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Per the Daily Mail.
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EXCLUSIVE: Pizza night? It's CANCELED! Families across the U.S. reveal how surging inflation is forcing them to cut back on everything from summer camps and softball tournaments to takeout coffees — and most expect the pain to drag out until 2023
By JAMES REINL, SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 14:45 EDT, 15 July 2022 | UPDATED: 22:58 EDT, 15 July 2022
Families across America are cutting back on everything from summer holidays to restaurant treats and trips to the hair salon as they battle the highest inflation rates seen in 40 years and punishing prices at gas pumps and grocery store checkouts.
DailyMail.com spoke with householders across the country to find out how they were managing with inflation at 9.1 percent — and the rising cost of cereals, meat, transport and gasoline prices even higher still.
A family-of-five in Maryland has canceled pizza parlor outings, a New Jersey couple miss their monthly filet mignon treat and an Idaho family-of-four are planning to rear chickens and are leaving their SUV idling in the driveway. Meanwhile, a California couple vacationed with relatives on the East Coast this year rather than splash out on another trip to Spain.
Some blamed the administration of President Joe Biden for runaway inflation. Others pointed to the ebbing coronavirus pandemic, supply chain snarl-ups and fighting in Ukraine scrambling the global economy.
With another interest rate hike looming, more than three quarters of Americans are expecting the economic crunch to last until the end of the year, according to a survey by financial services firm Primerica.
Nearly three quarters are cutting back on restaurants and takeout, about half are scaling back on groceries and 42 per cent are pushing back retirement plans, says the study of 1,384 adults with household incomes between $30-$100K.
Here's how families across America are managing the crunch:
Gas prices make softball away game trips for 18-year-old Idaho twins too costly
Jennifer Liebrum's family have had to cut back on driving long distances across Idaho, meaning softball away games for 18-year-old twins Devon and Gracie are in the rearview mirror.
Jennifer Liebrum, 56, from Bellevue, Idaho, who works with special needs children, and husband Tyler Peterson, 51, a farrier, used to enjoy driving their twin 18-year-old daughters Devon and Gracie around the region for softball matches.
The sporting vacation trips came to an end when the cost of a full gas tank shot up from $70 to $160. Their household income is $50,000-$100,000.
'They canceled the team, because we're not the only ones in the predicament,' said Liebrum.
An SUV now idles in the driveway. The family increasingly gets around by walking and cycling in an effort to ‘get through this crunch’, she added.
Groceries used to cost $100 a week, but a recent haul of two days’ supplies was $170 — prices that left Liebrum feeling like she was ‘going to a jewelry store’.
Even driving 60 miles to the nearest Costco to load up on more affordable produce stopped making sense due to gas prices.
‘We're considering getting chickens again, which I hate,’ she joked.
‘We've been getting ready to launch two girls into life. And now those savings are for survival.’
They are the sixth generation to live in the valley and ‘part of the pioneer group that established this place’, said Liebrum.
Billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates descend on the area in private jets each year for the nearby Sun Valley Conference, a networking extravaganza for tech and media moguls.
Once-a-month filet mignon treats are out for New Jersey family
Thomas Crowell's New Jersey family is struggling with inflation and the couple's retirement plans have been pushed back, but the wedding of son Connor, 25, at the end of the year is a highlight on the calendar
Thomas Crowell, 58, a benefit consultant from Forked River, New Jersey, says he has ‘cut back on splurges’ like the tasty filet mignon stakes he and wife Chris, 57, an administrative manager, used to savor each month.
Even by avoiding meat and poultry, weekly grocery bills of $250 have risen to ‘well over’ $300 and filling the gas tank has shot up from $45 to $70, said Crowell. The household income is between $100,000-$150,000.
Their son Jack, 21, lives at home, but Connor, 25, moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and is getting married later this year.
The Florida and Caribbean holidays the family previously enjoyed are in the rearview mirror.
'We would go out to mom-and-pop restaurants three times a week, we’ve cut back on that,' said Crowell.
