![\"Shrimp](\"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/photo-jessica-christian-san-francisco-135579270.jpg\")
Some food and two drinks at a local fast-food taco joint can cost upward of $60. San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\nBuddy, can you spare a hundy?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the world, but this inflation is really becoming straight-up bananas! Especially here in Los Angeles, where life has become almost too expensive to believe.<\/p>\n
Just last week, my hairdresser, Pepper, told me that she went to a local fast-food taco joint with her son, and they had food and two drinks. It cost them $63! And she\u2019s a tiny woman, so she\u2019s not exactly ordering the two chicken chalupa supreme.<\/p>\n
Some food and two drinks at a local fast-food taco joint can cost upward of $60. San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Another friend of mine, who works as a masseuse, complained that she has to pay $3,000 a month for childcare \u2014 for one child. That is a lot of back rubs.<\/p>\n
She also told me that filling her car\u2019s gas tank cost $140! Unreal.<\/p>\n
Another friend, Angela, who also has to drive all over town, couldn\u2019t believe the cost of a dozen eggs was nearing $12 in some places. Mine are $13 at the farmers market. One avocado \u2014 one! \u2014 cost me $7! It was a big one, but still.<\/p>\n
My girlfriend, who lives up in northern California, got evicted for not paying her rent when the living conditions were uninhabitable. Even after making $40,000 a year, she still couldn\u2019t afford her apartment. So now she is forced to live in a shipping container in the foothills. Literally. And it\u2019s so hot in there.<\/p>\n
My fellow wellness nerd friend, Jasmine, can\u2019t get over the prices of supplements. It costs an arm and a leg just to keep your body together.<\/p>\n
I have a car, but I\u2019m working all the time, and can\u2019t drive my 15 year old around everywhere she needs to go. Yet I can\u2019t keep up with the cost of the Uber and Waymo rides until she gets her license.<\/p>\n
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My friend Linda, who lives in LA part time and spends the rest of her year in Buffalo, has figured out how to tag along to barbecues \u2014 whether in back yards or on boats. It\u2019s not just about making friends with the neighbors. It\u2019s about affording dinner.<\/p>\n
A few days ago, my friend Victoria told me how outraged she is at the parking situation in Santa Monica
\u2014 not only that we just don\u2019t have any free parking near anything important anymore, but that they are now changing the meters near the farmers\u2019 market from three-hour limits to 15-minute maximums. <\/p>\n
Who can get anything done in 15 minutes, besides men? Way to squeeze more money out of the local residents!<\/p>\n
Personally, I would have to say that my biggest complaint about expenses is the cost of laundry. To do two loads of laundry in my building is now $11. And now laundromats are even worse!<\/p>\n
And when you get so stressed from all of this ridiculousness, you wanna go out and have a drink with your friends \u2014 and one glass of wine can cost more than $20!<\/p>\n
What do we do? Get Three Buck Chuck from Trader Joe\u2019s and share a bottle with the girlfriends.<\/p>\n
It goes without saying that vacations are out of the question.<\/p>\n
Maybe we\u2019re slipping back toward some prehistoric bartering system. Will offer massages for food!<\/p>\n
Or perhaps we will have to subsist on beans and rice? Didn\u2019t our Irish forebears survive on potatoes before the famine?<\/p>\n
That reminds me; I have a great recipe for hash browns, courtesy of dear old Dad.<\/p>\n
And where\u2019s my wine again? I need to decompress!<\/p>\n
Thank God for good friends! I\u2019m also so grateful for the free things in LA \u2014 like friends, sunshine, surf and street performers.<\/p>\n
To my fellow Angelenos: Hang in there \u2014 it\u2019s gotta get better eventually. Right?<\/p>\n
Liz Angeles is a massage therapist\u00a0in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n
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Buddy, can you spare a hundy? I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the world, but this inflation is really becoming straight-up bananas! Especially here in Los Angeles, where life has become almost too expensive to believe. Just last week, my hairdresser, Pepper, told me that she went to a local fast-food taco joint with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1835,58,1075,3039,94,2348,4301,4299,4302,4300,416],"class_list":["post-42316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-louisiana","tag-affordability","tag-california","tag-gas-prices","tag-inflation","tag-los-angeles","tag-louisiana","tag-louisiana-dining","tag-louisiana-food","tag-louisiana-grocery-stores","tag-louisiana-restaurants","tag-opinion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117380850873896867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}