Quote from: stompix on Today at 09:39:11 PM

I'm curious about how things are on your side because a lot of things don't really make sense and I'm really curious how things work in your country. The first is obviously not a western one since if you say it's not unusual for people to spend 1$ cigarettes, with that you can barely buy 2 or max 4 cigarettes a day, that's well below the average smoker, for your average smoker in that area that would be more like 5-10$ a day.

I'm not a smoker, so I did an average calculation considering a cigarette pack costs about 1$, as I found prices varying from 1$-1,60$ and I know people usually smoke a pack a day (20 cigarettes).

Quote from: stompix on Today at 09:39:11 PM

But at the same time, you claim that online shopping is cheap, so you have the infrastructure in place to order cheaply and with free delivery, and you have as I remember from the other topics really expensive cooking oil and others, so, there is a lot of things that don't really make sense on a whole. I simply can't picture the country with cheap cigars, and chap shipping for online groceries but expensive ones on par with western prices.

It depends on the season. Sometimes a price of a determined good is expensive, but after some time its price decreases and the price of another good is raised. I guess there is some market manipulation involved on this process, although another factors are used as excuses, like pandemic, lack of rains, excessive rains, global crisis... The cooking oil (900 milliliters) now is about 1,30$, as I bought it yesterday.

Prices also depend on the brands, of course. There are prices and products for every pocket's sizes.

But I have to say the shipping system is getting better each new year. Delivery is getting faster and costs remain acceptable, as the state's courier/post office's service lost protagonism and private companies and individuals are taking its place.

Quote from: stompix on Today at 09:39:11 PM

Ps.
Those are not advices on how to "thrive", more like to survive.

Actually, if you are able to save money and invest in a weekly or monthly basis, you are thriving. In slow steps, but thriving anyway...