Because a box of cereal is $7.
And oatmeal - didn’t that used to be one of the cheapest foods!? wtf happened there I have no idea…
Steel cut oats are still relatively inexpensive; no reason to buy prepared oatmeal.
The instant kind, which used to be an identical rather than now twice the price for Quaker Oats (ymmv), still has some benefits: ability to nuke it anywhere e.g. even at work without access to a stovetop, less cleanup for the pan, and less knowledge (zero chance to burn it) and effort required.
Maybe the uncut kind tastes better, or something? For Quaker Oats I never thought so, especially not given the aforementioned tradeoffs, but probably other brands can be way better.
Anyway thanks for the suggestion - that is a great thought. It may take some effort to switch over, but it seems like it may be worth it.
Here’s what I do: Robin Hood steel cut (way better than Quaker):
Bring water to boil in a pot
Add oats and return to edge of boil, without stirring
Turn off pot and cover with lid for 10 minutes
Oats are ready to eat
— the water to oats ratio differs depending on taste and volume, but it only takes a few tries to get it the way you want it.
Thank you. I will miss the “1-minute”, no-prep, no-clean aspect, but I needed to make the switch anyway, b/c despite the superfood health benefits the instant stuff tastes like crap.
If you don’t mind my asking, why no stirring - wouldn’t that help?
And what does “edge of boiling” mean? Is it just above, like I’ve heard for pasta and noodles, or just below, for whatever but I’ve heard it called “simmering”? Yeah, I don’t know the first thing about cooking, for the most part - I know how to stick something in the oven and leave it alone, and like fry-cook a scrambled egg, and that’s about it. Companies are taking advantage of my weakness there, by making low-effort prepped foods like cereal cost more, b/c they know that most people will just give in and pay more rather than learn to eat other foods:-(.
Another good one to try is to put the oats, some frozen berries and a little bit of milk into a mason jar.
Put the jar in the fridge overnight, they’ll be ready in the morning, sweeten as desired.
Omg “cold(-brew?) oatmeal”, this just blew my mind a little:-P.
You heat it back up until the oats start to roll in from the outside.
You don’t stir, because this makes the oats stick to the pot. Cleanup is really simple if you don’t stir; serve the oats, then rinse the pot in soapy water and leave it to dry.
Cool, thanks! None of that really makes sense to me, so I guess I will just have to follow your directions and watch it happen in order to learn. Especially if I can find something where I can enjoy or even halfway stand the taste, that will be great:-).
Go to a Latin market and buy it in big 5kg bags for cheap
Thanks. It sounds like my biggest problem is the over-reliance on the “quick 1-minute” kind, which really did used to be IDENTICAL in price - or at least I recall the two Quaker Oats versions, side-by-side, were the same price, though steel-cut ones of other brands may be better and/or cheaper.
I am also referring to quick oats, not steel cut ones. Just avoid name brands like Quaker. Buy in bulk.
I routinely buy big boxes of “extra raisins” raisin-bran at Walmart for less than $4/box, did so today in fact.
People also tend to increase their spendings when they have more money… (not saying inflation isn’t part of it too)
That’s bidenomics for you.
it’s also greed by the ultrarich
it’s
alsogreed by the ultrarichFTFY.
How we haven’t gone French Revolution on them, I do not know.
We would be fired and lose our health insurance
That gives us more time to revolute.
My landlord said he would not accept Revolute Bucks as payment
I think there might be a language barrier between you and your landlord. I’m pretty sure you’re speaking “third estate”, while he only knows first or second. Go clarify that language issue with him, and ask if he would prefer Guillotinaros instead.
hard to come by guillotines around here
The full size are, indeed, difficult to come by. But, there are some more portable versions that are more widely available. Some are small enough to fit in a pocket.
what kind?
I dunno… Ginsu, perhaps?
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Sounds like a cigar cutter. Small, but popular with billionaires and MAGA cultists for cutting away their tiny intellects and any and all “concern for one’s fellow man” growths.
How is a late 18th century French Revolutionary supposed to decapitate a nobleman with a cigar cutter?!?
No, he’s going to go to his kitchen or barn or woodpile and find a more portable device with which to support the revolution.
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Take your buzzwords back to truth social
That’s what the white house calls it.
ah yes the halcyon pre-Biden days of 2018–9 when the economy was perfect and housing was affordable 🤗
Most Americans prefer that economy. I could easily afford three homes, groceries, four vacations a year, etc
Under Biden, I’ve had to scale back a bit.
ah yes, three things the government directly controls, United Shore Financial, Kroger and Disney Cruises.
