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Cost of living: What happens when the price increase does not come at a price?
Those who shop every week in the supermarket have been feeling the price increase at the checkout for several months, every time they sell fewer products for the same shekels.
How can we pay more even though the face value does not go up?
The answer is the first step towards prudent consumption, the natural vaccine against price increases
Tags
Price increase
Price increases
supermarket
reform
State budget
Avigdor Lieberman
Naftali Bennett
Nir Kipnis
Friday, 29 October 2021, 09:46 Updated: 10:22
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Bennett and Lieberman do not believe this is happening to them: a state budget is about to pass for the first time in an eternity - and within it are some important reforms designed to fight the cost of living.
Some have already suffered some blows on the way to the budget, such as the famous agricultural reform, some are too little and too late - such as raising the retirement age for women (in short: the goal is to bridge the number of years between retirement age and death, but an update to age 65). 11 years, will result in that when the move is completed, this gap will be larger than it is today).
But by and large - and despite its many shortcomings, for the first time in years in which the state budget was hijacked and a hostage held by activists, the budget book will be placed on the Knesset table at the beginning of this week's budget.
And despite this step that should not be underestimated, we will soon have less good - at least in the economic sense.
It will also happen because some reforms try to bridge years of neglect so that it takes time to see results, and partly because of global reasons we have already been tired of being slammed in the media: rising raw material prices, transportation costs, coronation aid programs - leaving workers low paid, And more.
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Actual prices have risen even though the face value has not changed.
The solution: think twice before placing in the cart (Photo: ShutterStock)
When prices rise using the Israbloff method
But - and here comes a big but: it's no coincidence that this week all the price trumpets blew up, until it seems that customers will soon run with carts to supermarkets to fill the refrigerator at home before prices rise, as drivers do on the eve of rising fuel prices.
Why is this not the case? Because this week the ability of the brokers to accommodate the price increases that have actually existed here for several months is over.
If you think your money is worth less at the checkout in the supermarket, you are absolutely right - and yet, if you look at the price tags on the products, you will find that almost none of them have changed! How can it be? Well friends - in the familiar Israblof method.
How do you increase the price of a product without changing its face value? Here is an example where we, who are so sensitive to the price written on the product - and who tend to compare shopping baskets between retail chains according to product prices, fall again and again:
Who does not know the term "quantity assumption"? Buy two - get the third for free, buy five - and pay only for four, buy for at least a thousand shekels - and you will receive an additional benefit at the box office and more.
These discounts have been gradually abolished over the past few months, some of them have returned to guest appearances on the eve of the holidays, the beautiful hour of comparing shopping baskets, but by and large the price hikes that everyone is warning about have been with us for quite some time. This is why we feel that our money buys less in the supermarket, even though prices have hardly changed.
Let's be clear: if you were used to buying five items of a particular product at a sale of 4 + 1 for one hundred shekels, then the nominal price of the product was 25 shekels. The price has not changed, but the quantity discount has been canceled - and here you have a payment of 125 shekels for the same amount, a real increase of 25%, without even changing the price tag!
Moreover, the shortage of some products also reflected an increase in prices without raising prices.
If we take for example the expenses of an average Israeli family on milk and some of its products, we will find that someone put a deep hand in our pocket, even though it did not raise the price even in shekels: when there is no "regular" milk we buy more expensive milk - and many of us ", With or without quotes.
Finance Committee this week: On the one hand, at a good time, the budget book will be on the Knesset table.
On the other hand, when we see the ease with which we all share money in deals between politicians, it turns out that we have a good reason to be angry (Photo: Knesset Spokeswoman, Knesset Spokeswoman)
The answer is in the full cart
So what exactly has changed this week, that everyone is talking about price increases? Mainly the fact that the return to routine, which began about four weeks ago, has consumed all the surplus in certain products left over from the holidays. Although these are not fresh food products, they are still basic consumer products, such as detergents.
And most importantly what has changed is the ability of retail chains to accommodate the price hikes by eliminating promotions and quantity discounts.
So now the price increases, which as mentioned have been with us for many months, will also reach the price labels themselves - and there seems to be no factor that does not prepare us for this. So maybe it's time to mention that most of us buy more than we consume. Fresh food is one of the most wasteful areas of our lives.
With all our fondness for shouting hams every time the price goes up, all consumer surveys show that the price is just one of the considerations by which we choose where to make our big weekly purchase. The shopping experience, for example, is meaningful and much more important to most of us.
Therefore, even before we wait for local reforms to work or the world to recover from the corona - production quotas will return to what they were before the outbreak, the rise in transport prices and more (changes that are likely to happen so quickly, given the fact that the corona returns to us every time) - It's time for us to take responsibility for the way we fill the cart at the supermarket.
Those who buy every week for a thousand shekels (for example) and for the next purchase throw away fresh food at a cost of fifty to one hundred shekels, can contain a price increase of a few percent without burdening the pocket, just by changing his buying habits.
So it's true that we like to complain - and when we look at the unbearable ease with which our money is divided according to party keys, it turns out that we have good reason to be angry.
But for those who really want to save, just before blaming farmers, centralization, food chains and politicians, it is better to look into its shopping cart: it may further discover the potential for savings that will slightly mitigate the adverse effects of the expected price increases.
When conditions change for the worse, and knowing that no one in the food chain, literally, really wants our best, it's time for us all to become slightly better consumers.
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