I seriously doubt that someone needs to come up with, essentially, an extra $1,000 a month just for basics. Prices have gone up. When you have too much money chasing too few goods, you have inflation. Yet amazingly when I'm driving to work in the evenings, I pass by over a dozen restaurants (Chili's Chipolte, etc..), movie theaters, grocery stores, big box stores (Target, Kohls, etc..), gas stations, convenience stores, etc... The parking lots are always busy. The restaurants are usually pretty full. I think the government may be on to something when they point out that wages are keeping up with inflation...either that or there is a lot of buying on credit going on. I assume some of both is true.
What I have noticed is that the little things are gone in this economy. I usually don't partake but there used to be a box of donuts in the break room pretty much every night. Someone would buy it and folks would come by and get one with their coffee or whatever. We haven't had donuts in a little while. The little coffee shop where I stop on the way home has stopped giving out dog biscuits. And the silliest/dumbest/most infuriating thing is that the little grocery store I go to when I want speciality items is no longer giving free bags. You have to pay for the grocery bag or you can just cart your stuff out to your trunk and put them in there. I think its 15 cents each. Why? The environment they say.... The items I buy are wrapped in plastic, inside piece of cardboard, and often shipped in a larger cardboard box via a gas guzzling truck. But this .0000000000000001 ounce of a grocery bag will make all the difference. Yeah, it's a money grab.
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