Habits and Hustle - Episode 216: The Price Gouging Epidemic and How to Save Money

Episode Date: February 18, 2023

In this episode, Jennifer sheds light on the difficulties faced by people in an economy with soaring prices, particularly for those relying on fixed incomes. The discussion delves into the contentious issue of price gouging in the food industry, where some businesses are exploiting the situation and imposing unjustifiably high prices. Key Takeaways: The impact of price increases on fixed-income families Tips for avoiding food waste and delivery gouging How to save money while shopping How to be bold and ask for discounts Jen's Bigger, Better, Bolder Mastermind starts in March! Apply now to be considered. Join Jen’s new Facebook group! Find out Jen’s secret to getting anything you want out of life Follow Jennifer: Instagram Facebook Twitter Jennifer’s Website Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hussle? Habits and Hussle? Solo episode. And I want to really get into the next topic that we're talking about today, which is price gouging. I don't know about you at home, but I know definitely here in LA, it is ridiculous how expensive everything is.

Why is it that now when you go to a restaurant, the portions are literally half the size and double the price? To me, these things are outrageous. It makes it so, you can't even go out anymore. Like gas prices, food prices, everything. And I went to the farmer's market. This is the story I wanna start with. I went to this farmer's market last week

as I do every Sunday with my kids. That's part of our routine. We go to the farmer's market, we get eggs and vegetables. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's so cute. It's market, we get eggs and vegetables. So cute. So cute. Yeah, every Sunday, and I go, and I said to the lady that I've been buying eggs from for six years, seven years, okay? I said, can I have my eggs please?

She says $15.15 for a thing of eggs. A dozen? Yes. Wow. Is that not insane? Wow. What do you usually pay? Actually, that's not true. I should go back.

It's 18 eggs. $15 for 18 eggs. Oh, it's enough. $12 for the regular dozen eggs. I used to pay $10 or $9 for 18 and now it's $15 and I think that's like from one week to another Like at what point are people now just like jumping on the bandwagon because they can charge more because everyone's charging more Versus is it just like it's just the prices have gone have gone so insane to me. It's literally impossible. What do you do if you're on a really fixed income

and you're not making on a multigazzillionaire? How are you able to feed your family? How are you able to like, gas in your car? It's become like so insane to me that I feel like this is what's happening. People are now because everyone's doing it. Everyone now is jumping on even when they shouldn't. But why hit, oh, the avian flu is why egg prices have gone up so high.

Yeah, well, there's a whole shortage of eggs, but this is okay, so if she has a farm with her eggs, with her chickens, is her stuff being? It could be though. Well, I would guess like the materials. Maybe it could be. No, no, what I think is the materials, like the food for the chickens have gone up, all of the, you know, the soil, stuff or whatever they are, whatever, you know, all the stuff to kind of keep the chickens healthy and alive,

I'm sure those prices have gone up. But did they go up to the point where the price is literally seven dollars more per carton of eggs? I don't know. It's hard to answer that question because the thing is also you have to think about gas, transportation and all that stuff is getting the farmers market.

That's already increased so significantly for these people. But I think the avian flu might be a different situation, but I understand what you're saying. Is the price, are they just raising it because everybody else is raising their price to a drastic level? No, I think what's happening is people are raising their price. This is what I think is happening.

I think that yes, of course, because of what's happening in the world, everything is more expensive. Supplies are more expensive, manufacturing, of course, because of what's happening in the world, everything is more expensive. Supplies are more expensive, manufacturing, of course, it's more expensive. It's hard to get things, all of that. Yes. But then I think there's also a big piece of it

that people are now just jumping on that bandwagon and they're like, well, everything's more expensive now. Anyway, we can keep on increasing our prices because it's like supply and demand. There's one part of it. And there's parts like, well, because we can, we can get away with it. Like, why is it now?

