Buying Vegetables at High Price

After a long long time, I looked at the price tag in a vegetable shop and decided whether to buy or not based on the price.

Many years back, I read the following quote.

When do you realize you are rich?

When you buy without looking at the price tag.

Later I realized that I was rich, because I was not looking at the price tag while I was buying vegetables. [Of course, it is not the case when I go to any other store other than vegetable shops.]

In recent times, there were a couple of instances when I felt like I should have looked at the price before buying. If I had looked at the price before buying, I would not have bought those. First instance was during the lockdown in the first wave of Corona, and the second instance was before the lockdown during the second wave of Corona. At that time, the prices of a few vegetables were very high, and if I had known the prices before, I would not have bought those. 

Sometime back, when there were floods, I consciously looked at the price of the vegetables, and did not buy a few vegetables (or bought less quantity) at a higher price. That was almost the first instance in many many years, when I decided to reduce the consumption of vegetables in the food because of the higher price.

It is not because I am having financial problems. It is because I did not want my consumption to affect the prices. 

Most of the time, the prices are decided by the demand and supply. When there is more demand and less supply, the prices would increase. When there is less demand and more supply, the prices would decrease.

If the price is increasing, it means there is more demand and less supply. Now, if I go and buy everything that I need without worrying about the price, the supply would reduce further, and the mismatch between demand and supply would increase even further causing the prices to increase further. 

I did not want to increase the prices because of my consumption. So, whenever there is a sudden rise in prices of something, I am trying to reduce the consumption of that.