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What are you buying now to avoid upcoming price increases?

1y 7mon ago by lemmy.world/u/jaggedrobotpubes in asklemmy

This seems pretty important to crowdsource and talk about, so I'm gonna go ahead and risk violating the no politics rule from a few days ago, because I don't see a better community to ask this. My defense for it not "being politics" is, I'm asking you to keep it to purchasing decisions and how the details of how the tariffs are likely to work, as opposed to who did what. This thread has the potential to save people lots of money if it gets big!

Tariffs are gonna make things more expensive for Americans; what are you planning on buying now instead of later, or stockpiling a little of?

Been archiving a lot of my favourite shows. I expect a lot of them to either disappear in ten years, or sit behind some subscription.

This is probably a different discussion, but anybody with tips, tricks, and details of where and how to do this safely, this might not be a bad place to show off what you know.

Can anyone recommend some stable general purpose instances that federate with dbzer0? I believe lemmy.world defederated, as the link doesn't work for me. I had a kbin account, but that seems to be dead, and I'd like to minimize the number of accounts I have to use to access things.

How much does the setup cost? assuming I'm already self hosting and have some disk space.

VPN and a seed box?

Yes, you definitely need a good VPN service. I use Proton VPN and it works great. I don’t use a seed box or anything like that. I just see stuff right out of my media library that I keep on several external hard drives. So pretty low cost of entry and then you’re not paying any of the subscription costs for streaming or cable or any of that nonsense. Plus there’s movies they’re software there’s music there’s audiobooks there’s e-books. It’s a cornucopia my friend.

I've been using whatbox as my seed box for nearly 10 years now. I'm on their USD 15/month plan, and they've upgraded my storage & bandwidth twice now in that time without increasing my costs.

Step 1. Get a VPN. Probably a paid one that aligns with the needs of the client. Step 2. Get an app for p2p/torrent downloads to make things fast. Step 3. Configure your app of choice to strictly use the tun0 (VPN) only and nothing else. Just in case you get a lapse. Step 4. Do it like it's 2008 again baby!

Use mullvad. Pay with a fresh crypto wallet. And use Usenet.

most crypto is useless and practically a scam, it's a rabbit hole in itself to find a worthy one. paying for vpn with crypto only helps if you use an untraceable crypto

if I would recommend one, it's Monero, because it's private by default and untracable, but nobody should believe me without doing their own research. I mean it.

"Crypto" is such a vague term it's almost comical to imply it's private. Sure there are ways to use crypto privately, but it takes a lot of steps.

Grab a VPN

Fill up your pantry. Focus on grains which are labor intensive.

Once the deportations camps get rolling expect all the grocery prices to rise again. Having a full pantry will let you float for a while so you can adapt to newer recipes in your price range.

Yup, started focusing on that this week myself, just buying extra rice, pasta, canned goods at least until the inauguration.

If you are willing to grind your own grain, whole grains can be stored in plastic buckets for years without spoiling. You've probably got to like whole grain stuff, sifting to get white flour is a pain.

Panic buying like this only leads to more price increases. I just buy the minimum, like usual.

The real question is does panic buying now make goods cost more than a 100% tariff will?

In the short-term, absolutely. Look what happened when panic buying happened during the start of COVID.

Same. I'm the kind that feels they need a back up of somethings. But I don't need like...10 of them.

Canadian grocery prices have increased something like 20% since 2019. At this point I think we're all buying less, eating less, and making sure we waste less.

It's only going to get worse here.

Americans could stand to lose some weight.

I’m in the process of buying land to homestead on. Solar, rain water, green house, etc. my goal is to be as self sufficient as I can be.

godspeed

To prepare for food shortages/price increases: I'm buying seeds for things I know I can grow in our garden, and stocking up on one or two of each of the fungicides, pesticides, and soil amendments that we regularly use. I bought 30 pound sacks of rice and beans, two large boxes of shelf stable nutrition shakes, and shelf stable vacuum sealed bread. We're considering buying half a cow with the neighbors, who have a deep freezer. I want to buy a pot plant, it'll probably depend on how much they cost. I already have a good supply of sunflower lecithin so I can make my own edibles.

