How you can help rein in escalating rent and prices.

F&b shops are closing left right centre. Heritage hawker stalls cannot stand the increasing rent plus cost of living because kopitiams are being flipped like the beo crescent curry rice one. Rent is increasingly ridiculous. Everybody pocket hurting. Solutions are simple and relatively painless for us. But painful for those landlords and operators. 1. Eat hawker food in hawker centre. Especially from the older hawkers. Or cook and eat in. It's cheaper and healthier than those in food courts or kopitiams. If you must buy from them, tabao. Because the owners mostly run the drinks stall and very profitable. Make these scalping koptiam landlords suffer. Do not patronise the f&b outlets. Especially overseas ones like from China. Those are the ones increasing the rent prices because deep pockets and SG as test market for regional expansion. 2. Buy online and overseas. I think a lot are doing it already. There is actually no motivation to need to buy anything from shopping malls. Make the reits suffer. If no business they need to lower rent. Or buy from HDB mom & pop shops. 3. Be more aware. Rent is THE primary cause for the escalation of prices here. Inflation, high wages are partially an effect of that too. The govt do not want to confront it because they and their cronies are the primary beneficiary of it. TLDR: Spend your money anywhere except in shopping malls and kopitiams. In a capitalistic society like ours, the way to fight back against rent is to deprive them of revenue sources. Support hawkers in hawker centers or cook and eat in. Buy online and overseas plus local mum pop shops.