With the prices of everyday items such as cleaning products, gasoline, and branded medication rising exponentially, it’s becoming more difficult for people to maintain their lifestyles. To illustrate, here are 18 everyday items that people can no longer justify buying!
Bottled Water
In addition to being far more expensive than tap water, bottled water often contains tiny microplastics, which, if accumulated inside your body, can cause health problems. The National Library of Medicine claims that microplastics can trigger an immune response or cause local particle toxicity… yikes!
Branded Cleaning Products
There is very little point in wasting your money spending more on branded cleaning products than non-branded products. There is usually very little to differentiate between the two, with some branded cleaning products even made in the same factory as the non-branded products! So, don’t waste your cash.
Video Games
Those born before the year 2000 will be able to remember a time when video games cost less than $20. Nowadays, the big releases are sometimes being sold for over $100, with disk-free consoles meaning you can no longer shop around for a good deal. That’s absolutely absurd.
Fast Fashion
For a brief period, companies producing clothes for impossibly cheap prices were allowed to get away with their practices unchallenged. However, once the stories of fast fashion companies using sweatshop labor started to circulate, the end was near. These disposable outfits are also terrible for the environment, so spend your money elsewhere.
Fast Food
Not only is it hugely unhealthy, packed with chemicals, additives, and preservatives, but fast food prices are on the rise. Some fast food restaurants have raised their prices by up to 28% since 2019, as CNBC has reported, making it an unjustifiable purchase for many people. It makes you feel awful, too.
Cheap Razor Blades
Yes, they may save you a little bit of money in the short term, but cheap razor blades often lack the sharpness and lubrication of their more expensive counterparts. This leaves you vulnerable to rashes, cuts, and discomfort, making them an all-round awful purchase.
Plastic Cutlery
Just like plastic straws, plastic cutlery is far from environmentally friendly; due to contamination issues, it cannot be recycled once used. If you use plastic cutlery rather than buying an actual cutlery set, you’ll end up spending more money in the long run anyway, so just don’t do it!
Streaming Services
When Netflix ruled the streaming roost, there was little need to subscribe to any other service for your entertainment fix. However, the streaming market has become increasingly convoluted, with so many options to choose from, making it very expensive to keep up with newly released shows. It’s unjustifiable to subscribe to them all!
Takeaway Coffee
The wholesome daily ritual of heading to your local coffee shop for a morning pick-me-up is in danger of becoming financially unwise. Coffee shop prices are skyrocketing due to import costs, energy costs, and general inflation, so why not buy a reusable cup and make your own coffee!?
Branded Medication
Pharmaceutical companies are only allowed to keep the recipe for most of their medication under wraps for a certain amount of time before they are legally required to make it publicly available. This means that many unbranded medications will be exactly the same as their branded equivalents, so don’t waste your money.
Plastic Straws
While they’re undeniably more effective than paper straws, the environmental damage that plastic straws create makes them impossible to buy with a conscience still intact. As the BBC suggests, plastic straws can linger in the environment for around 300 years, harming wildlife and habitats. Nobody wants that.
Gasoline
The prices of gasoline have been rising dramatically in the last couple of years due to global events causing a worldwide shortage. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify filling up a car to the brim, with many opting to go for a quarter of a tank at a time. We can’t blame them.
A House
House prices are becoming almost impossible for first-time buyers to afford, leading many to jump into the rental market instead. Unfortunately, house prices in the USA are continuing to rise quicker than wages, meaning the issue isn’t looking as though it’s improving. We can only hope.
Meat
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify the purchase of meat because of both the negative impact of the industry on the environment and its rising cost in supermarkets. People are having to settle for cheaper, poorer-quality cuts instead, which are inhumane and gross, questioning whether we should buy meat products at all.
Meals Out
Shortly after the pandemic, the novelty of eating out at restaurants was present, as establishments would be packed out each night of the week. However, rising costs have put an end to this, as people can no longer afford to eat out so frequently. The silver lining is that you’ll have more home-cooked meals!
Soda
Soda prices have hit an all-time high over the last few years, with the major companies PepsiCo and Coca-Cola both hiking their prices. According to Reuters, the prices of the drinks sold by both companies have surged by over 11% in the last two years! Sadly, this is mostly in line with inflation.
Cinema Tickets
With people being able to watch the latest movies on streaming sites very quickly after their initial cinema release, fewer people are willing to fork out for cinema tickets. When you go to the cinema, it’s not just the ticket that costs money; popcorn, drinks, travel, and parking costs quickly quadruple the bill.
Home Exercise Equipment
Finally, home exercise equipment experienced an unprecedented boom in sales during the pandemic as gyms closed and people were forced to stay home. However, in the years since, sales have declined as the initial prices and subsequent subscription prices are unjustifiable. This has resulted in the major brand Peloton falling into financial difficulty, which is shocking.
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