To prepare for the EPA being gutted or other impacts of climate change: we bought AA and AAA batteries and refilled everything in our bug out bags, including first aid stuff and emergency high calorie food (in case of natural disasters.) We're installing a reverse osmosis filter in the kitchen sink (we're concerned about water safety as there have already been problems in our area due to old infrastructure) and it comes with a storage tank. Made sure we had plenty of candles, matches, flashlights, charcoal, lighters and lighter fluid, and a small grill for outside. Have an adapter for the car so we can plug things in if the power goes out.

To prepare for FDA/insurance/medical issues: We bought extra vitamins, and we're asking our doctors to prescribe as much of our necessary drugs as they are allowed to. I learned how to do all my physical therapy at home and have been collecting home exercise equipment for a while, unrelated to this but I'm grateful to have it all now. We also bought a few large bottles of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. We already have a massive collection of OTC meds because I'm chronically ill and use them often. We plan to add a couple extra boxes of the most important stuff the next few grocery trips. Most important for us: painkillers, epi pens, allergy meds, inhalers, hydrocortisone, and diaper rash cream. No baby but it's useful for a lot of skin irritations.

For general preparation: I looked at the labels on all our personal care products (lotion, face wash, etc) and if it's made outside of the U.S. we ordered as much as we could afford, usually 1-2 of each. We're low maintenance so thankfully it wasn't too expensive. New undies for everyone, filters for everything that needs them (furnace, vents, pet fountains, etc.) Made sure we had needles, thread, super glue, duct tape, white vinegar, borax, and a couple things of Dr. Bronner's soap. We're also saving all our glass jars, packaging, etc (thank God we have a garage...) My grandparents lived through the depression and taught me how to make do and mend. That's my mindset right now.

We have a bidet and already buy TP in bulk so I'm not super worried about paper products. All our pets got checkups and boosters. We made appointments to get all our boosters as well (tetanus, covid, flu shot, etc.) We got a pet first aid kit and book. I got some general house stuff like wood filler, wood conditioner, nails, screws, and cleaning supplies. We shop at costco so honestly it's not much more than we usually have in the house.

I might be over prepared but I don't care. We've only spent ~$500 and decided to skip Christmas gifts so thankfully we can afford it. I'm considering a few more things but as it stands I'm feeling prepared.

What water filter did you decide on?

We went with the APEC 5 stage RO filter. It was the best mix (for us) of easy to install and maintain, good reviews on multiple platforms, and affordable. We're getting replacement filters for each other for Christmas 😂

Batten down the hatches!

I’ve got a big pile of lumber I had milled that is almost finished drying. I’m buying up the remaining woodworking tools I need to process it into various items. The American made options are out of my price range.

Tools are a good idea. Probably should follow your lead on that…

Nothing. These companies don't deserve it, I'll do without today and continue into tomorrow.

My personal desktop machine is a Linux box I assembled from $500 worth of parts about 14 years ago. I've increased RAM and added about 8TB of storage for an Emby instance.

It still manages to get the job done, but it is obviously way, way, WAY overdue for replacement. We've been struggling financially for about 25 years.

Now I'm thinking I need to finally pull the trigger and get it done before January.

IMO there's little need to buy new in the computer world unless you want to do something silly like have a snapdragon x laptop or have the disposable funds to go the gaming rig route.

My desktop is a retired business workstation, a HP Z420. I bought it for $250, installed a smaller SSD ($100 new) for the OS + apps, upgeaded to the "best" Xenon that fit the socket ($150 used), upgraded to 64 GB RAM ($107 used, yay ECC memory being dirt cheap on the used market), and a 1070TI ($225 used, purchased just before covid).

It's more than fast enough for my needs still.

This was all about 4-5 years ago, so you could probably do even better with more modern hardware.

Yep. Two weeks ago I was thinking I'd wait through at least one more gen of CPUs and GPUs before upgrading--I've got a 6700XT which works great, but everything else is basically 2012-era tech. Now I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on replacing basically everything but the GPU as soon as tomorrow. If the country is going to implode I may as well have some extra pretty distractions.

The easy way to save is to buy used. You can usually buy a super high spec one for 500 to 800 USD used. I think I spent 600 for mine with a 3070 (from hardwareswap, about 1k or so in parts)

Absolutely. Not because of Trump directly but because of Taiwan. China now has a card blanche basically.

