What Shortages are You Seeing?

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1-20-23 i posted video back in summer somewhere in a thread of this guys first visit to rural russia. he returned to do a 6 month follow up. very interesting vid and love the ending with russian grandmother. steady as she goes in her little home built to function with limited outside influences.


 
Magpie said:
No shortages, but extreme price rises- beans and other basics up between 50 & 66% over the past two years
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No kidding! Today I discovered that sometime since September, dry green split peas went WAY up in price.
16oz Goya brand went from $1.39 to $1.99 at Target
16oz Great Value brand went from $1.00 to $1.48 at Walmart.

I posted a mighty good deal for them if anyone wants to stock up:
https://dealbustersblog.com/daily-deals-january-22-2023/
 
My Uni work experience involves the production of a literary journal. Of all the problems I foresaw- a shortage of paper was not one of them!
Apparently, we need to let the printers know as soon as possible our requirements. Because of the war in Ukraine, paper is shipped by boat, due to no-fly zones, and is limited.
 
What I am seeing is a slow decay of abundance, it's not a shortage but... When the meat cabinets are arranged in a single layer so you can see the black mat at the bottom, when the isles are rearranged so that 6 "display tables" replace a full row of double sided shelving, and when the stores pay people to move around the store sliding the products to the front of the shelves to give the appearance of being "full".

I feel like the frog in a pot, watching a thermometer slowly rise to 140F (60C) starting to sweat and wondering when the other frogs will notice something is amiss.

As for prices rising, well they are simply a reflection of supply and demand, as the supply goes down and demand stay's constant the prices will rise. Think of it as a thermometer....
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Grocery stores are now allowed to sell wine. Every store that I went into was doing major rearranging of shelves. It seems that some stores now have a whole aisle dedicated to wine, and the amount of food is now in smaller sections. I wanted to get some more tomato soup and the space for it on the shelf was so small. The price was $1.99 a can. I remember when I used to buy multiple cans for $1.00.
 
UrbanHunter said:
...and when the stores pay people to move around the store sliding the products to the front of the shelves to give the appearance of being "full".
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I'm not trying to undermine your point--the lack of abundance we have become used to is a precursor condition, and worth noting. I will only mention that I was paid to do this decades ago, as a stocker in a grocery store. If we weren't stocking, we were pulling everything forward to make the shelves look full. It was a standard practice in all well run, well staffed grocery stores. If you see open spaces up front and cans in the back, either there is a run on that product, or the store is understaffed, or both.
 
Prices were up again at Aldi just from last week. I've been watching the cans of corn...2 weeks ago were 53 cents, last week 58 cents, this week 61 cents. Cheaper at Walmart at 58 cents. No distilled water at Walmart for three weeks. I have plenty, though. Trying to not buy anything needing to go into the freezer. Almost butchering time for my favorite cousin's cow. Half holstein half angus. We get half of it and pay for the processing.
 
UrbanHunter said:
I feel like the frog in a pot, watching a thermometer slowly rise to 140F (60C) starting to sweat and wondering when the other frogs will notice something is amiss.

As for prices rising, well they are simply a reflection of supply and demand, as the supply goes down and demand stay's constant the prices will rise. Think of it as a thermometer....
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Yet, what astounds me is people are still shopping weekly. while aware prices will be constantly going in the future. If people have money, why are they not buying huge amounts of food at today's SUPER-SUPER-SUPER-SUPER discounted prices.
 
Sourdough said:
Yet, what astounds me is people are still shopping weekly. while aware prices will be constantly going in the future. If people have money, why are they not buying huge amounts of food at today's SUPER-SUPER-SUPER-SUPER discounted prices.
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Here is my take on it, people in the US typically get paid either weekly, bi-weekly, or once a month (social security). So there is a block of people who get paid every week.... Some surveys estimate that 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning that they have little or no reserves to take advantage of today's SUPER-SUPER-SUPER-SUPER discounted prices! It also means that most families are just one bad event away from being totally up a creek....

We were in that boat and that was what got us into prepping 40 years ago.......
That is the most likely SHTF to ever hit any family... one bad event forcing you to choose between rent, power, or food...
 
I've read a few books on life on the working poor in America. It wouldn't take much to get them out of a hole- one person said how she couldn't get the deposit for a place, but could afford rent (she was working). In the meantime, she was stuck living in a motel, day to day and was not allowed a fridge. I'm guessing storage is an issue for many; no space to store bulk, or having to move on.
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This is just an example
 
I read the book, "Nickle and Dimed", which was a similar type of story. I think the books were written to promote a socialist "living wage". There wasn't much mentioned about the welfare money that is handed out...free medical, dental, SNAP (food stamps), PEL grants for schooling costs, and more if you have children. I knew personally one single mom who got all of that, and money for her rent, too, because it was tied to her PEL grant for college. I knew many single moms who would use the free state voucher for child care, but would complain about the half day wait in the state office that they could get their 6 month voucher at. I'm not saying that people aren't feeling the craziness of this failing economy, but I don't necessarily agree with the slant that was put on it by the author. People living like this already will probably welcome the digital economy that will be coming our way. The govt already provides for them, and SNAP is already digital.
 
Sourdough said:
Yet, what astounds me is people are still shopping weekly. while aware prices will be constantly going in the future. If people have money, why are they not buying huge amounts of food at today's SUPER-SUPER-SUPER-SUPER discounted prices.
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If it's something I use, and it hits rock bottom price, I get as much as I can get as I think I can use up before it goes bad.
 