You go to a restaurant and I'm really annoyed about the restaurant part. It's like, you get less food for more money, less food for more money and they don't include the bread anymore at the beginning of the meal or whatever it is. Like, does everything is just now worse? Everything is worse. Like, post pandemic, service is worse.

You can't get people to even work. When you get them to work, people are not working well. I mean, everything seems to be such disarray. I want to see where the course correction is going to happen. If there is going to, when is the course correction going to happen? But I think there is so much more at play in the fact that I don't think you can blame like the restaurant themselves because it's also, you have to factor in inflation and cost of goods, cost of food that they're paying, which is, but I don't think that the restaurant

serving less food and costing more is necessarily the restaurant's problem. Like the restaurants themselves are literally, restaurant. Every restaurant is so hard just to break even as is just to get into a profit to run a restaurant is so difficult. It's like one of the hardest business ever to turn a profit. So I think that what they're doing is working with me. No, but I tell a lot of friends in the business. It's a really hard industry. By the way, the restaurant business, the business, the food and beverage world is very difficult. I'm not minimizing that at all. I agree with you. I know, like I said, everything is more expensive.

All the prices, all the supplies, getting people to work, everything. What I'm saying is there is a difference between price increase and price gouging. Let me finish. Price increase and price gouging because you can. And that's what I think is happening. I think a lot of times people are not just increasing their price by a little bit. They're now increasing their price by a lot

because they know they can get away with it. That's the part that I have a problem with. When you're taking, when you are increasing things by 100% or 10, Xing it and giving people less, I have a, I just have a real problem with it. I just don't love what's going on. And this is like, it's across the board with everything. I, you know, the, like, I just, I, I'm really concerned for people who have a family and they're on a fixed income. How are people supposed to survive?

People who have a lot of money, okay? Like they're not gonna notice $2 more, a dollar more, even three or $4 more, but people who really are watching every dollar, that makes a big difference and it accumulates. And like to me, that's just not okay. That's my point. Now I understand, but I think a lot of the people

who run these businesses are also watching every dollar and they're also seeing, like we have to also factor in just the base economy. Like inflation is insane right now. So just already just with inflation, if you didn't get a 7% raise this year, just yourself for your own salary. If you didn't get a 7% raise, you actually lost money.

You're making less money now. Just based on inflation. Okay, but guess what? I understand, like, by the way, that's with everything, right? Every salary is more expensive. But people aren't getting raises. But a lot of people, but, you know what? But I'm not talking about those people.

What I'm talking, the people that I'm talking about are the people who now have an entitlement, right? And they are now not, they won't work or they're not interested in working. There's a lot of people out there who just don't wanna work anymore. There's a whole group of people who just don't wanna work anymore.

And then there's a whole other group of people who've now like, they're like, well, if I am gonna work, pay me five times what I was making prior. And because people are in a situation of like total panic, because there's not enough workers out there, they're now having to do that. And I feel like the whole system is so broken that there has to be a course correction. And I just think that it's a real issue. And I want to know what you guys think at home. Can you guys please leave me a subtype of communications?

Send me a pigeon if you have to. Let me know what you think, because I know that everything bail is probably expensive. I don't want to make you, but leave me a review, leave me a comment. Let me know what you think, because I know definitely in LA it's insane and when I've traveled other places it's insane. And I know it's like that across the country, but what have been your experiences thus far? What do you feel? I'm just, I actually am genuinely curious and interested.

What did your economist guess saying about this? Wait, I was just gonna bring him up. Because I feel like he probably has some really good insights to this. Because obviously there is a difference between price gouging and price raises, but I just think because of how expensive everything is, it's hard to tell the difference. Do you know what I mean? Like, you might think that something is gouging,

but it actually might just be literally the bare minimum that someone has to raise it to be able to actually make it they were made before. I don't think so. I think that... But you'd have to know the ins and outs of every industry to be able the bare minimum that someone has to raise it to be able to actually make it their make up before. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that, but you have to know that in the nouns of every industry to be able to make that. No, okay, but what I'm saying is overall, I listen, I'm not an economist, I'm not claiming to be one, but I will say that we did, we actually we did do an episode, I did do an episode

with one of the most well-known economists in the world. And he's going to become, I think that episode comes out pretty soon. Norielle Rubini, he wrote a book called Megathreths. And he talks about these megathreths, the 12, was it the 12 or the 10 biggest megathreths in the world? Was it 10 or 12?

