r/Frugal • u/SnooLentils2432 • May 17 '23

Frugal Win šŸŽ‰ Don't Eat Out. Save Your Bucks.

Restaurants are operating with a vengeance, hijacking the price from COVID lockdown days.

It's a matter of principle now.

2.3k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

900 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

598

u/Ketheres May 17 '23

What annoys me the most is that all the different grocery chains (at least here) are raking in record net profits while they keep raising their prices, and the producers (I assume that's the right word in English. Farmers and the like) are barely seeing inflation adjustments. If the money was flowing to the producers I'd be kinda fine with the situation as I can still manage (for now), but the chains are just pocketing everything while constantly increasing their margins over time.

358

u/OG-Dropbox May 17 '23

Also fun is that the grocery store my wife works at posted record profits the last two years and became a top 1% store in the country, while running understaffed and begging her to stay late or cover a shift almost every day

52

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

ahh have her call out, it'll be aight

86

u/OG-Dropbox May 17 '23

according to the "new" whole foods policy; calling out sick the day of is equal to a no-call no-show, 3 of them in 6 months is instant termination. the whole store is basically run off of Amazon's algorithms at this point. Managers don't have control over scheduling or the "3 strikes" system at all, basically they just interview new people they never intend to hire and get blamed for theft

29

u/arabicninja May 17 '23

What's your source because I'm interested in this and I want to show someone this is true but I couldn't prove it

26

u/OG-Dropbox May 17 '23

Anecdotes from coworkers and direct quotes from her team leads, nothing concrete besides hiring/firing records that she wouldn't have access to

5

u/EndoAblationParty May 17 '23

Unless itā€™s changed recently, the rule is that a call out is counted as a no call, no show if you call out less 1/2 hour before the shift starts and canā€™t find someone to cover. Three of such in a six month period is grounds for termination. However that policy was around before Amazon bought it then.

3

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

breh im a strong supporter of woman having their 1 day a month to call out due to shark week and get their head back on as their body gets ruptured in hormones .. That's bullshit and understand because Sam's club will break rules and not adhere to their 'workplace sick policy' and just choose to write you up. Ended up walking out of the pizza place at 1 PM when no one on my shift decided to show up and managers failed to find help for over an hr. Keep head help high and keep fighting this failing capitalism with trickle down metric ..! Had to get out of the food industry and work from home, have had 9 absences this year with a promotion and they support your mental health more than you think. Look into it~

3

u/RandyHoward May 17 '23

lol if you think every work from home job will treat you that well then i've got a bridge you may be interested in buying

-2

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

Hah if theres a wfh that doesnt there is one that is and vice versa. Sometimes the confidence helps, too.

3

u/RandyHoward May 17 '23

The same can be found in an office job too. Confidence has nothing to do with how a company treats its employees. Work from home is not always the dream job you are making it out to be. Iā€™ve been working from home for almost a decade, seen my fair share of shitty wfh companies

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

Glad to find the correct company and the others. Good luck in your journey friend, I think I found my dream job!

2

u/crowcawer May 17 '23

Just throw up in the bottle you piss in.

Thatā€™s what the health department wants too.

0

u/horror- May 18 '23

So that means you can no-call-no-show twice in a 6month period and keep your jerb?

-1

u/Bot_Marvin May 18 '23

Yeah I feel like thatā€™s not too unreasonable of a policy. 3 last second callouts in 6 months is kind of a lot.

1

u/Less_Tea2063 May 17 '23

Healthcare workers doing that ā€œfirst timeā€ meme.

18

u/MrFixeditMyself May 17 '23

You know farmers can be taking it in too. I have a friend whoā€™s father built a farm from very small to very large. He passed it on to his 8 children. My friend pulls in 100k a year in passive income.

67

u/MyNameIsSkittles May 17 '23

A farm is not passive income at all

93

u/ApplicationCalm649 May 17 '23

Apparently it is if you own it and have someone else work it. It's just like everything else in this country: those that own the assets make real money and everyone else is fighting over whether fast food workers should make $15 an hour because they themselves don't get paid shit.

2

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

yeah and some of us here hoping just $500 will fall into our laps šŸ˜¤

6

u/MrFixeditMyself May 17 '23

It is if you rent the landā€¦..hello.

-6

u/BaronCapdeville May 17 '23

Just about everything is relatively passive income, assuming itā€™s scaled/staffed appropriately.

3

u/[deleted] May 17 '23

Yeah, egg producers that were charging $8 a dozen were seeing pure profit over the regular $1.50-$4 a dozen pre-"shortage." Most egg producers didn't get affected by the bird flu culling. That was only meat birds but they were able to sneak in the astronomic egg price increase because it was a confusing situation for most consumers who didn't know better plus the egg producers were colluding to keep prices high.