Its because the government has been stealing your money for decades via the fed and inflation. But we just keep voting for both parties that have the exact same monetary policies. I guess we got a bunch of wars out of the deal!
Ah; 40 years old means she doesn’t remember the oil crisis in the 70s.
We’ve had over 20 years of low interest and low inflation and people have forgotten how things can be.
The cost of living is still outrageous compared to then even when you adjust for inflation. There also weren’t the same mega corps running every facet of your life while providing the cheapest crap that will never last
That was the era of “made in Japan” — but you’re right; it was different mega corps running every facet of your life.
It was an era where a LOT of people were bankrupted and had to start again from nothing. The big difference was that doing so was possible at the time; this time around it means you’ll likely have no hope of ever owning property because there’s just enough time in one lifetime to get there, if that (for most people).
it was different mega corps running every facet of your life.
It is a completely different ball game in 2024 and you’d have to be blind to not see it. The power and influence companies have in 2024 dwarfs what any company had in the '70s. Especially with the adevnt of the Internet. So I’m sorry there’s just no comparison here. It may have been tough for a lot of people, but like you said, they had a chance to rebuild. People barely even have a chance to get started these days.
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It doesn’t help that discourse online is entirely convinced that everything was absolutely perfect for the baby boomer generation. They never experienced hardship. Nope. Absolutely none. If they did it was no where near 1000 times how bad I have it.
List those financial hardships then, with sources please.
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The top end of medical care is higher than it has ever been in the world. And stuff is available to more people than ever too - e.g. tiny villages in Africa can get vaccines that Americans refuse to take even. But access to programs such as Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are closing up shop. Younger people are forced to pay into it but will never get the value out of it that older generations were able to. So while the programs ostensibly look to be still there, their “meaning” has changed, bigly.
Similarly with the top and bottom ends of knowledge - except it was far easier to afford a college education when it was a fifth of the cost that it today, and you used to be able to Google pretty much anything, but now all that is shown are ads, ads, and more ads (SEOs have seen to that - tbf AI stuff is helping but it is extremely unreliable and soon enough that will fall prey to SEO stuff too).
But the biggest issue may be affordability of housing: having cool phones that can play games is nice and all, but what else in life could possibly compare with being able to afford your very own home? Even if bought at age 40-60? One answer to that is having a semi-permanent “job”, compared to a shorter-term position in today’s gig economy (there was some article saying that nearly all positions created in 2020-2 were short term ones, though ofc I can never find this article again on Google).
People today have little hope for the future. Neither Trump nor Biden (nor Mitch McConnell nor Nancy Pelosi, now Hakeem Jeffries, etc.) seems to be able to provide that. Nor could they even on theoretical grounds due to the forces at work of automation and globalization. But perhaps there is reason for hope? If so, someone smarter than I would need to explain it, and even find it first. “The economy” has grown for almost a hundred years… but at this point whether that unrestrained growth pattern seems sustainable or not is besides the point, since “the economy” doesn’t seem to be trickling down any to the people who want to share in the good fortune of “America”. But yeah… maybe it will get better? Or maybe it’s Maybelline?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After years of managing household budgets through the stress of the worst inflation in a generation, US families are increasingly pressured by a different kind of financial squeeze: The cost of carrying debt.
The figures suggest a difficult reality for the millions of consumers who are the engine of the US economy: The era of high borrowing costs — however necessary to slow price increases — has a sting of its own that many families may feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven’t locked in cheap home loans.
Nikki Cimino, a 40-year-old recruiter living in Denver, said she finally saved up enough to buy a condo last year, but missed out on the ultra-low interest rates that had made homeownership more affordable in the early days of the pandemic.
It helps that many families are relatively well-positioned to service that debt: Broad wage gains mean workers are pulling in larger paychecks, and higher home prices have bolstered many households’ net worth.
While the share of income going to debt service is higher than it was three years ago — when stimulus checks were making it easier for people to throw money at their credit card bills — it is still low by historical standards.
And part of the reason some Americans were able to take on a substantial load of non-mortgage debt is because they’d locked in home loans at ultra-low rates, leaving room on their balance sheets for other types of borrowing.
The original article contains 1,345 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
