I've had to raise my prices lately. I had no choice. I did the math and realized that some of the pieces I do were no longer making any money at all. There are some designs that have been at the same price for 20 years. Meanwhile, the canvas I use, which is only made in Germany, hasn't gotten more expensive but the price of shipping it has tripled in the last three years. The price of brushes, paint and paper has gone up. Even the pencils I buy at the dollar store are now $1.25. I went to the art store this week and bought two tubes of paint. $36.00. Were they huge tubes? No; smallest sizes available. And the only reason they were $36.00 is because they were 40% off.
And don't get me started on the increase in the price of the water, heat and electricity it takes to make my office workable. One can paint in the dark, with frozen fingers, but one would prefer not to.
I knew, four years ago, that printing $4,000,000,000,000.00 out of thin air was a bad idea.
Now, we're all paying for it.