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When I was a kid, penny candy was still a thing local stores carried.
It was usually just a single Atomic Fire Ball or rootbeer barrel or Swedish Fish or Bazooka Bubblegum, but for a quarter—plus a few pennies for sales tax—you could fill a little paper bag with 25 of your favorites. Even a nickel made you feel excited.
But such childhood moments aren’t something children now will probably ever experience.
Everything seems so expensive. People are cutting out more than just luxuries from their routine purchases.
Reddit user Sea_Substance_8037 asked:
"What everyday item has become so expensive that you've stopped buying it?"
Chips
"Bagged chips. 6$ for some f*cking Cheetos? No thank you."
~ dementedbrutality
"Doritos .. nope not anymore for that much either."
~ Flimsy_Situation_506
"I live in regional/almost rural Australia. Bagged chips have reached $10 AUD and the pack is only half-filled."
~ tahsii
Road Snacks
"The other day I was driving from Boston to NY for work and I found myself getting a bit sleepy. So I pulled into a gas station to grab a quick snack."
"Without thinking, I grabbed a bag of chips, a soda for the caffeine, and a chocolate bar. When I went to pay, the guy rang me up and told me I owed him $14."
"I was floored. I asked him how much each item was and it did in fact add up to around $14. I couldn't believe it."
"I recall being able to buy all of those things for under $5 not too long ago. I get that the gas station upcharges, but to that extent was insane."
~ orange_cuse
Soup
"Canned soup. It’s jumped to $2-3 per can. I wait for it to go on sale."
~ Administrative_Sell6
"$2-3? That's pretty much sale prices. It's $4.89 per can for Progresso here."
"For a single can of soup."
"My SO and I stood in the soup aisle staring at soup along with this other woman. She turned to us and was just like... 'when did soup get so expensive?'."
~ rustblooms
Fast Food
"McDonald's breakfast, which used to/should cost $5, is now more like $12."
~ lump77777
"Not to belabor the point but a Panera opened up in my town recently. I got two basic sandwiches, a side of soup and a side of Mac and cheese and it came to $42."
"I was absolutely flabbergasted. No drinks, no dessert, no like extra little fun thing."
"The sandwiches didn’t even have meat in them! One was a grilled cheese and the other was like mozzarella with tomatoes."
~ GoldenMonkey91
Cereal
"Cereal!"
~ Sensitive_Show_8868
"I literally only buy cereal that is on sale."
"There’s no way I’m paying $7-8 for that stuff."
~ Sufficient-Shallot-5
"In my state, the minimum wage is still $7.25. Less per hour after taxes."
"Can't even get a box of cereal for an hour's work."
~ Upset_Mess
Welp...
"The fact that literally every single comment seems to be 'food' is a really bad sign..."
~ rocknin
"What else is an everyday item you don't reuse?"
~ CommunityGlittering2
"Toilet paper. But I don't think anyone is—or is going to admit—eliminating that from their lives."
Ice Cream
"Ice cream—that sh*t used to be like $3.99, now it's $6.99."
"I don't need it anyway. I already weigh enough."
~ Intelligent_Profit88
"I remember when the regular price was $3.99/pint and even that felt extravagant."
"Now the sale price where I live is like $5.99."
~ Amelaclya1
Streaming
"Most streaming services. None of them are worth keeping continually."
"Maybe pop in to Netflix once every 6 months to catch up on a few good things then cancel again."
~ LoadingScreenWTF
Lunch Meat
"Let's just acknowledge how ridiculously expensive lunch meat is now. Used to, my family would buy lunch meat for road trips."
"That, with a bag of chips, we could make some sandwiches on the go, have chips and a drink. For 4 people it was much cheaper than eating out."
"NOW, OH HO HO. Deli meat is 6 bucks a pop now. Say you want Ham, Turkey, and Baloney, that's 18 bucks!"
"A loaf of bread? 3 bucks. A bag of chips is 6 bucks, and lets say we got 2. Now some drinks, lets say a 2L of Pepsi and 2L mtn dew, those are 3 bucks a pop too."
"39 dollars for a simple meal for 4, not considering condiments."
~ CSI_Gunner
Frozen Pizza
"Frozen pizza has gotten to the point where you might as well just order a real pizza."
~ xtra-chrisp
"Totino's party pizzas used to be $0.89 at one point in my life."
