessishome]

Not the OP, but when I lived in upstate NY (Saratoga County), we would have a week where it would get down to 20 below. At night, with a daily high of about 10. Then we moved to southwest New Hampshire, where we would have a week of about 5 below, and a high about 20. When we moved there, I commented, "The winters are so much milder here!", and people thought I was nuts. There was also a noticeable difference in the length of winter temps--in NY, I would try to hold off on starting the furnace until October 1, but could never do it. Spring didn't start until April, no matter what the calendar said.

Given that a lot of NH is the White Mountains, I can totally believe the OP has temps like that.

I totally agree that NH winters can be VERY cold! And I agree that the white mountains can be VERY cold.

But, we still do not have "weeks of -20 below".

And the reason I responded to the OP was because they made it sound like this so called "weeks of -20" was a routine thing for NH. Its not. Unless, like I said in my first post we are talking about Mount Washington. But, since everyday folk arent living up there heating their houses, which is what she was talking about, then the fact that Mount Wshington gets that cold is moot.

 

[DCLMP]

The cost of food made by fast food workers is not set by the workers, but by those, the corporations, making record profits off that food.

As a society, we need to rearrange our thinking of who to blame. It's not the common person.

There so much wrong with that theory I wouldn’t know where to begin. who’s blaming anybody?

 

[NotUrsula]

Let's remember something else about fast food workers: usually only managers are working full-time. IME the business strategy depends on gaming the hours just carefully enough to be able to claim all line workers are part-time and thus not eligible for benefits.

So, no days off with pay except maybe Christmas, no health insurance, no dental insurance, no life insurance, no 401K. Anyone not fortunate to be living rent-free somewhere is always living just inches from falling into crushing debt.

Most people I have known who depend on these types of jobs to support families (or even pay full rent & utilities for their own residence) try to have two such jobs. I used to work with kids whose families commonly lived like this; it was not unusual for a parent to work one fast-food job, get off shift, change in the bathroom, then walk across the street to their other fast food job, so that they managed to string together a bit more than 40/hrs a week, but without the benefits that normally would come with that. They could not afford to miss a single shift to come to talk about their kids, because they could get fired for that. Maybe someone might think they were teenagers, but it was more common for them to be in their early-mid 20s with school-aged kids.

 

[DCLMP]

Let's remember something else about fast food workers: usually only managers are working full-time. IME the business strategy depends on gaming the hours just carefully enough to be able to claim all line workers are part-time and thus not eligible for benefits.

So, no days off with pay except maybe Christmas, no health insurance, no dental insurance, no life insurance, no 401K. Anyone not fortunate to be living rent-free somewhere is always living just inches from falling into crushing debt.

Most people I have known who depend on these types of jobs to support families (or even pay full rent & utilities for their own residence) try to have two such jobs. I used to work with kids whose families commonly lived like this; it was not unusual for a parent to work one fast-food job, get off shift, change in the bathroom, then walk across the street to their other fast food job, so that they managed to string together a bit more than 40/hrs a week, but without the benefits that normally would come with that. They could not afford to miss a single shift to come to talk about their kids, because they could get fired for that. Maybe someone might think they were teenagers, but it was more common for them to be in their early-mid 20s with school-aged kids.

Life isn't fair and having kids that young has consequences. That is no justification for someone flipping burgers to make as much as someone with a college degree. A lot of professions require working holidays. My dh and I both work holidays. All the big corporate chains pay overtime on holidays, and offer paid time off, and some offer college reimbursement. My son interviewed at a few of them this Summer. If you work in fast food your whole life your going to struggle... that is reality. There's plenty of opportunity in this country to have a better career.

 

[fla4fun]

I just saw this today on a news article although it went into effect on the 2nd

"Like everything else, Thanksgiving is getting more expensive. Market research firm IRI predicts this year’s meal could be about 13.5% more costly than last year.

So far, using sales, I have been able to keep my thanksgiving costs about the same as last year. The one item that will be expensive for me this year is the turkey. It could cost twice as much. Target put them on sale today, for twenty cents a pound more than the sale last year, but they must have had very low stock, as I was at one store when they opened and then went to two others because they were all gone. A full price bird will be twice what I paid last year, if I can’t get my hands on a sale, but the gas it takes to drive to stores that are ten, twenty, or more miles away, over multiple days, starts to wipe out the savings after a while. I tried to do an online pick up order, but it said not available for online order, probably due to the small quantity available.

 

[NotUrsula]

Life isn't fair and having kids that young has consequences. That is no justification for someone flipping burgers to make as much as someone with a college degree. A lot of professions require working holidays. My dh and I both work holidays. All the big corporate chains pay overtime on holidays, and offer paid time off, and some offer college reimbursement. My son interviewed at a few of them this Summer. If you work in fast food your whole life your going to struggle... that is reality. There's plenty of opportunity in this country to have a better career.

Um, I never said ANYTHING about a fast-food worker making the same amount as someone with a college degree; I was simply pointing out that there are indeed people who have to support families on that pay. It isn't that they are working on holidays -- yes, many career people do that, too; it's that they don't get any other time off instead. Juggling two PT jobs to cobble together a full-time income is just much harder than working a straight 40 on a set schedule. For one thing, it's much harder to manage to find time to take classes or go to job interviews.

