I have to take a quick break in the regular programming of showing you readers how far I have come in the last few days but something has caught my ire.  I went to a department store here in Brandon which let’s just say is Canadian in nature and  looked to purchase a female end to my air hose.  This air hose has had multiple brass ends replaced throughout the years but this time the price left me shocked.  $14.99 for a single piece of my air hose puzzle.  I had purchased a box kit from another store that is, let’s say, is royal in nature a few years back that included several of these female ends, several male ends and the like.  I relied on this box kit for the last few years but had run out of the female connectors.  This kit at the time was $19.99.  Oh I know……inflation, inflation, inflation….but this is getting borderline ridiculous.  And then I required some liquid super glue.  I normally do not use such a product, but the center caps I purchased for my new wheels, which cost me $320.00 by the time they arrived were rattling as soon as I had installed them on the wheel.  So now I have to fix a brand new part or listen to the rattling sound every time I hit a bump in my car.  I tried to carefully drip a very liquid super glue into the space between the surface of the center cap and the surrounding chrome trim around it.  The glue I chose was 20 grams for $14.00 or two smaller tubes with 3 grams in each for $10.99,  Luckily I can do math and purchased the larger bottle for more money so that more of this glue can go bad and gel in the next month after opening the bottle.  Oh but wait, there’s more!  I needed flapper disks.  The store I was at for the glue and originally the female hose end use to have these flapper wheels that are used to grind stuff.  They are an abrasive wheel to attach to high speed grinder, to prep metal for welding (see photo below).  They were in a ten pack for some price a couple years back.  Then they would go on sale for 50% to 70 %  and I would pay $30 for the ten in the package.  Not now!  They now come close to $10 per disk and don’t seem to go on sale.  And paint…..yes paint.  I use interior vinyl and plastic paint which had been $14.99 a can is now the low low price of $25.99.  One can!  So milk has gone up as has every other food item but I require food to live.  I don’t require interior paint to live.  I will be finding substitutes for this product.  I will find substitutes for all the products or choose not to do the project.  This is where this hobby is leading me.  If you were a business charging for your services of building old vehicles you should have a defibrillator close by for your customers in case of heart attack.

What can be done?   All I can say is shop around and wait for sales and buy bulk if need be but make sure you are ready for the sticker shock of building your project.  Eventually the products I have mentioned will slow down in their sales and the stores will have to reduce the price to blow them out.  Then when the middle man comes to the store to restock their shelves they will see that the store has to pull back or not re order at all.  The middle man will go back to the manufacturer and tell them that their increased price is not flying.  How much of this price increase is greed and gouging?  I get that wages have gone up and supplies have gone up….. but on everything?  It will become a choice.  Do I choose to eat steak twice a week or do I choose to have pork and chicken done different ways for every day of the week and say no to the beef.  Maybe I choose to become a vegetarian.  When gas goes up it is a cost that everyone feels.  Shippers have to charge more to get the goods to your door.  For your own vehicle you have a bit of latitude.  You can plan your outgoing events better and not make frequent trips.  You can choose to not drive to  the store for a pack of cigarettes or instead buy a full case reducing your need to drive for cigs, or choose to quit.  It is still a choice.  In the near future I feel that the majority of families will be making choices in life.  Do they choose to eat out at restaurants?  Do they choose to purchase the food that they used to in the past? Do they have a gym membership and go to the movies…….or do they have to make new choices and be happy doing one thing and not multiple things.  A long time ago I chose to build cars and cancelled spending my money on most other things.  I just find it is getting harder to justify my choice of building old vehicles.  With these price increases in everything it may not be financially viable.  I used to think that in the end when I sell my completed projects I would get the principle amount out of the vehicle.  The labor……well that was for free!  The knuckle busting, the paint fume ingesting, the glue staining and the metal pieces stuck in my eyes were all for free.  Now with losing money as well as free labor I may have to reassess my choice.  All of this I have chosen to rant about although it was a long time coming.  It took one trip to the store for a hose end to break the camel’s back.