Streaming services of any kind. I've got a jellyfin server now that has everything I need.

It was fine when they were $5 a month, but this $20 a month bullshit is insane. And what do you mean I can't share one account with the family if we're not on the same network, get real.

PC parts

Soda. Wtf are they even thinking at this point. Hell, I ran into a Dollar General to get carbonated water the other day and the only product they had was $9. For carbonated. Water. GTFO

Beef, almost completely.

Pizza. Getting pizza for the family shouldn't cost over $70. Hell, eating out and fast food are exorbitantly expensive.

Raspberry PIs.

I stopped smoking thirty years ago partly because cigarettes were $7 a pack and that’s just ridiculous. Now the same size pack is over $50 (Australia)

Honestly as much as possible I have just checked out of consumerism.

Hard drives. I have a movie hobby and that takes a lot of storage and well, storage now is 3-5 times more expensive than not two years ago and I can't afford it anymore.

But on the flip side, people can now finally nudify my daughter, so that is totally worth it!

Fuck everything about AI.

RAM and storage for computers.

Not only has shit gotten expensive, I got laid off from a good paying job and could only land a middling salary. I used to buy more varied food. I'd order delivery when I had guests over. I'd buy seltzer.

No more. Fuck em. If they don't want to pay me I'll keep my spend to a minimum.

Fast food is hilariously overpriced. You pay about as much for a sit down meal at a restaurant for some crappy burgers. I remember the days when they had a true dollar menu. Now they just call it a "value menu" or whatever.

Used to be able to get two double cheeseburgers for $2 at burger king. Add fries and a drink and you were sitting at about $8 after tax. That same order today will run you about $19 before taxes. I'm not even that old, this all happened within the last two decades or so - prices literally more than doubling and all the while the quality getting worse and portion size getting smaller and smaller.

It's probably better for my health that I can't stomach the idea of paying that much for greasy unhealthy food, so it's an occasional treat to let me have that nostalgic taste.

E V E R Y T H I N G

McDonalds. It used to at least be cheap. Now it's both expensive and still tastes bad.

McDonald's. It used to be cheap.

Any streaming service.

It's not even about the money specifically, if that's what it actually cost or if it was going to a good place. It's the greed of constantly trying to find that line on how hard they can squeeze and at what price point people will keep taking it.

I have a small garden for a hobby and mental health. I spent $30 on 2 bags of fucking DIRT yesterday. What am I doing? Dirt was $30!?!? I guess I can't even afford dirt anymore. 😭

everything but the basic food for survival.

Private islands. I started buying them and discovered I couldn't even afford the first one, so I stopped immediately.

No more streaming subscriptions. No more chocolates. No more alcohol. No more decorations.

No dining out unless it's an occasion. We meal-prep regularly.

I don't drive anymore. Only public transportation or car-pooling.

Exercising more often so my body remains the same physique (less need for new clothes)

The main thing I've stopped buying is the lies.

PC upgrades.

Vehicles.

Most days my ride is a bike and when I do drive it's in a manual that's almost old enough to get a driver's license itself.

It's been more than 10 years it feels like since you could just buy a raspberry pi for a little side project.

Now you better have a good use for it, since it's a good chunk of money.

Red meat steak.

It's over 20 bucks a piece now. It's ridiculous.

DNC excuses.

PC upgrades of course, but also I refuse to pay for a coffee out these days. Sometimes I do it if I'm with someone but never alone. It's very expensive.

Also burgers out, I never buy them, but also because they are not very good and the price is ridiculous. Last time I checked, Burger King double whopper menu was 14 dollars in my country. Probably more expensive now.

I've not stopped but heavily worked to cut fast food out of my daily meal plan. The cost of most burgers out there I can buy buns, ingredients, and meat to cook myself to how I like it. It'll be juicier, thicker, and tastier as well.

Name brand potato chips. Doritos over $5 a bag is insane. They were 2 for 5 just a few years ago.

Raspberry pi, Gpus, new components

And I was one of the crazy ones and still could dispose money on this. I just choose not to pay ridiculous amounts. Let's see where that gets em when the bubble is over.

(I know... Wishful thinking)

Chocolate.

Also PC upgrades and streaming services.