That we should be aware of. And we talked 10 of them. And why I liked that episode so much, it was so fascinating, it was so fascinating. We're gonna actually gonna do two parts to it. Is that most of the things that he's actually predicted in his career have come to fruition, have come true. He was, he's known as, He's actually known as Dr....

What is it called, Dr. Death? What's his name that he's known for? Because what he does is he predicted the housing crash. Dr. Doom. Dr. Doom. Dr. Death. Dr. Doom. Dr. Death.

Okay, well, close enough. Dr. Doom, and he predicted the housing crash in 2008. He's predicted a lot of these things that have actually happened. And so you have to just listen to that episode. But the inflation, of course, is a massive impact. But I do think there's a big, I think again, if I would, I think there's a big difference between pricing, increase, inflation, and gouging. And what this is about, and what I'm talking about,

is the gouging part. Never! The roar of our engines, the pump of our hardwoods, the pedal to our metal, the sparks that ignite us, the pistons that push us, the passions that drive us, from the feelings that push us, the passions that drive us. From the feelings that move us, to the places that pull us, on the roads that unite us. With nearly 6,000 stores and over 17,000 auto care centers, Napa has America's largest network of parts in care, here to keep you, five, all cylinders.

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where I think that's like the general consensus is everyone feels that way. Like, do you know that I went for lunch? I went for lunch with my kid, 10 year old boy, okay? No alcohol was involved, okay? And I ordered a salad with, I don't remember what it was like, I think it was like chicken and extra chicken and

I don't know, he had like a grilled cheese sandwich and I don't know, I don't know, he had, but the point is lunch came to like $68 for two people and we didn't have anything that was, that's that spectacular. I think I had like a cold brew at my lunch and he had his drink and his lunch. I'm like, this is absurd to me, absurd. You should get a restaurant tour on your show and ask him these questions. Don't get a lot of these people.

I'm getting a lot of these fascinating questions. Not fascinating to interview. I'm actually very, that's why what I'm doing is I'm talking to, this is not just, I'm talking to a lot of people who are economists, like I said, Noreal, people who are industry specific to really get an idea of what's considered to be normal. This is the other problem, what happens is that once people start charging a certain price, that becomes a normalized price,

and then nobody drops the prices after all. That's what I think, that's part of what I think is the problem. I think once someone's used to now paying an exorbitant amount for a chicken salad, then the restaurant or whoever it is, they're not gonna be like, well, now that our prices are lower, I'm gonna go back to that lower price. No one's doing that. Like, to have you that our price is lower, I'm gonna go back to that lower price. No one's doing that.

Like, to have you notice that even like in LA, the gas prices are like absurdly expensive. Like $7 or something? Wait, what? No, $7. I've seen $6, $7. That's crazy. I do 415 at the gas station by me

and it's the cheapest one for like a five mile radius. Okay, 415. It's not even four, it's 459. It's a five mile radius. Okay, it's 4.50. It's not even four, it's 4.59. Just crazy. But my point is, it's because people now are, it's become normalized that people are paying so much, the gas prices are never going to go back down to what they used to be three or two or something like that. You know?

I think it's just everything, like even a quarter milk. Like everything is so just insane to me. Okay, that's the episode for today. That's how we're ending it. Okay, but I really think a restaurant tour and then somebody in the farming industry, those two would be really good experts to bring on your show, because I'm actually so curious what they have to say, because I always think about this too. Okay, this is what I mean, I think that because I like to leave every episode with some type of actionable items.

