Posted on 10/16/2026 7:12:15 PM PDT by Libloather
Some Americans are crying poverty with a $1,500 iPhone in one hand and an $8 Starbucks latte in the other. They say groceries are unaffordable, but somehow the restaurants are packed, airports are crowded, and the neighbor just pulled into his driveway with a brand-new $90,000 SUV.
Apparently, we're one bad economic report away from bankruptcy and one Instagram post away from booking another trip to Cabo.
Consumer confidence is in the basement. Consumer spending apparently didn't get the memo.
In September, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 81.9. Yet it has been reported that consumer credit and debit card spending per household increased 6.2% from a year earlier.
As a financial advisor, I think the answer involves something more powerful than inflation or interest rates. Human psychology.
And there are five reasons our spending habits aren't matching our economic anxiety.
1. Keeping up with the Joneses has gone digital
Thirty years ago, you compared your lifestyle with the neighbor who bought a new Cadillac.
Today, you're comparing yourself with 5,000 people on Instagram. There are even college degrees on how to become a social media influencer. None of them get lots of likes by telling you to eat ramen noodles and skip third-row seats for the latest rock concert.
Someone's vacationing in Italy. Someone remodeled their kitchen. Someone bought a new Porsche. Face it. Someone is always doing better than you are. Or, it seems that way.
2. We've become a nation of monthly payments
3. There are two different American consumers
4. If tomorrow looks bad, why not enjoy today?
5. We've confused looking wealthy with being wealthy
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The price of gas was $2.98 before the Iran War.
Today, it's $4.33.
Now the Democrats have a "winning" issue.
And how many slogging down the donuts on the government taxpayers dime?
“But places appear to be packed.”
How many from the state local fed Governments.. plural!
We have no debt except for a small mortgage. We have a 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 and a 2006 Honda CRV. Both run like tops. Mr. GG2 handles all maintenance. We don’t eat out much and we vacation at our rural property north of Atlanta. We have $88 phones from Walmart. They work great! Life is good!
Why haven’t housing prices crashed?
The auto industry is suffering tremendously.
But people seem to keep finding ways to buy $800,000 homes.
Today, it's $4.33.
Now the Democrats have a "winning" issue.
I remember decades of Democrats telling us gas should be more expensive. And wherever they run the show, it is. Consider California where gas costs nearly twice as much as other States once on figures in actual dollars/mile.
We used to joke about $5 hamburgers...
Discipline?
How are they going to get their new tattoo?
SOME Americans are more economically secure,I don’t see inflation under control on Some things, wages on ALL fixed incomes are NOT way up. So I would say all this does not apply equally. By fixed incomes, I refer to all those on SS as an only income. There are raises, but not that much. Some may even lose on the raises, depending on what is subtracted from their check.
People complain about the cost of food but then pay a completely unnecessary ubereats charge instead of making food at home.
We had a Good Run....
Let’s Not Be Bitter.
/$
I don’t know what today looks like. My wife’s parents went through this when she was in her teens. So when she hit 18 and had a summer job at college (lots and lots of federal aid for her, not surprisingly) her mother got her to take out a credit card in her name and give her mother a second card.
The bankruptcy and all defaults, etc., are expunged from your credit record after 7 years. So you no longer have terrible credit history, you just have no credit history and have to start building it again. My wife’s mother started with a secured credit card with a few hundred dollar limit and after a couple of years with that was able to graduate to a real credit card, etc.
My wife’s parents had divorced a couple of years after the bankruptcy, losing the house, etc., and very shortly before she started college. Tbey were living with my wife’s grandmother after losing the house.
My wife was also home schooled by a mother who got her the books and the answer keys and said, “have fun.” Literally. The books were paid for by my wife trapping muskrats at the artificial lake that started life as a strip mine tbey lived next to and selling the pelts. When I hear whining about how hard it is to grow up a minority and it’s impossible for them to get ahead because of it i want to spit.
Right!
“Right! I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing ‘Hallelujah’!”
This year’s social security cola is 3.6% and inflation was the same, but core CPI was 2.6% (food, rent, etc.) and the rest was driven by gas, airfare, things like that. So as long as you aren’t a senior who pays an outsized portion of your bills on travel expenses you are better off, whether you want to acknowledge it not. Truth matters more than opinion.
The other side of this is, anyone who’s entire retirement plan is SS isn’t getting rich and *shouldn’t*. It was *never* intended for that and people acting like having a retirement plan that rests 100$ on SS and Medicare is a responsible life choice is where the real problem lies.
You’re both right - because America are not educated on the issues. Democrats are more responsible than Republicans for fuel cost increases in 2026 and the data has been laid out here on FR so many times over the last few months I’m not going to bother again. But the uneducated voter will buy the BS line that we’d have $3 gas if Trump hadn’t gotten us i to a war. That’s a lie. And we’ll pay for it at the polls. I just hope the losses are limited.
I could rattle off a very similar list. Our biggest “problem” is we’re going to lose our mortgage interest deduction before we run out of income generating years.
AMEN!!!!
I don’t know what “purist” you’re talking about. Every MAGA I know says vote red in November like your life depends on it, because it does. The only “purists” around here i zee saying vote out RINOs no matter what are also spewing TDS pro-Massie, pro-Tucker crap.
OK- let the flame war begin.
American People Are NUTZ!
.
Only about 50 Percent
But they have a Mental Disorder
Known as ‘Liberalism!’
.
Yes it Is Terminal.
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