A pet. My dog died a few years ago. I'd love to get another, maybe adopt, but I couldn't afford the healthcare now. It got pretty expensive towards the end of her life and I just couldn't do that now. I also can't afford the time that a dog deserves - I'm working more overtime and still feel like I have less money.

Practically everything. My phone, garbage, insurance, food, gas, electric, internet, cable . . . everything went up seemingly at the same time. There are a lot of products and businesses I just outright boycott based upon GOP reasons. I pretty much eliminate grocery stores in the summer and buy from local farms. I partition my trash into small bags and deposit them in trash cans and eliminated my garbage pick up. I compost all scraps. Started a vegetable garden. Grow my own cannabis. Switched to USMobile for $10 a month unlimited. Torrent everything. Cut cable. I used to eat out about three times a week and that is now zero. Overall, I am eating better and even lost about 15 pounds. I discovered bin stores. I find myself buying more stuff that I don't need but want. I found a $500 Garmin watch on dollar day. The only wrong with it was it was missing the band so I found one that fit and got that for a buck. On $3 day last week I found a pair of ar6 walkie talkies sealed. On $12 day I found a 32" TV and leaf blower, both sealed. I can't see myself ever paying full price again, shopping in a store or even online.

Im on fixed income at the moment so: Meat, eggs, and unfortunately most fresh produce at this point. I’m doing what I can to grow my own, but there’s a huge project in need of doing before I can really hit the ground on it. I have a small flock of chickens for eggs, and sometimes raise quail for meat (I’m too poor to be vegan/vegetarian; the birds turn waste into eggs and muscle, I give them as good a life as I can, and slaughter humanely with neutral gas when the time comes), but mostly I just eat shelf-stable stuff that I can buy bulk and cheap.

And since food is a struggle, I also don't really buy anything else anymore. Too expensive to justify.

Subscriptions 🏴‍☠️

Concerts.

In the 90s youd go to the record store that had a ticket kiosk. Tickets were 10 to 20 dollars, youd get a printed ticket.

Now it just sucks. Venues add fees, ticketmaster fees double the price, printing fees, sometimes you cant even get the digital ticket until the day of and hope nithing goes wrong.

It all just sucks now.

I go down to my local dive bar and watch some local guys play rock and blues....for tips.

Rice Cakes (the circular ones)

They're regularly $3.49 Canadian now... that's absurd. It has one ingredient, rice. Rice isn't that expensive, and it doesn't even use very much of it.

They're not even difficult to produce, the machine to make them is only a few thousand dollars and I'm seriously considering buying one from South Korea at this point.

Unless I go to WinCo, chips.

I ain't paying $7-8 for a bag of Doritos. WinCo is the only store around here where they are only ~$3 still and regularly on sale for about $2.50.

This has been a blessing in disguise in some ways. I now make most of our food from scratch. Canned foods, bread, no more soda and instead I make Kefir (which is healthy, too). I bought tools and do the gardening. Same with home repairs. Dumped streaming and will buy second hand DVDs/blurays. It takes a lot of my time, but it's also so fun, gives this feel good vibe. Ended up in way better shape, less pollution, cleaner food, reconnected with nature. Gaming/movie nights/etc took a big hit, but then again, time well spent with the family.

Quinoa

The Chinese buffet. 8.95 for lunch 12.95 dinner. Now 20 bucks at minimum.

Korean karaoke. 20 bucks an hour now 50 an hour or whatever they make up at the time.

I buy maybe one or two "full price" video games per year. And even then those are probably not exactly "AAA". Buying tons of indie stuff though!

Got rid of most of the streaming services and I'm seriously considering dropping the few that remain. (I'd need to, ugh, call the support to cancel.) The free streaming service from the national public broadcaster is pretty amazing and I have a wall of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.

Canned beans. I love some bean medley but at $3 a can.... guess I can't even have beans.

MicroSD cards

I used to be almost addicted to beef jerky, especially the smaller store types where it's made semi-local...until it got to be 29.99 per pound. I love the stuff but will never like it THAT much

Gaming subscriptions

Cigarettes. Of course, there were other more pressing reasons to quit, but saving nearly £20 a packet helped.

Most snacks. I only get them on sale because the servings get smaller and smaller

Fish & chips. There were other reasons when I could afford it, but now I'm on government support, it's just not a sound financial decision, even as a treat.

I haven't been to my local chippy in a good long while, but the last time I was there the price was around £10, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it at £15 now. I can eat for the better part of a week for that sort of money.

