How have your expenses/utilities changed (mostly increased I guess) from 2019/2020 vs now?

23 comments

1. Mobile services and cable services have increased the most. We are being hit with inflation more than anything on household goods and food

2. My utilities haven’t changed much at all, no.

   Expenses? Yes, inflation have greatly impacted daily purchases, groceries, building materials, travel, etc.

3. Food is much higher, I’ve stopped paying for gas since my wife and I replaced our gas cars with electric vehicles.

   Generally my expenses have become more “pay 10-15% more for what you’ve been using” rather than a full on 50% increase. But that’s the benefit of a fixed mortgage vs annual rent

4. Utilities +10%, groceries +15% and misc. expenses >12%. If I didn’t move back in with my parents my rent would have gone up like $450. Fuckin shit.

5. I’m not sure the exact amount but we’ve definitely had a couple price increases with our electrical company.

   Homeowners insurance is getting out of hand here in Florida.

   Our grocery bill is definitely higher. Restaurant prices don’t even seem to be worth going out anymore. I don’t know about 2019/2020, but recently went to KFC for my son and a 4-piece meal was like $14 and I was like WTF.

   I can’t think of any expenses that went down lol.

   TLDR: shit’s expensive out here

6. CA – Gas, electric and water seem to be on a par this year with what they have been in past years. My electric did go up since 2019 because I retired and I am home all day now, but it hasn’t been too bad. Edison applied for a rate increase with the CPUC this year and may get it, but CA has energy credit offsets that help every quarter. Fuel and groceries have been the biggest inflationary expense in our home, but we drive a lot less now. My wife is WFH pretty much these days, too. Both cars might see 15K miles a year now if we take driving trips.

7. Not sure about the rates but usage has definitely gone up because I work from home, so using my own electricity and water all day, and also because I’ve had two kids born between 2020 and now so they also are using up a lot more money.

8. Honestly my expenses have changed very little. I only rarely drive so gas prices haven’t made that huge a difference. There has been noticeable inflation in some groceries and other specific things like meals out, but it’s not breaking my bank at all. Utilities are the same. I don’t need to buy a car or build a house so inflation in those things don’t make a huge difference to me. This whole thing has been a process of me observing other people complain while I am not being impacted at all by these problems.

9. I went from spending around $75 on groceries for two people in 2019, to spending around $85 on groceries for one person today. My natural gas bill absolutely violated me over the winter.

   (Birmingham, Alabama)

10. Gone up by 1/3 and I hate it 😭

11. NJ Natural gas prices got a pretty significant hike last fall, but it was a relatively mild winter so not a huge impact.

    Not much else has changed utilities wise

12. Electric is really the only thing thats gone up for me. My winter electric bill in early 2022 was like $30, this year it was up to almost $70. Everything else has pretty much stayed the same though.

13. My biggest increase in expenses has been probably car insurance. My rate has doubled over two years. Used to pay $60/month for everything. Now I’m at $120/month. Grocery bill has went up but I’m talking maybe an additional $20 most trips. Some trips it’s more but not every trip. Electric has went up but not by much maybe $5 more a month on average. Outside of that most of my other bills are fixed outside of my credit card, which the biggest issue on that is the interest rate. I will say that I have canceled a couple of subscriptions such as Hulu Live TV because it was starting to strain my budget.

14. For prices that don’t depend much on location:

    * Exactly the same mobile phone service cost.

    * 20% to 50% higher food prices, depending on the specific items.

    * 25% higher for anything from Dollar Tree!

    I moved from New Rochelle, New York to Connecticut over that time period, so many of my expense changed largely due to the new location:

    * 10% lower rent.

    * 50% lower Internet even though the speed is faster.

    * About the same overall basic utilities annually. Higher in the summer but lower in the winter because my previous apartment included heat but not water in the rent, while this one is the reverse. There was recently a large electric rate increase in Connecticut, which didn’t hit me since I’d signed up for a 36-month fixed rate before.

15. I am in Florida.

    My insurance has tripled. As of right now, I pay more per month insurance than I do servicing the debt. My monthly mortgage *et al* bill has increased over 25% in the last 4 years.

    My city has one of the highest inflation rates.

    >The area including Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater ranked No. 1 for cities where inflation is rising the most, according to a new study conducted by WalletHub. The personal finance site compared 23 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) across two key tricks related to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation.- https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/tampa-highest-inflation-us/67-af842c47-d6c2-4cff-85e1-a743c04bb22b

    I am leaving Florida.

16. I haven’t looked closely recently but a year or so ago my natural gas was up something like 25% and electricity was up a couple percent.

17. In that time frame I became a father and moved to a house that’s twice as big. My expenses have probably doubled

18. Electric is slightly higher, but not hugely so. It’s actually gone back down slightly in the last 2-3 months.

    I don’t have natural gas.

    Gasoline and food are definitely more expensive though.

19. My expenses have decreased since buying a house.

20. Everything’s up. Way up. Even though rates are locked in, electric providers here can add a surcharge to recover “generation costs” (meaning higher fuel prices), so we’ve all gotten sticker shock on electricity. Food’s still way up vs four years ago. Restaurants are outrageous — food costs combined with energy costs and now having to pay teenagers $15/hour to get them to show up for work. Rumor has it cars have come down a little, but I haven’t shopped for a car in years.

21. Utilities ip ~$20-$25 a month in the last year for same usage. Sucks.

    Groceries haven’t been too bad. Trader Joe’s and Aldi do me good.

    Gas up like a mother fucker.

22. Food and basically any item you purchase has increased. We paid off our mortgage 2 years ago, so that made all the inflation not so bad. Our property taxes have almost doubled. Utilities have gone up. So not having a mortgage really helped out.

23. Unnoticeably.

    I mean, we had kids, so that’s definitely a huge expense. Daycare alone is $2600 a month for two kids in June through August, but having them was our choice.

    I can’t be bothered to look at the electric bill in comparison because it’s a non issue.