"On the weeks where money was tight, my family would buy 12 of them to stock the freezer for the week."
"They're almost $3 each now."
~ StoneWaffles
Restaurant Food
"Restaurant food. My wife and I are much better cooks these days."
~ ptraugot
"Same. Since beginning of pandemic, we rarely go out to eat. Unless it's something we are craving, we just cook at home."
"Interesting thing is that most restaurant foods now look mediocre, microwaved and bland. And here in the Bay Area, prices are up and they are charging crazy service fees."
~ vida-vida
"I was super busy last night and my wife was at work, so I thought it would be nice to order some food."
"I went on Uber eats and ordered 2 veggie sandwiches and 2 Cesar salads from a fast casual chain restaurant. The total would have been over $80."
"I just closed the app and realized I’m never going to be ordering food again."
~ HCxTC
Movies in a Theater
"Going to the movies. Where I'm at, a single ticket for an evening show is about $25."
"I'd rather wait until it comes out to own and spend the same amount."
"Best case scenario I like it and keep it, worst case scenario I'm out the same amount of money, but could potentially sell it and recoup some of the money."
~ Ducky-Tie
"Yeah, Hollywood seems baffled by low box office returns in 2023, but really, who is surprised that no one has money to spend $30+ just to get two people into a mediocre show?"
"Add popcorn and drinks and suddenly your evening out is rapidly approaching $75 for a movie."
"I don’t get how all these MBAs running movies studios don’t see this as a key reason so many movies aren’t making money in theaters."
~ bakerzdosen
Paper Towels
"I haven’t bought paper towels in about 3 years."
"There’s an eco friendly shop here that makes tons of different prints of reusable cloths."
"I wash them and roll them on a paper towel rod. Still going strong with the first set I bought 3 years ago."
~ blondechcky
"We bought a ton of small cloths and just use those now. We have paper towels, but a roll will last a couple of months.
"I am really not cheap, and we make decent money. But damn if some stuff has not become insane."
~ Caspers_Shadow
Red Meat
"Ribeye. I used to grill a ribeye almost every Friday , nice way to punctuate the week."
"I haven’t done it in a long time. Way too expensive."
~ sergiodurante
"Yeah I used to get cheap red meat and I used to make things and now it's so expensive."
~ goodsam2
"Recently I went to the grocery to buy a steak for a treat after a tough week .... and I went home with tofu."
~ barebonesbarbie
"Once in a blue moon I'll still pick up some chuck meat, but it's like $20 for a f*cking steak these days."
~ xain_the_idiot
Hair Cuts
"At the start of the pandemic I bought a haircut kit. I slowly got good at cutting my own hair."
"Now I trim it more often than when I went to the stylist My basic cut before the pandemic was $20 with tax, I don't want to know what it is now."
~ JanuarySoCold
"This is true for my wife and I as well. I'm a bald man with a horseshoe top that just gets a size one clipper all the way around."
"It takes maybe 3-4 minutes. I am absolutely not paying $20+tip for someone to just straighten my neckline. I went to a proper barber a while back for the experience and it was close to $50 after tip."
"The guy must've felt bad that the haircut went so fast because he trimmed my neckline with a straightedge razor and didn't charge me for the upgrade."
"On the other side of it, my wife is usually pretty thrifty but has had the same hairstylist for nearly 15 years and has started to put more time between appointments because the woman's rates have increased so much."
"I don't know how much because my wife tells me not to look at the bill and I honor her wishes."
~ 4dam
Ketchup
"I had just bought an air fryer (a glorified toaster oven with a fan) and wanted to make some french fries to go with a nice homemade burger."
"I was OK with a pound of (chuck) burger meat costing $6 and even $4-5 for the fancy brioche buns and another $4 for some cheese slices, the french fries were $4 so I'm around 20 bucks invested to make a few burgers and that's OK."
"Oh, I need ketchup."
"And here was the shock. The small 14 ounce bottle was 5 bucks, the next size up was $7 and—so help me—there was a bottle on the shelf with a price label of 12 dollars. Sure, it was the 40 ounce size, but for $12 it better have been on the vine a few days/weeks ago."
"I ended up raiding the deli counter for ketchup, mayo and relish packets."
~ way2funni
While the OP asked about everyday items, it seems food was foremost on everyone's mind.
So what items have you given up?