(The other reasons being that I was putting on a lot of weight, and I always seemed to end up scratching the heck out of my throat on them. And no, I wasn't swallowing them like a gannet.)

I buy a lot less meat, and I consume much less too. I eat a lot more grains, pulses and vegetables instead.

I still get some meat from the supermarket, but I also try to buy direct from the farm or get free meat in exchange for services, like some sort of neopeasant.

When I use meat, I bulk it out by other means, like lentils or barley, and flavor-up with various techniques.

I don't eat pork or beef unless it's provided to me by the person that owned the animal. I still eat a lot of lamb and chicken though.

Milk, cheese and butter.

My country produces 10x more dairy products than we need. But they're sold to the highest bidder globally and that ain't me.

I never liked going out to eat or drink, but its gotten insane lately. Seems like everywhere is $15 or more for a simple cocktail, $10 or more for a Miller Lite. Insulting when the staff might only be making $2.13 per hour, and I need to tip and add tax so that gets close to $20 for a drink I could have ppuree myself at home for probably $1. Bars and restaurants have also started to use Kore and more tactics to make themselves less pleasant to hang out in, enoucoraging faster consumption and quicker turn times to try to get more customers. Louder music, less comfortabke chairs, etc.

I used to build a gaming PC for both myself and my wife roughly every 6 or 7 years. I never needed anything top-of-the-line: I am perfectly satisfied with 1080p 60fps and playing older games. I liked to maximize value. I built myself a PC in 2019 and my wife one in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to hit. At this point I am starting to wonder whether those will be the last PC's I will afford in my lifetime.

I expect Streaming Services will be a common answer here. I started messing around with Jellyfin a few years ago, and my wife and I had slowly been buying DVD's and Blu-Rays, occasionally supplemented by the high seas. This year we finally canceled our HBO and Netflix subscriptions. We also decided to try to cancel Spotify, so I went ahead and ripped all our CD's, gathered our pirated collection (organized separately to make it easier to potentially decide to buy that music later), and started buying more music from artists directly. I'm good enough to cancel today, but my wife has become accustomed to the near-infinite supply of variety that Spotify has so... Yeah

I refuse to pump my car tyres from petrol stations anymore because all the ones in my local area have started charging exorbitant prices. It always used to be free with petrol, then a few years ago it became 20p, but now it's randomly shot up to £1.50. WHY??

You can buy devices that pump your car tyres up for you too. They tend not to last very long, so they're not exactly "one time" purchases, but they're far more cost effective than doing it at stations nowadays.!

Oil change services for my vehicles. Despite doing tons of my own repairs, I hate dealing with the oil. It always gets on the outside of the container and my recycling locations are always full. The service (including oil) used to be about 50% more than the oil I could buy to do myself. It was worth it to me to spend an extra dinner's worth of money ~4 times a year. But now a service costs at least twice as much as the oil alone, even at independent shops. Plus, I now get oil in slight bulk, so the service is 3x what I pay in oil. I treated myself to a nice catch pan and dedicated funnels as a compromise, still costing less than a service on my first DIY in a decade.

I've only stopped buying specific brands completely, otherwise, I'd characterize my situation as cutting back on things where the price got ridiculous.

Coffee is / was the big one. I used to stock the cheap, store brand stuff for when I needed a morning lift. That was pre-tariff $9. I'd also stock the good stuff, the brand and variety that I really like a lot, usually around $12 a bag. Tariffs kicked in, the "cheap" stuff went to $20 per lb immediately. The good stuff went to $22 (but only like 12 oz or something). So, no more name brand, and I cut way back on coffee consumption. Fucked up part, tariffs are done and the prices dropped, but nowhere near the old price. The cheap stuff is still $14, so $5 more than 1.5 years ago.

My preferred soap, shampoo, and personal care products are largely the same story. I stopped buying the products I like, switched to store brand stuff that doesn't smell good and doesn't work as good / dries my skin & hair. But I'm not paying what the name brands want for their shit.

I used to keep a lot of candy and snacks on hand for guests, as we always have someone stopping by, including adult children and relatives. The candy stockpile was super popular. But the prices on that stuff has sky rocketed, and they fill the variety bags with a bunch of unpopular (to us) shit that just sits in the candy basket and goes bad. I haven't bought any of that stuff, sans once or twice for myself in over a year.