Yeah, it was the actionable item. Give us a sec. Don't eat out, stay home. Oh, you know, like, oh, and the other problem. When I left our last episode, it was like leave your house, leave your house, and now we're like, stay indoors. Don't do anything.

No, don't leave to go eat. Go out for a walk, go out for a five day. You can do a fully activity. Go on a hike, do a whatever. But take your food in the forest. Right. But don't have a meal outside the home. No, but what I was gonna say,

even food in the grocery store is expensive. So you can't even get away with that. But the other thing I wanted to make, I forgot about this, which I've also noticed was that everyone just orders food, with postmates or door dashes. Like deleted those. People don't even realize that they're being charged

and extra what, like, sometimes like 20%, 25% like, I ordered a salad, I get a salad, I always eat salads. I always chicken salad. It was like $40 with the price of the app, of postmates and cre- like, you know, whatever postmates was or whatever.

The price of the food to be delivered plus that, like, in that regard, go pick up your food. You don't leave the house. Because people just, it's like on autopilot, people don't even think about it. They just go and like to their phones yet again, and they order, and then for the price of convenience, they're paying an extra 25% for their food.

It's insane to me. I just, do you have the app mint? Is that budget app? No. I saw one month, I just, I had logged back in and I was like, well, let me check out what I'm spending. And I saw my food bill for that month, and my jaw just dropped, and so I deleted

all of my food delivery outs. So I was like, this is just obscene. It's absurd. That's okay. So my actionable item, I actually do have one. So what I have down, I'm sure there's a few of these, but I use this thing called flip. I download this thing called flip

and it tells you about all the different, it gives you the circular, like in your neighborhood and like what's on sale, like food wise, like all the different grocery stores around you and like what's on sale? Like food wise, like all the different grocery stores around you and like what's on sale? And I use that to kind of give me a gauge and we're gonna like at least buy groceries and shop a little bit.

There's a few other ones, but I like that one. Just to kind of save a little bit here and there, you know? Like I personally don't like to feel like I'm being taken advantage of and that's kind of what I do feel when it comes to this gouging. So that is an actionable item. Find there's lots of different ways that you can like figure out ways to save a little

bit of money by, you know, you can even Google like these, oh, Rakuten. I love Rakuten. You can get some deals like you can get money back by doing like tempers, big of you like 10% back or that's more on like other stuff, like clothing and like different stores. So important. Still important, like beauty items because that's also super expensive. I only buy things on sale now by the way.

I always have, but now I'm even more so like that. For groceries, one of the biggest things that people don't notice is food waste in your house and how much that can actually drain your money. So using tricks like freezing a lot of the foods before it goes bad, a lot of things can be frozen that people don't notice it's food waste in your house and how much that can actually drain your money. So using tricks like freezing a lot of the foods before it goes bad. A lot of things can be frozen that people don't realize. Pre-chopping all of your onions and your garlic and then freezing those that we have them ready to go and that way none of them ever go bad. Like there's just really basic things you can do. Freezing your fruit before they go bad. Your bananas, you should, food waste inside of the home is such a big factor and it can actually lead to like hundreds and hundreds of

dollars of groceries going down the drain every month. And it can actually lead to like hundreds and hundreds of dollars of groceries going down the drain every month. I totally agree. That's one of my biggest pet peeves, the amount of food that is wasted. It is so true. I actually am pretty, I try to be pretty cognizant of that stuff.

So like when things are going bad, like bananas, I definitely like cut them up and I freeze those. Also, you know, buying frozen fruits and vegetables and you can throw those in shakes. People don't even know that sometimes when you, when places, they flash freeze, fresh stuff and they sell it as frozen stuff, actually could be much better quality a lot of times.

Yes, because they freeze it right at its perfect, like ripeness. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. freeze it right at its perfect ripeness. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. When you download the Croger app, you have easy access to savings every day. Shop weekly sales and get personalized coupons to get the most value out of every trip every time, whether you shop in-store or online.

