How Slowing Down Could Help Inflation Come Down - and Save Us All Money

The Cost of Convenience

We’ve all got­ten used to the con­ve­nience of shop­ping online. It’s fast, easy, and just a click away. But here’s a thought: what if our col­lec­tive habits — espe­cial­ly the con­stant click­ing and buy­ing — are actu­al­ly con­tribut­ing to the very infla­tion we’re all frus­trat­ed about? Let me explain.

The $99 Jump Rope (and What It Taught Me)

The oth­er day I saw a Face­book ad for a pair of weight­ed jump ropes. They were unique — short ropes I hadn’t seen before. I fig­ured they’d be expen­sive (because, well, social media ads aren’t cheap). I took a guess: maybe $79? Turns out the base price was $99. For a jump rope… from a brand I’d nev­er even heard of!

The truth is, Face­book adver­tis­ing isn’t cheap. These brands have to bake in the cost of those ads into the price of their prod­ucts. You’re not just pay­ing for the prod­uct — you’re cov­er­ing the cost of the ad that con­vinced you to buy it.

Buy­ing in Per­son Can Save You a Ton

Let’s say I had just walked into a sport­ing goods store or even Wal­mart. I bet I could find a com­pa­ra­ble weight­ed jump rope for under $30. Maybe not the same gim­mick, but some­thing that works just as well for a frac­tion of the price.

At the end of 2024, I can­celed my Ama­zon Prime sub­scrip­tion. Since then, my wife and I start­ed keep­ing a shared dig­i­tal list of things we actu­al­ly need. When one of us heads to the store, we tag team and buy those items in per­son. It has saved us a ton of money.

The Hid­den Cost of ​“Free Shipping”

Need bat­ter­ies? Light bulbs? Super glue? Screws and bolts? Those lit­tle things add up online. They’re often marked up heav­i­ly, espe­cial­ly when ship­ping is ​“free.” You’re not just pay­ing for the item — you’re pay­ing for the con­ve­nience of skip­ping the store. But if you slow down and make the trip, you’ll prob­a­bly spend half as much.

Fast Food and Deliv­ery Markups

Fast food prices are going up, and part of that is because we keep get­ting it deliv­ered. Think about it — you’re pay­ing for the food, the deliv­ery fee, the tip, and the markup that’s been added to the menu price to cov­er those ser­vices. These inflat­ed costs are now baked into the sys­tem. If more of us cooked at home or picked up the food our­selves, prices would even­tu­al­ly adjust.

Infla­tion in the Trades: Ads Dri­ve Prices Up

Now, for those of you in the trades — espe­cial­ly painters and home improve­ment pros — this applies to us too. Social media adver­tis­ing (Face­book, Insta­gram, LinkedIn, etc.) isn’t just rais­ing the cost of prod­ucts. It’s rais­ing the cost of ser­vices too. Why? Because the cost per lead and the cost per sale have gone up. Before social media ads became the norm, we could get qual­i­ty leads at a much low­er price — some­times a frac­tion of what they cost today.

But now, because this is where peo­ple are spend­ing time, busi­ness­es have to adver­tise there just to stay vis­i­ble. That means the contractor’s over­head increas­es, and nat­u­ral­ly, that gets passed on to the home­own­er. In oth­er words, if you’re click­ing on a paint con­trac­tor ad online, you’re prob­a­bly pay­ing more than if you found them through a refer­ral or local source. The more we feed this sys­tem, the more expen­sive these jobs will become for everyone.

$30 Shoes for $100

Here’s anoth­er real exam­ple: I once saw a social media ad for a styl­ish pair of men’s shoes — looked super com­fort­able. Price? Over $100. Again, I’d nev­er heard of the brand, so I dug a lit­tle deep­er. Turns out, the same shoes (same images and every­thing) were list­ed on Ama­zon under a dif­fer­ent name for $30. That’s a 3x to 4x markup — just for clever mar­ket­ing on social media.

Let’s Wake Up to What We’re Spending

We’ve got to wake up to this stuff. I’ve made these buy­ing mis­takes more times than I can count. But I’m mak­ing changes — buy­ing less online, doing a lit­tle more research, and slow­ing down.

Final Thoughts (and a Note on Tariffs)

I’m not here to get into the pol­i­tics of it all. But regard­less of what hap­pens with tar­iffs, price increas­es, or glob­al sup­ply chains, we can still do our part to keep costs down. If we stop over­buy­ing and pay­ing inflat­ed prices for con­ve­nience, we send a mes­sage. We shift the mar­ket. We help infla­tion cool off — not because of pol­i­cy, but because of com­mon sense.

Let’s slow life down a bit. Let’s sched­ule time to go get the items we need, not just want. Let’s do a lit­tle more com­par­ing, price-check­ing, and in-per­son shop­ping. It’s not just good for your wal­let — it might be good for the whole econ­o­my too.