I don't buy canned tuna at all. Technically, I cut back on that b/c of mercury concerns years ago, but every once in awhile I'd still have a can. It's gone down to 5 oz from 6 oz. The cans have changed in size so that my strainer doesn't fit anymore. The prices have gone way up. Canned fish in general I've almost completely stopped buying.

I'm trying to hold off on buying new shoes. I desperately need a new pair because the old ones I use for daily outdoor activities are falling apart and stink to high heavens. But I looked at prices recently and said oh hell no. Unfortunately I wear an odd size so even looking around from time to time at the second hand shops hasn't been successful, and even so I feel weird about second hand shoes.

Games on PSN, tho that's less for price & more out of protest against Sony

Mostly alcohol, I make it instead. The tax on alcohol is insane.

Coca Cola

I only get wings from one bar on a deal night where they're 50c each

I haven't really bought new computer parts in forever, I just trade/sell what I have.

Soda, even from wholesellers it's too much money

Lots of video games. I wait a few years usually.

Honestly I live a simple life in general, what upsets me is housing because nobody can escape that

Fresh pineapple. The local supermarket has a machine that turns a fresh pineapple in slices or pieces. They started over a year ago with €3.99. Then, some months ago, it went up to €4.99. Then it was "Special Offer: €4.99". And now the special offer is history, and the pineapple costs €5.99.

Back then, I bought one every weekend. Since it is €5.99, I have given up on them, and, by the looks of it, quite a number of other customers, too.

Netflix (though that was cause of password sharing), PS plus. I upgraded my pc so its better than a PS5 now. Just need to rebuy the Fromsoft catalogue and I be peachy. And emulate Bloodborne. Spotify. Cause its shit now. AI music was what made me quit. Then I went to Tidal. And my god the sound difference.

Haven't reached that point, yet. Would love to have stopped buying new HDDs the other day, but I needed more storage and they won't be getting cheaper ...

Buying. We've stopped buying.

Movie Theatre Popped Corn.

Kids wanted 5 guys, wife + 2 kids.

2 hot dogs, 1 burger and 3 orders of fries and drinks, (i skipped a fucking burger because I saw the price) $70

Never even considered going back.

Though Mytical kitchen just did a price check per ingredients and while they're expensive AF, they're not screwing you as bad as mcdonalds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOmh9F4xcs

edit: fixed a typo, but i'm going to leave the monstrosity of a line one for everyone's enjoyment

fast food. lottery tickets. everything that is not a necessity really.

Sex.

Did they get a fucking union or something? It's cheaper to get married and divorced.

Hard drives

Laptops or anything gaming after the jump 3k. Nope I’m out!

Used to buy the 12 box from a local chocolatier that is absolutely fantastic. The owner was trained in France and Belgium and her creations are as good or better than anything I've eaten.

Six years ago, the price for a 12 piece box was $24. Today it is $36. I used to keep a box around almost constantly. Now it is only for holidays and birthdays.

Personal Computers: As an IT professional, I've always been a miser when it comes to computer hardware. I usually buy something 2 or so generations old and refurbish it myself, then use it for several years till it suffers a catastrophic failure. I'm not a serious gamer, so I don't care if it can run the latest games at trillions of frames per microsecond. Now, even 4 generations back the machines are abhorrently expensive. Costing as much as they did when new, which is ridiculous. The manufacturing burn through due to AI is idiotic. When the investment into AI finally crashes, which I'm shocked hasn't happened yet, these manufacturers are going to be scrambling to get back into the consumer market.

Way too many things to go in to here. Starting with foods lets start with beef steak. I can buy a weeks worth of food for the price of a few decent steaks.

nothing.

i have cut back on eating out by 50% , and starting buy less/cheaper cuts of meat. so i'm spending the same pretty much.

other than food i have not really seen much inflation in my expenses.

Just about everything really. I often even let whatever is on sale at the grocery store dictate my diet these days, up to a certain point at least. I can't think of a single thing I really buy anymore that isn't a base necessity to function in the modern world. I'd drop having a phone if I could without ostracising myself.

Doritos.

My steak consumption is half what it used to be. Pork is the new steak.

Computer parts.

chocolate bars.

Whiskey, even the average stuff costs way too much now.

Beef. 7dollars a lb for ground beef is silly. God help you if you want a nice steak or a brisket.

