Prior to moving out of home and being cut off from the bank of mum and dad, if you’d ask me about inflation, I probably would have assumed that you were talking about the child infested, bacteria hoarding and hell sent Inflatable World or a pool floatie. However, now that I have to pay my own bills and thankfully never have to go to Inflatable World ever again, I understand inflation (just a little bit).

 

Quite simply, inflation is the rising cost of things. With Aotearoa’s inflation rate hitting a 30 year high of 6.9%, and the rising cost of living, most of us can no longer afford to even get 6.9% high. Now they say that the constant rise of inflation is due to the post-pandemic world and the ongoing war in Ukraine. But I honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck about the pandemic anymore, and I would like to tell inflation to take a test and isolate for 7 days so I can afford a block of goddamn cheese. And don’t get me started on Putin – I feel as though I need to watch what I say here as you never know how many Russian spies are among us. 

 

It’s hard to understand the whole inflation rate at 6.9% thing, but the easiest way to describe it is: remember when Pizza Hut value pizzas were all actually five dollars? Now it’s $6.50 for a classic cheese pizza. It’s literally cheese, tomato, flour, yeast & water, and yet it costs more than ¼ of the hourly minimum wage (as an ex-Dominos employee ik the secret formula). I remember when petrol was $1.80 per litre sometime last year – it’s almost double that now, and it literally costs an arm and leg to fill up your tank. On the plus side, it’s forcing me to walk more because I am literally too poor to drive everywhere. 

 

Now it’s no longer poor uni students who are experiencing life below the poverty line, it’s half of the fucking country. Now, the Government tried to help by doing things like raising the minimum wage, which I personally believe has made things worse (controversial ik) as businesses need to raise prices in order to afford to pay their employees a higher wage and a lot of employees who are earning above minimum will not see a pay increase, but they will still see an increase in living costs. Stupid inflation has made small businesses, cafes and even retailers have to raise their costs, making it harder for me and many basic bitches to afford our weekly trip to Glassons, Starbucks and nail appointments. It’s also made basic necessities such as toilet paper, bread, eggs, cheese, and milk become so expensive that families cannot afford them. We live in a first world country for Christ sakes, necessities shouldn’t be unattainable. The only people truly benefiting off inflation are the rich, Putin (maybe?) and landlords (because they’ve always been greedy fucks). While ordinary people are left to suffer, inflation makes me want to deflate.