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home and everywhere in between. Need it fast? No problem. Place your order at office-dipo.com and pick it up in just 20 minutes at your nearest office Depot or office max store. No, but I think that's where I think these, there are these great apps, like I said, these flip apps. Also, like, you know, do you remember year, I don't know, we would have like buy one, get

one, but I grew up and there was like this book it would give you a bunch of restaurants in your city. And all of it is like buy one, get one free meals, go to wherever and get buy one, get one free. I mean, I'm sure they still have that. I don't remember this, but that sounds good. I'm sure they still have that. And another tip I should say is what I sometimes do is there's so many online coupons that people

don't even know exist because they just don't even know they exist. So wherever whenever I go somewhere, I Google like, oh wherever, you know, Chuck E. Cheese, I'm making it up, you know, like, you know, any any coupon codes for Chuck E. Cheese, that's just an example. And a lot of times you're like, yeah, like, you know, by a pizza and get these get this fruit plate for free. Or something like that. Like, that's a bad, I'm just giving that as an example. But like, there's, there's sometimes, I'm talking about very kid-friendly stuff, because a lot of times when you have kids, it gets so expensive.

So you just have to be a little mindful. Like, you can get pizza by just doing these little Google searches or like quick little things. And can get pizza by just doing these little Google searches or quick little things and there's all sorts of different things. That's my action item or my takeaway. Also ask at the checkout. The kosher grocery store in LA, the one that I go to by my house. If you ask for the 10% discount, they give you 10% discount for just basically everything and mostly produce. Get out because I go there sometimes. Yeah, just ask them. My grandma, I read how I ask them, I just think like how proud she would be.

So this is, I'm glad that you brought that up. That's part of my being bold, right? So my, obviously, I bought a big part of being bold is asking for what, with what you want. And that's my entire philosophy in life, right? So that's a great thing. Like you should always go to wherever you're going, ask if they have a local discount. I mean, and get comfortable with that

because the worst that they're gonna say is no. And I do that all the time. I didn't know that that place does it. Yeah, it's great. You can even do it at grocery stores. I guess you could do it at grocery stores. Yeah, you can. Honestly, you can do it anywhere.

Anywhere. You never know what discounts people have. And I mean, the person that's working there usually doesn't really care to get, like they don't own the place. They'll like, yeah, I'll give you all the discounts. 100%. I do that with all the different local coffee shops

around me and stuff like that. But doing it a grocery store, yeah. Doing it a grocery store. But by the way, to save money when I do this at home is I make my coffee at home now. Yeah, finally. Yeah. I have like, well, I'm trying to make is I make my coffee at home now. Yeah, finally. Yeah. I have like, well, I'm trying to make a perfect cup of coffee.

This is like, honestly, they're neurosis. That's a whole other episode in itself, okay? If you saw what goes on in my house, I have like 11 different coffee makers to try to make the best cup of coffee and it's insane. We should actually do a whole episode on the different coffee. We should run the chony to the best cup of coffee. We should do a whole review series on all the machines that you have on your ass.

Oh my God. I have literally like the cuisines are, the nespresso, the, what's the other one? The one that is like... The cure, right. The cure, right. What's the other one that I like? The single coffee machine. With that one, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, one, the one that's like a single, single coffee cup. This is like, anyway, please leave us a review and subscribe. And sign up for Jen's Mastermind. Right, I should talk about that a little bit. So basically, yes, join the Facebook group. And I am going to be doing a mastermind. So you go on to my website, check it out. Also, if you have not subscribed to my newsletter, please do so. You get some

cute little nuggets of information and other things by doing so. So check out JenniferCohen.com. Subscribe to Habits and Hustle. Leave me a review on Spotify, YouTube. And thank you for listening to this Ramelon, another session of Ramelon with Jennifer and Chani. Thank you. Bye Another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute David. Sorry, what did I miss? I teach us to prove Miro for the whole company. Miro That's the online whiteboard for team collaboration. We can make these long video meetings so much shorter with mirror boards.

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