Sorry I highjacked your post with power prices. Sometimes you never know where a thread will take you.
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I had no idea. Thanks for sharing. I am going to fix the flat tire on my bike tomorrow and put my new basket on the back. I need to lose weight anyway!
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Just be careful on your bike. Traffic will still be kind of crazy, even if less people will be on the road.
Your daughter sounds very driven, it shows you raised her very well. Thatâs awesome and I hope it takes her far.
Youâre absolutely right, divvying up the utilities (and pooltime!) equally regardless of unit size or occupants is unfair. I canât wait until enough of our community has been vaccinated for our pool to reopen. Itâs been getting super warm here already.
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Even with Texas prices, my monthly gas bill is ridiculous. I may be paying less than some people. But I drive further than a lot of people. We live in the country. Just going to town and back is 10 miles. Going to a town with a Walmart is 70 miles round trip. Going to a town with all the other stores is 100 miles round trip. Meeting my daughter nearly every day twice a day so I can watch the grandkids for her to work is 140 miles total for the day. Filling up my Yukon is $72. I fill up 3 to 4 times a week. So gas is around $900 a month. Thatâs just my car. My husband puts 100+ miles on his Truck every day. But our company covers his gas. I donât even want to know how much our company pays to keep 7 service trucks, boom trucks, four wheelers, side by sides, etc running. 
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I feel you pain girl, believe me!!
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Lol! I still remember the $13 kits
Heck, I think the mini kits were around $8 when on sale
Those days are long gone 
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Geez, it sounds like once upon a time, this was not such an expensive hobby.
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Where i live it is an expensive hobby i really have to save up for buy a kit
It is that i work other less way to mucth money for a hobby 
Sometimes i buy from Uk when i see a sales there
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Current inflation is substantial, and the fed is hiding the true inflation levels. I think itâs due to all of the free âhelicopter moneyâ being handed out to everyone by the government (like they are just shoveling the money out of helicopters). This has diluted the money supply.
Since a year ago: Gas is higher, food is higher, home prices have skyrocketed, wood and metal commodities have skyrocketed, sewing machines and fabric up, cameras up, medical care up, paint up, overseas shipping costs are more than double, vinyl up, corn and grain up, cars up (many new cars are selling above MSRP), oil up, copper up, etc.
Quite frankly, I donât know of anything where there hasnât been a substantial price increase since a year ago.
In addition to that, overseas freight time has risen from an old 4 weeks to a new 10 to 11 weeks. Since vendors want their money before they will ship, it has created the condition where we currently have MORE than three times the money out right now on inventory that has been paid for and not received than we normally have had in the past.
Warren Buffet also talks about it in his 2021 Bershire Hathaway annual meeting:
This is a universal theme everywhere, and Iâm afraid itâs not going away anytime soon.
As we are able to build inventory, though, our intent is to bring prices down to as razer thin as we can. Right now we are doing all we can do.
Along those lines, though, please see todayâs sale (Tuesday, May 11):
All kits are half price during this flash sale. Also a ton of bodies are on sale.
The reason for this sale is to generate cash to pay another $85,000 on yet another supply order (that we wonât actually receive the merchandise for about two more months). We received the bill on Monday and I need to pay it ASAP.
Iâve also tapped out a $360,000 home equity line of credit to finance the business, and thereâs no more room there. So, time for a sale.
Nevin
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I get it.
Prices have risen quite a bit in my industry too (beer/wine/liquor, much imported, plus restaurant) for all of the reasons that you have mentioned. I, too, have a ton of $$$ tied up in inventory. Fortunately my vendors are paid COD, not weeks prior. That would be painful beyond words right now.
When it comes to food, prices have skyrocketed. Chicken wing prices, for example, have almost doubled recently. Why? Among other things, the farmers donât have enough employees to cull the chickens. I canât double my prices without my customers hitting the roof, so a lot of this we are absorbing. But inevitably price increases need to happen. This is a business and if we donât make money, we canât operate.
I wonât even get into how difficult it is to even find employees right now. Seems that a lot of business owners in my area are having the same troubles that the chicken farmers are. This is the case regardless of the advertising that we do and the incentives that we offer.
Times are tough right now for business owners in ways that some people may find it a challenge to understand. I wish you all the best, Nevin. Hope things get easier for you soon. @bbsupport
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Omg can you imagine?
Over here we had an asparagus farmer with no workers to harvest it⌠he let people come and pick some⌠but essentially out over $100,000 (If I remember the numbers correctly) I hope he has insurance that will help somewhere?
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Farmers here are having trouble keeping hands too. The house north of ours and the house south of ours are usually used for farm hands. But they have been sitting empty for months. Even free housing isnât an incentive. As it is, people can get unemployment AND rent forgiveness and food stamps and whatever else they feel entitled to.
Besides not having help, we are running out of water. So crops arenât thriving. And our company does all their maintenance on their irrigation pivots. All of our supply costs have gone up. So we have to raise the prices on parts. This is true of all the businesses the farmers get supplies from. And itâs all going to continue to get worse before it gets better.
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I agree, Nevin. All this is the tickle down effect, and itâs bad.
My husband and have purchased a new modular home, and our builder said that if we had not gotten our order in by the end of last December, like we did, we would be paying $10 to $20,000 more in costs right now, as everything keeps rising. People who are wanting to order homes from him right now are having to wait as the costs are just too high for many now.
Things are out of control. Reminds me of 2008/2009.
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Same thing around our state. No one wants to work. Itâs hard to even get a bank to get a loan through and takes way long to get a building inspector to come out and approve your new build. The maintenance man who does stuff for the rental company of our house canât find workers right now. No one wants to work. I donât get it. Itâs not like unemployment lats forever and people need to have plans. Never thought Iâd see so much laziness. And I believe that is what it is.
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My son is doing a major remodel on his home. The floor in the basement needs replacing (among other things). The contractor told him âI can save you money if we pour a concrete floor instead of woodâ. No joke. Really happened.
BTW, saw the following joke on the internet:
âBorder patrol recently found a load of lumber hidden inside a shipment of cocaineâ.
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Yes, lumber is almost as costly as gold. Itâs so ridiculous. Cement might last him longer, though.
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My husband and I added on to our deck last year. We wanted to finish the rest of the walkway. A 2x4 was $2.00 when we bought them in January of 2020. Last time we looked they are now at 9.54 a 2x4.
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