Carte blanche, i.e. blank check. Just sharing in case that wasn't a typo

Yeah, it was.... autocorrect

Sorry to bother, autocorrect is dire these days isn't it?

Got some kitchen appliances I've been putting off upgrading, buying a new TV now, new PC. Basically if theres electronics that probably won't make it for four years, buy it now.

Get your garden going too. Been extremely poor, it helps a ton.

Oh just fyi, of you have to buy from a big box store, Lowe's donate the most to Democrats and last to Republicans. Fuck home Depot.

I predicted this. I said if we ever tried to block politics it would devolve into nitpicking what is and isn't political.

But to answer the question: If your computer shit is about due for a upgrade, don't wait.

Grocery prices would probably keep going up no matter who got elected, so gardening supplies would be a good investment over time. Along with gardening comes the peripheral skills of cooking and preserving when it'll hurt your soul to see any of your sweet baby tomatoes go to waste.

Its rough because your talking years. you might be able to stave off a little of the pain but eventually your going to feel it.

For a lot of things yeah, but not for like, a fridge or a couch. Was wondering about other things in that category I hadn't thought of.

Oh shit, you just reminded me that I've been needing to buy a new couch.

Yeah if you have ones that need replacing or at least are close or at least are more energy efficient. If they are relatively new im now sure if you would still "win" out. I get what your asking, I think part of it is I have been thinking of it myself and in my case I have somewhat recently already done my fridge, washer/dryer, hot water heater, and stove. Which I mean is a good thing as some of them I even got before the last burst of inflation. I was sorta kicking myself for others as we had the large inflation but now it might end up being a great time to do it. I sorta wish I could have gotten my whole place renovated.

I'm American.

I dont have the money to stockpile anything.

A pixel to load grapheneOS on.

Other than that, I need to save as much of my money as humanly possible.

Pixel gang! ♥️😎

In a paycheck or two! Till then, S22u

Scotch

I finished my bottle of Laphroaig 10 on election night :⁠-⁠\

Oh fuck, seriously?

Well it is kinda in the name.

Food, but not primarily for cost savings as most regular used things things don't last longer than a year, which cost wise won't bridge the gap.

55 lbs of 00 flour in the chest freezer, still have about 25lbs of AP flour in there. 1 30lb bag of Jasmine Rice, 1 25 lb basmati. I still have a ton of beans and and dry pasts in mylar/oxy absorb sitting in barens cans for long term storage. When covid started, I had 1 million calories in storage. I don't plan to go back to that, but I intend to be able to hunker down for a long time.

For work, I'm pushing to purchase more laptops before tariffs.

I've considered stowing fuel with a stabilizer but even if prices double on fuel, I don't use enough of it to make a difference.

It would be a good time to buy any lithium ion batteries and finish off those ali-express/temu orders.

55 lbs of 00 flour in the chest freezer, still have about 25lbs of AP flour in there

Mmhmm, 12ga and xm855 "flour," got it.

One doesn't need to panic buy items that they keep in stock at sufficient levels. :)

As I said, not for cost saving, but more for not needing to go out when people start panicking, or being stupid

A large percentage of US manufacturing is food processing. Manufacturing has been struggling to fill open roles for years,1 and as a low-skilled job with tons of openings lots of migrants, both citizens and not work in manufacturing since the pay & benefits are hard to beat for not requiring any degrees. Its a similar situation with farm work. If the Trump administration actually performs significant deportations and cancellations of visas like he promised, food availability will be affected as farms and food producers struggle to keep up with demand

1 Here's the JOLTS data showing as much as 200k unfilled manufacturing jobs. I can't easily directly link my query, but here's a screenshot of the data with enough info to replicate my query

Nothing like a job where your shitty boss’ cost cutting gets you killed by heavy equipment! Wonder why they can’t find anyone?

Yeah, but that just means that the cost of processing food is going to skyrocket. Whole chicken costs will go down while chicken wing costs will go up.

I can also see states leaning on their prison populations to supply some forced labor.

Manufacturing jobs actually pay pretty well. Like I said, it's hard to beat the pay and benefits of working in manufacturing if you don't have a degree.

The reason they struggle to fill these roles is because most people don't want to work in industrial facilities working physically taxing jobs, often at odd hours filling second or third shifts and risking that the facility doesn't sufficiently value safety leading to a serious injury or death

Unfortunately plane tickets out of the country are already up.

