Well hello, it's Tuesday. I always like Tuesdays. I don't know why. I just always enjoy Tuesdays.
Hi everybody. You're listening to the Daily Grateful. My name is Michael Gross, and I want to talk about inflation. I was reading an article on that internet thing.
You know, that thing that's on your computer and on your phone. And I remember when we didn't have an internet. And we all survived quite well. But now that there's this internet, kind of runs everything.
It just sort of does. But anyway, anywho, as they say, I read an article on that internet thing about how much more it costs to go to the grocery store. And one woman who orders her groceries online and keeps receipts because they do that for you. They don't have internet.
They keep your receipts. You can go back and check. She determined that it was 27% higher for the exact same products that she bought then. She went and found a shopping list of stuff that she bought on this date in 2020 before the big bad thing happened.
And we all shut down. And she took that. And then she went to Walmart.com where she does her shopping. And she priced every one of those things now.
And just those things, nothing else. And then she did a little bit of math. And it was 27% higher. And I said, wow, that's a lot.
So I said, OK, you know what? I want to try that myself. I went back into the internet. And I found a grocery receipt from right when the pandemic started.
It wasn't before the pandemic. It was right when the pandemic started. And I pulled that up. And I wrote down on my little yellow pad, everything that I bought.
And then I went on Walmart.com. And I said, what's this cost? What's this cost? Everything, you know, it's a lot of stuff I would not buy now.
But stuff I was buying. Then I just want to see. Did everything. And I think there was like 19 things on my list or something like that.
And then I ran the numbers. I knew how much I paid for everything right after the pandemic started. And so I then added it all up of what it was going to cost now. And I didn't come up with 27%.
No. I came up with 33%. If I did the math right. And I don't know how to do spreadsheets.
But we should did. I don't know how to do spreadsheets. But sat there with the calculator in the yellow pad and figured it all out. And that's where I came up.
That's a lot. You know, that's a lot. I can give you an example. Diet Coke.
I used to buy it in a 16 ounce bottle. You get a six pack. And just prior to the pandemic, it was $2.75 for a six pack. These things are like $4.90 now.
That's a lot. And then so when I saw those prices rising, I switched to the Walmart brand, two liter bottles, which at the time were $0.96. Now they're $1.42. Whoa.
And I don't even want to get into bread. And I don't even want to get into, you know, peanut butter. I have had to stop buying Jiff and start buying Peter Pan. Because Peter Pan's a little less, oh, just enough, enough, enough, enough.
And since I do a show called The Daily Grateful, what's to be grateful for with all this inflation? And by the way, I was watching TV and they said, inflation is heading down. Well, you know, tell that to Walmart. All right, just tell that to Publix.
Tell that Amazon. But anyway, I went on something called Bard, which is one of those, those, you know, artificial intelligence sites. And I said, give me five reasons to be grateful when living with high inflation. That's what I did.
I just wanted to say. All right, so here are the ideas of five reasons. I'll comment on them. You have the opportunity to negotiate a higher salary.
Well, that's wonderful. Which will drive up the price of everything that you work for. Yeah. When cost of living as rising employers are more likely and willing to give salary races.
Well, yeah, I guess they should, but that's not helping. Okay, it's helping you temporarily, but it's not helping. Your debt may become easier to pay off. What?
How's that even happening? It says, when inflation is high, the value of money decreases, which means that your debt will become less valuable over time. I don't even know what the hell that means, but golly, I'm grateful for it. All right.
Your savings may grow in value. Oh, really? Tell me how that's going to work. What does it say?
If you have money invested in assets that appreciate and value during inflation, such as real estate or stocks, your savings may actually grow in value over time. Investments grow in value over time all the time. All right. What the hell's that mean?
You may be able to find new ways to save money. You damn sure better find new ways to save money. Holy cow. I mean, I went from using buying regular diet coke to buying generic diet coke and, you know, and that went up almost 50%.
You may be able to find ways to save money. Yeah, you're going to have to. You have no choice. You have to give up stuff.
You have the stuff that you used to buy. You have to give up and go to stuff that you don't like as much. Oh, isn't that wonderful? I'm grateful for that.
Are you grateful for that? I'm grateful for that. You may appreciate the things that you have more. Okay.
When things are more expensive, we tend to appreciate them more. No, I don't. This can lead to a greater sense of gratitude for the things that we have and a more mindful approach to spending. Says who?
All right. This is a daily grateful. And even with all of this, which I'm going to call BS, that was created by Bard, should I put the same thing? Should I stick the same question into chat TPT?
Well, stick with me here for a second. Hang on. I'm going to do just that. See if they have anything enlightening.
Okay. So I went into chat TPT and I asked the same question. Here's what they say, which is basically the same thing. Increased income potential.
Yeah. Means higher wages, which again, doesn't help things. I mean, it feels good for me. It does.
I mean, you know, don't we all want to make more money? Asset appreciation, certain assets like real estate and stocks and commodities can appreciate. That's nice. Okay.
I'll go with that debt erosion. I have one of those. Inflation can erode the real value of your asset. As time passes, you may find it easier to pay off these debts with the money that's worth less than the real term in real terms.
Didn't understand that. Okay. Investment opportunities, high inflation can create investment opportunities in sectors where assets tend to perform well during inflationary periods. Yeah.
Okay. Hey, ordinary Americans, I hope that helped. Financial discipline. Yeah.
Living with high inflation can encourage financial discipline. Yes, it does. Okay. If there's anything to be grateful for in this whole mess of stuff, if there's anything to be grateful for, it's the fact that we have learned how to discipline ourselves with our spending.
We have learned how to make, you know, more with less or as my mom used to say, stretch that dollar. She used to say that. I remember that in the 50s. We're going to stretch that dollar.
Whatever the hell that meant. But yeah, that's what it meant. Means you're going to be disciplined with the money that you have and you're going to make it work because if I have one philosophy in life, it is this. I'm going to make it work.
I'm grateful I have that philosophy. I'm grateful that we have the ability to get through this and we will get through this because we always do. See you tomorrow.