Also, yes, there are consequences to having children young, but I don't think that (non-criminal) mistakes someone makes in their teens should be cause for those of us who were more fortunate in our choices to just say that then they (and their children, too) deserve to stay in the trough created by that mistake for the rest of their lives, and too bad. Depending on where they live, fast food or convenience stores may be the only game in town for someone who cannot afford to keep a car.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We did a $1.25 store run today and got campbell's turkey gravy, bruce's yams, bumblebee white chunk tuna, and a bunch of other pantry staples. Saved at least $30. I've never seen so many name brands at the same time. It may just be regional. The pantry and freezer are full for the winter.

DH found a rotisserie seasoned chicken breast at the supermarket today which was a ton of meat for $8.99. We leave for FL on Saturday, so I have plenty to round out the week without much cooking. Our local market basket doesn't offer them often, but it is the best (and easiest) value IMO.

Save on!

 

[DCLMP]

Um, I never said ANYTHING about a fast-food worker making the same amount as someone with a college degree; I was simply pointing out that there are indeed people who have to support families on that pay. It isn't that they are working on holidays -- yes, many career people do that, too; it's that they don't get any other time off instead. Juggling two PT jobs to cobble together a full-time income is just much harder than working a straight 40 on a set schedule. For one thing, it's much harder to manage to find time to take classes or go to job interviews.

Also, yes, there are consequences to having children young, but I don't think that (non-criminal) mistakes someone makes in their teens should be cause for those of us who were more fortunate in our choices to just say that then they (and their children, too) deserve to stay in the trough created by that mistake for the rest of their lives, and too bad. Depending on where they live, fast food or convenience stores may be the only game in town for someone who cannot afford to keep a car.

Lots of teen moms go on to have successful careers. Nothing is really impossible in this country if you work hard enough.
I’m sure there are people that support families on those jobs, but raising the minimum wage isn’t the answer.
We really need more vocational and trade schools. There is going to be a real shortage of men and women that can fix anything or do anything mechanical. It took me two months to find someone to install a new pool pump and then they charged us 1000 dollars(just for labor)for 6 hours of work. The person we finally got was a 26 year old pregnant women with two kids.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Lots of teen moms go on to have successful careers. Nothing is really impossible in this country if you work hard enough.
I’m sure there are people that support families on those jobs, but raising the minimum wage isn’t the answer.
We really need more vocational and trade schools. There is going to be a real shortage of men and women that can fix anything or do anything mechanical. It took me two months to find someone to install a new pool pump and then they charged us 1000 dollars(just for labor)for 6 hours of work. The person we finally got was a 26 year old pregnant women with two kids.

This.

I happen to have 3 kids in entry-level jobs right now. The younger two are both baristas (different coffee chains), while DS25 works for Fed Ex. With tips, the baristas are pulling down at least $20/hr--not bad for 16 and 19. The Starbucks worker has benefits--I think they start at a 20-hour work week. She doesn't need the health benefits, but utilizes the Roth 401k (with company match).

Meanwhile, the Fedex kid is sort-of full-time (~30 hours a week, it varies), and also has benefits. They want him to work more hours. He's autistic and has anxiety and depression, so it's a different circumstance, but the point is, his employers love him--he's steady and dependable, even if he's not super fast. He also goes to college part time. Last semester, they let him leave early on class days. This semester, he's officially in a 10:30 class, but the professor teaches the same class at 9:30--if he gets out early, he can take the earlier class.

All three kids have asked for and gotten approval to take a week off at Christmas for a family vacation. They also all got the time off to go to Hawaii for 2 weeks, this past summer. Because they're good employees, their companies are all willing to work with them. In return, my kids volunteered to work as much as possible over Thanksgiving, and the Fedex kid will be going in super early to support the shipping rush in the weeks before Christmas.

My points are: (1) If you're a good worker, you shouldn't be making minimum wage for very long. (2) If you're a good worker, your company is likely to work with you on things like school schedules and time off. (3) These things are true, even for entry-level people. These are the first jobs for all three of my kids.

 

[Colleen27]

Life isn't fair and having kids that young has consequences. That is no justification for someone flipping burgers to make as much as someone with a college degree. A lot of professions require working holidays. My dh and I both work holidays. All the big corporate chains pay overtime on holidays, and offer paid time off, and some offer college reimbursement. My son interviewed at a few of them this Summer. If you work in fast food your whole life your going to struggle... that is reality. There's plenty of opportunity in this country to have a better career.

You're really focused on blaming lower-income and struggling workers not only for their own struggles but to some degree for everyone else's as well (since you seem to lay inflation squarely at the feet of wage growth without even acknowledging the role of record profits, skyrocketing executive compensation, etc), but the fact is even if every single person in our society did everything perfect, we'd still need about a third of the workforce in jobs like fast food, retail, etc. Because that's the economy we have, and because that's the economy we have, the people who keep it running - all of them, not just the ones who didn't have kids and went to college and stayed out of trouble - need a wage that can support a basic lifestyle. Not only is it morally right, it is more efficient economically because for millions, various taxpayer subsidies cover at least part of the gap between their earned wage and the actual cost of a bare-bones standard of living. When taxpayers shell out billions every year to help feed Walmart (just picking on them because of their size and universal recognition, plenty of others so the same) employees while they maintain low wages and post billions in annual profits, that's you and me subsidizing Walmart's shareholders.