10 things you buy are getting more expensive

4. RENTAL CARS As travel came to a halt early on in the pandemic, many rental car companies sold off parts of their fleets to raise much-needed cash. But now, as travel picks up and demand

for rentals reemerges, the aforementioned shortage of chips needed to manufacture new cars has made it harder to restock rental fleets. As a result, the cost to rent a car or truck has

soared 82 percent over the past year, according to the BLS. If you can find a rental car, expect to pay much more than you're used to, especially if you don't plan ahead. Car

rentals in Hawaii, for example, are above $200 a day, if you can find a car at all, according to Jonathan Weinberg, CEO of AutoSlash, a discount car-rental company. A recent study by

CheapCarRental.net found rental car rates across the U.S. averaging about 30 percent higher than last May, while in Hawaii and Florida they're up by more than 50 percent. 5. HOUSES

After more than a year of working at home, many people have apparently decided that they would like to live elsewhere. The S&P CoreLogic 20-City Case-Shiller Composite index has gained

11.9 percent over the 12 months ending in February, the biggest jump since February 2006, near the height of the housing bubble. “These data remain consistent with the hypothesis that COVID

has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes,” says Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI.

Anecdotally, agents and customers are reporting bidding wars that haven't been seen since the housing frenzy of the 2000s. “Here in Colorado, it's become the norm now to bid

$100,000 over asking price on homes,” says Englund. “It's an incredible economic frenzy going on." 6. LUMBER The National Association of Homebuilders estimates that lumber prices

have tripled in the past 12 months, and that those increases have tacked on an extra $36,000 to the price of a new home. The rush of new home building — as well as renovation — during the

pandemic accounts for rising demand for lumber. Oddly, it's not a shortage of trees that's aggravating the price increases: It's reduced production at lumber mills. As with

many businesses, mills cut production because of stay-at-home orders and social distancing mandates. Tariffs on Canadian lumber imports to the U.S. have also pushed up lumber prices, the

NAHB says. 7. COPPER Sometimes called “the commodity with a PhD in economics” because of its price sensitivity to economic growth, a metric ton of copper now sells for nearly $10,500, up

from about $5,000 just 12 months ago. China has ramped up demand as its economy rebounds from COVID-19, and the U.S. housing boom has boosted copper demand as well. And electric cars need

lots of copper: While conventional cars have up to 49 pounds of copper, battery electric vehicles contain 183 pounds of copper. On the production side, Chile is the world's largest

copper producer, and copper miners at two Chilean mines — which account for 20 percent of the country's production — are threatening to strike. Even if the miners don't strike, it

can take a long time to ramp up new production. And if a new source of copper is discovered, it takes years to get approval to open a new mine.