Your Groceries Are Secretly Getting Cheaper (Not Really)

In this video, I break down what I call the Shrinkflation Tax—a systematic corporate strategy to extract more money from you by exploiting your brain's inability to accurately judge volume and weight. I will show you the documented cognitive bias called "attribute neglect" that makes you five times more likely to notice a price increase than an equivalent quantity decrease. I will walk you through specific examples: Gatorade dropping from thirty-two to twenty-eight ounces, Folgers coffee shrinking fifteen percent, Cottonelle toilet paper losing twenty-one percent of its sheets, Tillamook ice cream going from fifty-six to forty-eight ounces—all while prices stayed flat or increased. I will expose the five techniques corporations use beyond simple size reduction: dimensional manipulation with pinched waists and concave bottoms, air injection in chip bags, count reduction in packaged goods, dilution of liquid products, and serving size manipulation. I will show you why the official inflation numbers systematically understate what you are actually experiencing, why corporate profit margins expanded during the same period companies blamed "input costs" for their shrinkage, and what the true cost of shrinkflation is for an average family over a lifetime. Most importantly, I will give you the specific actions to become a harder target: how to use unit pricing as your default, why buying by weight beats buying by package, and how to see the grocery store for what it really is—a designed extraction environment built by behavioral scientists to exploit your cognitive blind spots. You are not a customer being served. You are a resource being harvested. Time to start noticing. 👉 Subscribe if you want to see the traps before you walk into them. #shrinkflation #groceryprices #hiddentax #consumerawareness #inflationexplained #groceryshopping #priceincreases #corporategreed #foodprices #personalfinance #costoflivingcrisis #shoppingtips ⚠️ DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial advisor, economist, consumer protection attorney, or licensed professional of any kind. The content presented on this channel is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All opinions expressed are my own and should not be construed as financial, investment, legal, or consumer advice. The story of "Maria" is a composite illustration based on documented shrinkflation patterns and is used for educational purposes. Product sizes, prices, and formulations vary by region, retailer, and time period. The specific product examples cited reflect documented changes but may not represent current offerings. Corporate pricing and sizing decisions involve complex factors including supply chain costs, ingredient prices, and competitive dynamics. The Consumer Price Index methodology is publicly available and does involve quality adjustments, though the treatment of package size changes is debated among economists. Always verify product information at point of purchase. Shopping strategies should be based on your individual needs, preferences, and circumstances.