Jk, mostly.

You’ll pay a premium for a flight on a Boeing plane, ironic

I've definitely moved plans to build a storage NAS and some smaller custom home automation electronic devices up to start before December.

Yep. Me too. Looking to reconfigure my home storage setup

This is only tangentially related, but the best thing you can do is make stuff instead of buying it. Somewhat ironically, community building and self sufficiency will be more important than ever. Yeah everyone is going to say electronics but I feel like we all have enough of those already. Forbidden knowledge is far more valuable. Kind of doomer but... that's where I'm at lately.

When they take your life, those other things usually go with it.

You can eat my dog,

You can eat my truck,

But you eat my flag and you're out of luck!

Le Creuset casserole pots are awesome.

I'm biased, I inherited one from my grandmother, it's 70 years old and looks brand new.

Then I found an outlet store near me.

I have one of those stores about 20min away by car. Excluding parking

Seems like a healthy relationship.

Living as an adult and not being able to cook for yourself is something I can hardly even picture.
Like, did you go out to eat every day before?

Great skill! My wife has been cooking her entire life and now she cans all of our vegetables but has expanded into fruit drink mixes, pig fat, stocks, etc. the benefit is that what she cooks now is better than most restaurants. She has the gift of just knowing what should go together so she can whip anything together. She enjoys it which makes it so much better. Nothing like TLC in foot prep to make things taste even better. I can’t even put together how much we’ve saved by not eating out. Although, we do like to break down whatever we’re having cost wise vs how much it would’ve cost at a nice restaurant. Anyway, all that to say, you made a wise choice and I’m sure it’s already paid off.

Nothing like TLC in foot prep to make things taste even better.

As a fan of foot massages, I couldn't agree more :>

lol, leaving it just for this.

Good on you! I know so many adults who have no desire to learn how to cook and as a result spend a fortune on food delivery. I had a friend/co-worker a few years back who lived with a couple he knew since college. Couple moved on and a few hours across the province, but he was so helpless/useless he would make the drive every two weeks to have one of them meal prep all of his food for him.

Buy staff made in Taiwan.. So get that PC upgrade now and get the most RAM you can stick in it.

With Trump being Trump I guarantee that China will be putting that shiny new navy to use soon as Trump will simply do nothing for the prospect of a "good deal"(for a new Trump Tower in Beijing or something)

Yep. And those dumb motherfuckers will repeal the CHIPS act my state is already using.

I definitely need to get a new car. I’ve kept mine running as well as I could and it’s almost old enough to vote but it’s reaching the end of its life. I’d do without one if I could but it’s a necessity and I try to drive as little as possible. I always go Subaru so that’s an import and I’m sure if I wait it’ll be wholly unaffordable. I need to replace some of my electronics repair kit so I can fix what I have when possible.

You don't need a new car, just a car.
Buy second hand.

I'm buying a new fleet of Ferraris

Computers

My big thing is a new TV. We have a 46” LCD from 2009 that often refuses to fully power on. I’ve been dragging my feet on replacing it, just cuz I know the research is gonna be demoralizing, with how dystopian a lot of the “smart TVs” are. But now there’s some real time pressure, so I guess I have to.

Coincidentally, I was already planning on upgrading my personal dev machine (to an M4 Mac Mini) and my retro handheld (to a Retroid Pocket 5), as well as my first dip into XR glasses with the Viture Pro. So I’m kinda ahead of the game there.

I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for the next version of the Orange Pi 800, but if tariffs hit before then I’ll probably just skip it. Analogue 3D is also likely to exit my wish list.

I’ll probably move up the timeline on adding storage to my home server if I can afford to. And some microSD cards, since I seem to always need yet another one.

I’ve got a few friends who were looking at upgrading their PCs this year, so I’ll probably be helping them shop and seal the deal before things get weird.

I wouldn’t expect many outrageous Cyber Monday deals this year. Most mfgs probably wanna stretch their inventory so they can delay price increases and stay competitive. That said, there’s also bound to be companies that are poised to strike early because they have already de-China-fied their supply chains. But even they are bound to be cautious.