Vowels

Steaks

Yes. Dont buy any crisps anymore. Now only self made. Milka chocolate the same. Anything tech unless something important broke. Anything Kinder So yeah sweets and snacks and stuff like that probably other things too but it doesnt come to mind rn

Edit: oh yeah. Eating out. So many restaurants have high prices and food really is shit. Ordering the same. But i still have to get into the rythm of then not being lazy and just cook something simple instead of ordering even when im very low on energie myself which luckily is once in a blue moon

I dropped the only frivolities I used to get during the pandemic, and never picked them up again, which were only eating out once a week, and movies occasionally. I also dropped red meat, and processed foods for health reasons around the same time.

I don't feel like I'm suffering because I never really engaged with the consumerist culture to begin with.

LEGO. I’m going with other brands now, like Bluebrixx. They are like a third of the price.

A lot. And it's not limited to money. Netflix: The best series are getting stopped produced or go into the shitter. And then they rised the price for non-ad versions. Reddit: Deleted my account when they stopped giving API away (RIF my beloved). And now I can't even read threads without an account. (Also: yay, finally made it here!) Facebook: Deleted my account years ago already and not looking bad. Bad and confusing algorithms, spreading of misinformation and conspiracies, fake globetrotter, stealing and selling personal informations to advertisers and whatnot... I don't need that in my life. Twitter/X: It already got slightly bad, but Musks takeover was like 5 of the 10 nails in the coffin. And seeing how quickly it went down... Good riddance. YouTube Premium: I thought I'd give something back to content creators for all the years of entertainment. But Googles fight against smaller creators, Ad-Blocker and apparently it's own user base made my back down, cancel my subscription and use Firefox instead. It's bad that the only choice is an Android or Apple Phone, the choice between a rock and a hard place. Microsoft: okay, I didn't fully transition. I took my gaming notebook and installed Linux CachyOS on it to try things out. It works great, and It feels better that using windows. But I guess for my PC, I'll do a dual boot or something first.

needs v wants and I live a simpler life.

Razor blades. Much better to go with a single-razor housing, even if occasionally the multi-razor shaves feel like a smoother result.

Most things except booze. I might have a coping problem.

Beef. and pork.

The only meat I can afford at the moment is chicken, and even then thats mostly in processed form like chicken nuggets or chicken patties.

Beef, Pork, Bacon, anything in a box.

Not so much stopped buying but never bought, but these bags in Japan that kids take to school.

They're stupidly heavy and way over priced. In my kids' school, using one is optional, so we just went with a regular back pack from Muji. Such a stupid culture imo.

🦃

Mostly dining out.

Retro gaming handhelds. I bought the Ayn Thor Pro off Swappa for close to $630, only because it came with the UEFS 4.0 processor prior to the current 3.1 downgrade. With that, my Steam Deck, and my Switch 2, I think I'm good in terms of gaming.

Also, any console or PC that's priced over three digits. I just got an ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 motherboard from a friend with 16 GB ram that I plan on turning into a Steam Machine of my own.

RAM sticks. This may sound cheesy but I have always upgraded my PC RAM. I Bought a laptop in jan. 2025 and told myself "okay I could buy these 64 GB RAM but I could also buy X instead, so I'll buy X then in a few months I'm gonna buy some RAM to do Gen AI, it's not like I'm in a hurry". Well, I guess this was a mistake because I can only run a limited set of models on 32 GB RAM and prices have... well... you know.

I'm going to get some hate for this, but: nothing

I live in a civilised country, where the cost of things isn't crazy relative to income with the notable exception of housing

I'm lucky enough to own my own home, and I did horrible hours of damned hard work to get where I am

I buy seasonal food where I can (because of environmental reasons rather than just the price), I don't buy junk food or takeaways apart from very rare occasions

I don't smoke and I buy beer from local brewers and enjoy a wine club that is within my means

If I want something, I buy it, but I'm not frivolous with money

My TV is too old to connect to the internet, I don't have fancy clothes, the last console I bought was a PS2, I have no Netflix or any such subscriptions

I see people struggling, but I also see a lot of money spent on what I consider to be bullshit

And while I'm older, I'm not a boomer before anyone suggests otherwise

You mean you just steal everything now?

(Originally the question was missing the first word, that's where this comment is coming from)