This one might sound a little funny: magazines. I very seldomly purchase them, but I ran to the store today and noticed most of the magazine shelves empty. The middle row had them laid out individually. I know it's the end of the month, but thought that was strange. I noticed it before, but today it was striking.
 
I have not seen any bare shelves in a while. But, I can say that the dumbing down of society and the lack of many people doing things for themselves makes it hard as crap to find simple things that you could get at any hardware store. The Nail section at the Home Depot here has diminished from what used to be an entire isle to one rack space. Trying to find nails specific for Cedar Shake Siding ended up being an order on Amazon to get them. I create and invent things all the time and it gets harder to find "parts" to work with every time I go to a "city" hardware store. The stores in the small town I'm near that are 1/10th the size of a Home Depot have better selections of things I need.

I did ask an employee at the Home Depot why they stopped carrying something once. His response "We sell them to fast and can't keep them stocked so we just quit stocking them". The brains that some people have don't quite compute!
 
LadyLocust said:
This one might sound a little funny: magazines. I very seldomly purchase them, but I ran to the store today and noticed most of the magazine shelves empty. The middle row had them laid out individually. I know it's the end of the month, but thought that was strange. I noticed it before, but today it was striking.
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I used to like the odd magazine as a treat for myself when the children were little, as we never went out. It was then passed on to several people - maybe a knitting or gardening theme- so it was valued, but then the price about ten years ago shot up. They were equal to a pack of cigs at the time; around 7.99, which was just too much. The libraries do cooking ones now, and National Geographic we can borrow for free. There is also a worldwide library app that allows library card holders to read magazines from anywhere in lots of languages for free on the PC or kindle. The only one I pay around $2 a month for on kindle is the Homesteading one I used to read in the States. There is definitely a more limited selection here also.
 
I wanted to see if any new things had been added to the list of coming shortages and most of them we're well aware of. With food like tomatoes, lettuce and oranges on the list it's clear that putting in a garden is more important than ever. Looks like I'd better start canning oranges while they're still available. Here are just a couple of articles I found but they all say pretty much the same thing. Anybody hear of anything not on these lists?

https://www.thedailymeal.com/1166891/the-13-food-shortages-to-expect-in-2023/
https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/food-shortages/
 
Our local farm store which is quite large got in their spring chicks and 3/4ths of them were already bought. In less than a week they are all gone. Several people were wandering around the area looking at some chicks that hadn't been picked up and seeing about getting on the list for the next shipment. Last year when I bought mine they had plenty in stock for se
veral weeks.
 
Due to the cold weather in Spain, there is a shortage of berries and soft fruit here. I also heard a warning of an upcoming lack of tinned tomatoes and such, due to the weather in Italy. Stocks have been low over the past few years anyway.
Prices across the board are horrendous; my top-up shop of mik, cheese, bread etc now costs the same as my weekly shop before Covid.
 
Magpie said:
Due to the cold weather in Spain, there is a shortage of berries and soft fruit here. I also heard a warning of an upcoming lack of tinned tomatoes and such, due to the weather in Italy. Stocks have been low over the past few years anyway.
Prices across the board are horrendous; my top-up shop of mik, cheese, bread etc now costs the same as my weekly shop before Covid.
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Are there many local gardens or "farm stands" where you are? Berries and tomatoes are not in season right now (here at least). I would think come spring things might become more readily available.
 
Did my weekly shop last night and was surprised that both WalMart and the local mom & pop grocery store were really low on frozen vegetables, pasta and some fresh vegetables. It might be because we're supposed to have a big storm today and people are stocking up... We'll see if it lasts past the storm!
 
TeeJ said:
Did my weekly shop last night and was surprised that both WalMart and the local mom & pop grocery store were really low on frozen vegetables, pasta and some fresh vegetables. It might be because we're supposed to have a big storm today and people are stocking up... We'll see if it lasts past the storm!
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Our local grocery store had a pretty good produce section, however, we noticed the frozen veggies seemed to be low. Not sure what caused that and we don't have any storms coming anytime soon.
 
Caribou said:
The cream cheese section was empty. Not just the cream cheese but everything in that section.
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We have already danced to that tune.:rolleyes:
...It took us months to plow thru all of THIS.
 
Hit the store again tonight because the giant storm was supposed to hit tonight and I wanted to stock up a bit incase it's a while before I want to venture out. Frozen veg was back a little, but it was just 1-2 layers thick where normally there's 6-8. Meat was super flush, ground beef was even on sale for $2.50/lb. Stocked up on that and freezer is full to the brim again.
 
LadyLocust said:
Are there many local gardens or "farm stands" where you are? Berries and tomatoes are not in season right now (here at least). I would think come spring things might become more readily available.
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No, it doesn't seem to be a thing here. We have a Friday market but most of it I grow myself anyway. I have a good stock of my own black & black currants, strawberries and stewed apple in the freezer. The rhubarb will be ready in a month, and my strawberries, late to finish because of the mild weather, look to be coming on nicely already. I have fruit bushes, (fig, blueberries, raspberries and currants,) and wild blackberries that will run over the summer and autumn here, but I'm going to pick up some frozen fruit here just in case. I've been using my stock of tinned tomatoes because they do not last anymore- I'm presuming it's the quality of the tin? I'm unsure - maybe they don't want us to store them! So I'm going to restock them now also, and passata. My tomato seeds are just starting to grow, I'll put down extra and make soup over the summer.
 
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