Patient Saver's blog about trying times ... I was tempted to copy that title to mine. Again, another week of losing more money in the market than making. I know the market has ups and downs, but it seems more down and up and I don't see it getting any better.
I was watching CNBC yesterday and the CEO of Affirm was saying the economy was OK, people were still spending money. Before that, I had never heard of Affirm, but it is one of these companies partnered with Walmart that has a buy now, pay later plan. He said people are buying and they are paying their bills. Which on the surface sounds good, but it made me wonder if they are struggling or going into debt other ways.
We live in the country near a small town. We go to church in a town 40 minutes away. We either go to this town or another for hardware and stuff like that and try to hit grocery stores since our little town only has a Walmart. I had a gift certificate to a locally owned restaurant and suggested to DH we have lunch there. It's not a diner, a bit nicer than that. I hadn't been there in quite a while and I was hoping the gift certificate was good. I was shocked at how much the prices had raised. The restaurant itself used to be fairly nice -- not top of the line, but not fast food. But the vinyl on the booths was torn on every booth. We got there before noon and figured it would fill up so we wanted to get a parking place and get a seat. We left after 12:40 and it was not full. The manager came by; he remembered me from years ago and he said business has been slow. He thanked us for stopping in. Fortunately the gift certificate was still good and they honored it. We have some money left and I suggested to my husband we better go in and use it because if today was any indication, they won't be in business much longer. It makes me sad. Another small town business struggling.
As we left, we noticed some of the other restaurants...here it is Friday at lunch time and some places had a decent amount of cars, but some had maybe one or two. Some were chains and others were locally owned. No place was packed to the rafters like it used to be. DH commented, people are cutting back. They are watching their money more carefully. We wouldn't have eaten there if I hadn't had the gift certificate.
We had a bunch of errands and it always seems like when we do that, it is a day long event. Not always, but often. We did get what we wanted. I bought some loss leaders at the grocery and also bought three things for the pantry. We bought some things at the hardware store. I had candles to fill at church so we stopped and did that. I had fuel points that we cashed in to save 30 cents on gas; seems our gas has gone up another ten cents from the ten cents it went up last week. I'm afraid many of us are going to be spending less as we are cautious. So the plan now is to stay home tomorrow since we did so much running and spending today. And hope that next week is better as far as the economy.
March 24th, 2025 at 05:48 pm 1742838493
I don’t know who will be worse off - those who already practice fiscally sound steps or those who can learn how much cheaper it is to cook at home than dine out, buy on sale and generic, shop at thrift stores and just not buy stuff that meets ‘wants’, not needs.
I live car free so I don’t get directly impacted by gas prices, I shop for food on sale and mostly cook for myself, and have lots of clothes so I think I’ll be fine but so many are dipping into savings already.
I don’t think those pulling the strings will let the stock market collapse unless we start invading other countries or end up under martial law to quash dissent. But the poor are about to be crushed.
I hope your church group is able to lend a hand to some. I am thinking about who I can most help.
March 25th, 2025 at 04:41 pm 1742920897
March 26th, 2025 at 04:00 am 1742961655
March 26th, 2025 at 09:39 pm 1743025159
Prices have risen for everything, it seems, but dining out is ultra-expensive. Shocking, really, for what you get. My father and I went out to lunch this past week at a restaurant I try to avoid, becus they are higher priced, but I was a little short on time and needed to get back earlier, so we went to this restaurant becus it's very close by. We had another $80 lunch. We both did have desert and dad had coffee, but otherwise, a fairly normal meal.