After placing an order for delivery from IKEA, the company’s software automatically pinged me with an offer for assembly from Taskrabbit.
August 27:
Today:
That’s 142 percent inflation in less than a week. Bidenomics or do IKEA and Task Rabbit together underestimate how long it takes to put together IKEA furniture? (in this case it was an outdoor cabinet/bookshelf, a TV stand, and four inserts for the Kallax bookshelves)
The fine print on the estimate says “depends on the Tasker you select,” but I don’t remember selecting anyone. The taskrabbit site chose for me.
(I will say that the guy who showed up did a good job. I’m not sure that he could have worked substantially faster. Maybe the idea was that someone was going to accept this job for $15/hr including the Taskrabbit markup? And perhaps the estimate didn’t include the “trust & support fee”?)
#data science? personalized rate? but per hour rate seems reasonably high.
I think the BLS should have a basket of goods to calculate the CPI that consists entirely of the weird products and services rich guys like Phil seem compelled to buy.
You’ve been to a Walmart, right? You know they have plastic and particle board furniture there, too.
Why do we now shop only at the most elite retailers, such as the Palm Beach IKEA store (in between the Breakers and Van Cleef & Arpels)? If our goal is to leave our children with a nest egg, we’re 41 percent richer because of our move from Maskachusetts to the Florida Free State. https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/07/14/effect-on-childrens-wealth-when-parents-move-to-florida/
People often become spendthrifts, loading up walls with Kallax shelves, for example, when they have extra cash in their pockets.
(According to state-sponsored NPR, prices at Walmart are up 23% compared to 2019. They did not include furniture, however. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1147894382/walmart-price-inflation-supply-chain-economy )
In my day, the man of the house assembled his own Ikea furniture.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3SAFqv5m8
David: I probably would have done this myself if IKEA hadn’t made the booking process for Taskrabbit seamless (and the quoted price was essentially free). I don’t mind IKEA assembly per se, but sitting at desk for too many years has made sitting on the floor to do the assembly uncomfortable.
Out of curiosity do you consider Wayfair as an option for furniture? If yes, do you get a similar task rabbitt quote?
I think that we bought something from Wayfair back in Maskachusetts and put it together ourselves. I don’t remember them pushing an assembly affiliate.
And here I thought your home was filled with tasteful (though expensive, to some) design furniture.
That said, I do still have an immoderate number of Billy bookshelves myself.
Tom: We have some high quality furniture from https://www.roomandboard.com/ (3-5X the IKEA price?). We aren’t sitting in designer luxury like Greta Thunberg! (see https://memerial.net/7882-you-have-stolen-my-dreams )
Do we want furniture that is so expensive that we need to cry if the kids have their friends over (grades 2-5 perhaps) and they damage something?
The Greta starter kit is great, exactly what I’d expect from someone of her background.
As for children, some might propose buying robust furniture suitable for a bus station or perhaps the common area of a prison block. Just hose things off and you’re back in business.
Alternatively, shed a single stoic tear after the kids have left and you come back to your designer home.
(Though I should add these days children are so extremely well-behaved/zombified by smartphones that it’s almost eerie.)