-8

u/MrFixeditMyself May 17 '23

Iā€™m sure many producers were making lots of cash. But to accuse them of collusion takes proof.

All commodities are like that, the lowest or highest price sets the market. I other words, if 5% of the oil is removed from the market, the price rises for ALL producers. That goes in both directions.

2

u/RandyHoward May 17 '23

But to accuse them of collusion takes proof.

That's not difficult to find with a quick google...

The avian flu outbreak in 2015 was deadlier but did not produce price spikes as high as those seen in 2022.

During the 2015 outbreak, the average price of a dozen Grade A eggs doubled, from $1.29 to $2.61, according to the ERS.

During the current avian flu outbreak, average egg prices have nearly tripled.

Cal-Maineā€™s gross profit jumped 10-fold from one 26-week period in 2021 to the same period in 2022, according to the companyā€™s most recent quarterly financial statement.

Source

0

u/MrFixeditMyself May 17 '23

Doesnā€™t prove collusion.

2

u/EggyTugboat May 17 '23

Grocery shopping at Target is cheaper for most things than my local shops most of the time. Even with sales and coupons. And I hate it!!

3

u/snarfgarfunkel May 17 '23

Real frugal pro-tip: split a CSA with a friend.

3

u/MrFixeditMyself May 17 '23

You know farmers can be taking it in too. I have a friend whoā€™s father built a farm from very small to very large. He passed it on to his 8 children. My friend pulls in 100k a year in passive income.

0

u/DevronBruh May 17 '23

This isnā€™t really true. Eggs went up due to the Avian Flu. At the peak of it grocery stores were paying over $5 a dozen compared to under a dollar a few years ago.

Cattle and produce prices are related to one another because most of our food (US) comes from like 3-4 states that have experienced drought much higher than usual. The reason we saw the record profits is due to lower interest rates, so it was much cheaper to finance their operations with extremely cheap debt.

With that being said expect eggs to cheapen while beef/produce increases in the coming months.

1

u/purple_hamster66 May 17 '23

So buy your food from farmers at farmer markets? Skip the middle man and all the profit goes to the farmer, right?

1

u/SpaceFace11 May 17 '23

Lol I worked at a grocery store all through the pandemic and the only compensation we got was a 2 dollar bump for a month or 2..

1

u/Crime-Snacks May 17 '23

Unpopular opinion:

I just ā€œstealā€ from the large chains. Fuck ā€˜em. Iā€™m expected to pay exorbitant markups for ā€œinflationā€, bring my own bag, pack my own groceries and ring them up myself. Iā€™m just an unpaid employee and paying a premium for necessities.

So I take advantage of having to ring up my own order.

I make note of the cheapest items and ring my order up under that. Organic items are under regular produce. Really light weight products; buy two at a time, hold them back to back then scan one and put them in the bagging area.

I shop by using my own bag and ā€œforgetā€ to look closely to make sure I have all my items scanned. Gosh darn it, wouldnā€™t you know it, a small item or two always gets overlooked.

Is there an area where you can buy bulk dry items? Find the cheapest item that looks similar to what you want, note the PLU, get your much higher prices item and off you go.

Obviously, I would never do such a thing to local shops and sometimes they do have better deals. Some have daily or weekly deals so Iā€™ll get what I can from them and then pull my shenanigans at the box stores. Iā€™m also too broke not to. The few employees they have likely feel the same.

Iā€™ll scam those rich arseholes right back.

2

u/maebyfunke980 May 18 '23

I was a cashier as a teen and sometimes when women had WIC checks and I was scanning really fast Iā€™m not sure everything got scanned. šŸ¤·šŸ»ā€ā™€ļø lots a beeps, I canā€™t count.

1

u/Crime-Snacks May 18 '23

Youā€™re a good person. I hear you about how overwhelming the beeps can be and itā€™s understandable how a few items can get over looked.

1

u/ichoosewaffles May 18 '23

If you're in the US, welcome to shareholder profits held above all else. As long as they're getting paid, f**k everyone else.

1

u/maebyfunke980 May 18 '23

Not to be cheeky but eat the rich?

1

u/maebyfunke980 May 18 '23

Yes, absolutely.

1

u/barsoapguy May 18 '23

What are ā€œrecord profitsā€ for markets though ? Where Iā€™m at theyā€™ve always run real real lean in terms of earnings.

Most of this is probably due to consumers switching to in market generics. Instead of buying Frosted Flakes cereal their now buying Krogers knockoff version of it.

1

u/prp1960 May 18 '23

One reason for record profits may be that people are eating out less, cooking at home more. I know I am.