Tap for spoiler

Also, imo, this is why a “no politics” rule is dumb. Policy ends up changing people’s lives, and dealing with a change in your life — especially one that others are also experiencing — is a big reason why people post on communities like this. “Superficial shit only” is a fine strategy for a massive site that can stand to prune meaningful user engagement for the sake of keeping things family-friendly for advertisers, but since Lemmy is not Reddit, wtf are we doing?

Just don't connect the Smart TV to the internet.

Canadian here. I expect the supply of products that would otherwise have gone to the US to go up and the price here to go down. I'll just wait for the US tariff discounts to hit.

Espresso machine I've been wanting to buy.

Solar panel system for the house. (this one will get WAY more expensive)

Very thankful my girlfriend and I got ducks this spring. They'll be worth their weight in gold shortly enough.

Replacing some small to mid size appliances. Mine are generally 7-10 years old and some of the cooking ones are becoming unsafe to use due to wear. New air fryer to replace the one that smokes when it runs and the toaster oven that has two burnt out coils. Potentially a new dryer of the motor replacement is cost prohibitive.

If I can't fix it and expect 3+more years of use it needs to be replaced in the next 6 months.

A portable SSD. I need a new external hard drive anyway, so adding that November sales have reduced prices currently and that announced tariffs are designed to raise them very soon, there really is no better logical time for me to get one other than now.

Stock

Probably a computer. I still don’t know if I want a laptop or a desktop. Still don’t know if I want to stay with Apple products or try something new. The frameworks laptops look cool but not the best bang for the buck. I also assume the tariff will kill the supply chain of spare parts which makes them attractive in the first place.

The coolest part about the framework is the fixability. I'll be able to run on 16gb of DDR5 until DDR6 becomes the hot new thing, at which time I'll get 32gb of ddr5 on sale and be set set for another good while, and during all that if anything breaks on it I can get the parts cheap enough and do the repair myself easily. Then maybe in like idk 15yr or so if framework is still around I can buy a new mobo/ram and maybe screen to slap in that bad boy and now I have the laptop of Theseus that'll keep trucking until I repeat the cycle.

Me too. I've been making my old one last, it's a very sturdy computer, but it's time.

My husband is going to have to upgrade his work computer because there’s no way it’s lasting four more years 😔

I’m mostly looking at whether I would have made any medium sized purchases in the next two yearsl. I might buy some little things in bulk, too, but if there’s any one time purchase where the price is going to jump $200, $300, $500, it’s time to make a decision.

For me that mostly means furniture. I already bought a pair of commodity IKEA bookshelves I’d been considering buying vs building. I might still build replacements, but I would still use what I just bought and domestic lumber won’t be directly subject to a tariff. I’m looking at buying a papasan chair and a mattress as well, probably in the next week or two.

I’ve also considered electronics, but there’s nothing I would buy in the next two years short of some PC components that I’m sure I’ll want. I bought a Quest 3 a while back and it’s been a great purchase.

I did go back through some of my online buying this year to see what I used. I’ll probably buy a few pairs of work shoes and some good soap.

I'm holding off and waiting for tariffs in the US to make prices lower where I live by reducing demand.

I dont understand, how will prices raising lower the demand until it was cheaper than before prices rose?

Ohhh you don't live in this dumpster fire, lucky

Zactly. And if retaliatory tariffs come in to increase prices of American products, our exports should become more valuable and increase foreign reserves to strengthen our currency and improve our buying power on imports.

I assume that fat cunt will add tariffs on our stuff as well, so we'll work on disentangling ourselves from US dependency, and open markets elsewhere, which is good. That'll raise more prices for you and inflation should become rampant in the US, and weaken the USD.

Hate to see what's happening down there, but in the short term, it's probably good for us as the US steps on its dick for a few years.

Trust me, the US economy unraveling will be felt by everyone, do you think a country this big, and so militaristic is not going to make our economy everyone elses problem. Half of the reason I've cited for not wanting children is that I'm not trying to raise a kid to watch them die in the next global catastrophe we are racing full speed towards...

It's infuriating how ignorant the majority of our country is to the state of affairs...

But hey, at least our 401k's grew a bunch before the dollar became worthless...

I have very little to do with the US and said tariffs, so I'm not affected directly.

In general though I try to be rational with big(ger) purchases - I research things for at least a week or two before buying (but more often it's months) and try to maximise my use of what I buy.

Oh my...

Where are you from?