If your toilet paper disintegrates after one use or your paper towels shrivel up after one swipe when cleaning a mess, it could be a sign that inflation has hit your household. Nothing is worse than when you need to clean up your business or a spill, but your resources to do so are subpar.
If you're one of the unfortunate people to have thin toilet paper or paper towels, then you may have to invest in some higher-grade products. When inflation hits, reliable items become mediocre, and you have to start buying more expensive products to compensate for the lack of quality. Or you can be stubborn and work with what you have.
It’s no surprise to find that half or more of the contents in a chip bag are just air. Before inflation, this was already a problem, and now that it’s apparent more than ever, the issue continues to worsen. Since it was already a trend among chip bags to see half of the bag empty, you may not realize there are fewer chips in the bag than usual.
Well, I’m here to warn you about this subtle change. Next time you open a Lays chip bag, put on your detective eye and see if you can spot a difference in the amount. It may be only a bit fewer chips than usual, but even one is too much.
Warranties aim to provide a safety net for customers. It’s to ensure the product will be free from issues and perform as expected for a particular amount of time. It also gives customers remedies, such as repairs and refunds. If they seemed short before, that’s nothing compared to inflation's effects on goods and services.
With inflation, products lose their value, which in turn shortens their warranties. When you buy products that have unrealistic short warranties, you technically don’t get your money's worth. If the item has defects in any way, the warranty will probably already be over, and you can’t get a refund or repair.
On days when you get home from work or have a long day of errands, you usually don’t have the energy to cook. That’s when packaged foods come in handy and are time-efficient. Except on one such night, you open a meal and are hit with a change in taste. The change isn’t a good one either; it’s bland and has an obvious chemical taste, likely due to the new recipe.
If you haven’t noticed yet, inflation is the perpetrator here. I couldn’t wholeheartedly tell you exactly why inflation affects packaged meals. But I imagine it’s because it makes goods and services less valuable, so the former ingredients for the meals have to be altered in order to compensate for the higher prices. The alteration involves cheaper ingredients, and the words "cheap" and "food" don’t usually go well together.
Free perks are one of the great things in life. Your mood can be drastically boosted by receiving a notification that you get a free item with a purchase, or earning a significant number of points to use toward buying a product. I hate to dampen the mood, but inflation is likely already impacting these perks.
If you’ve wondered why you haven’t been seeing the usual amount of free perks, that’s because inflation has hit another good quality of life. When prices go up, companies may not be able to keep up with the absurd prices, so free perks start to become a rarity.
Credit cards can be both good and bad. You have leeway to buy stuff if you’re in need of making a purchase, and you can get decent benefits depending on which one you applied for. They can also keep you at a steady credit score. However, they can make your spending habits irrational, and it can become more expensive than you think.
Inflation will make all the negative aspects of credit cards 10 times worse. It will create higher minimums, encouraging people to spend more money on credit cards. With this also come higher payment minimums, meaning the more you use the card, the more money the card company expects you to pay off your balance monthly.
Loyalty programs are great – customers receive perks from businesses when purchasing their items. You may get discounts, points, and exclusive rewards for being a loyal customer. Inflation, however, is rather disloyal and seeks to reduce these programs.
If you’ve realized your loyalty program has gotten shorter or recently started one and wondered why it was so short, inflation is probably the reason. It really has no bounds to what it can negatively impact. Although these higher prices may be eroding loyalty programs, it’s still possible to earn some benefits from them. All it takes is savvy knowledge on navigating around inflation and beating it to the curb.
Sometimes we go out expecting to indulge in a delicious dinner and finish with a delectable sweet treat, or go evening shopping, only to find out most stores are already closed. Why are businesses expecting people to be finished with their day by 4 or 5 pm? Some people don’t get off work until then.
With inflation continuously rising, stores can’t keep up with this high-maintenance demand. Perhaps stores are closing earlier because the longer they’re open, the higher their bills become. If you continue to see this trend of early closing, you have inflation to thank!
It’s no surprise that inflation will make goods less effective and reliable. What once was strong, long-lasting clothing, becomes weak and frail. Companies and workers can’t always keep up with the outrageous prices inflation creates, so they have to compromise. As a result, less durable clothing is produced.
No one wants to work a minimum wage job that pays not nearly enough to compensate for the high prices of inflation. Don’t blame the people, blame inflation and those responsible for it! It’s not ideal, but it could work for warmer climates. Thin material will give more breathing room. You’ll just have to layer for the cold.
Three words we never want to see. Candy is another one of life’s greatest inventions. We have a holiday where it takes precedence over any other food, snack, or treat. However, it seems inflation won’t let us have anything good or fun. Candy bars may already be evidently smaller, or we’ll start to see this trend soon.
Truly, it is for the best; less sugar and fewer contents of delicious junk food. But what about when you want to indulge every now and then? You don’t want a small candy bar, but an average, adequately sized one. I guess candy bar companies can’t keep up with inflation.