Worse still, the couple's retirement savings have been 'eaten away' as stock values are 'demolished', said Crowell.
‘We do not know how long or deep this recession will be,’ he said.
‘When's it going to be possible for us to retire?’
The country is ‘paying the price’ for overspending early on in the Biden administration, he added.
California couple switch European vacations for relatives on East Coast
Megan Aaron, 36, has been struggling with gas, food and daycare costs for daughter Harper, two, but says the family is still 'lucky' to be able to make their rent and put food on the table
Megan Aaron, 36, a theater worker from Los Angeles, California, husband Tim, 43, a paralegal, and daughter Harper, two, did not have expensive vacations in Spain or Mexico this year.
Instead, the family holiday was to a relative’s home in Massachusetts.
Weekly grocery bills shot up from $170 to $220 and gas prices in California are among the highest in the country.
Daycare for Harper at $1,400 per month takes a big bite out of the $100,000-$150,000 household income.
To make ends meet, Aaron is more careful about using up leftovers. She visits her hairstylist less often and has reverted to her natural brunette locks without highlights to save cash.
‘It has been really challenging,’ said Aaron.
'Cutting out the luxury things that we just can't do anymore.'
Downsizing to one car has been ‘logistically challenging’, she added, but the bigger problem is how the unstable economy makes it tougher to buy a home and plan for the future.
‘We're very lucky that we're able to afford our rents, daycare and the big expenses. We're not in fear of being homeless or not being able to put food on the table,’ she said.
‘But it does make our lives a little more uncomfortable.’
Pizza parlor trips nixed as Maryland family hunker down for months of belt-tightening
Summer camp was cancelled this year for 11-year-old twins Daniella and Natalya Neubauer and their family. Instead of jetting off overseas for a summer vacation, the Neubauers spent a week at the Delaware shore
Family outings to the pizza parlor were the first casualty of the financial crunch for Sigurd Neubauer, 41, an online publisher from Maryland, his wife Hannah, 45, a doctor, their 11-year-old twins Daniella and Natalya and son, Cyrus, four.
The twins have to skip summer camp this year as prices have ‘skyrocketed through the roof’, said Neubauer. The household income is $100,000-$150,000.
Average camp costs have more than doubled to $178 a day from about $76 last year — putting them out of reach for many Americans.
International travel was off this year, and the summer vacation was a week spent on Delaware’s beaches.
The dad-of-three is skipping his morning visits to Starbucks and is brewing coffee at home instead.
Mum and dad both drive hybrid cars, meaning a full tank rose only from about $25 to $40.
While cutting back on restaurants, the family has focused on healthy activities like tennis and swimming.
‘This economy is going to be with us for a long time,’ said Neubauer.
He blames inflation on geopolitics and global food price hikes and other 'structural problems that every American president would have to deal with'.
Source: dailymail.co.uk.
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EXCLUSIVE: Pizza night? It's CANCELED! Families across the U.S. reveal how surging inflation is forcing them to cut back on everything from summer camps and softball tournaments to takeout coffees — and most expect the pain to drag out until 2023
- Families across the U.S. are cutting back on essentials as well as luxuries as they battle the highest inflation rates since the 1980s
- All-American activities like traveling for softball matches and family outings to pizza parlors are being nixed
- Gas-guzzlers are sitting idle in driveways across the country because householders cannot afford to fill their tanks
- More than three-quarters of Americans believe they will be tightening their belts until at least the end of the year
By JAMES REINL, SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 14:45 EDT, 15 July 2022 | UPDATED: 22:58 EDT, 15 July 2022
Families across America are cutting back on everything from summer holidays to restaurant treats and trips to the hair salon as they battle the highest inflation rates seen in 40 years and punishing prices at gas pumps and grocery store checkouts.
DailyMail.com spoke with householders across the country to find out how they were managing with inflation at 9.1 percent — and the rising cost of cereals, meat, transport and gasoline prices even higher still.
A family-of-five in Maryland has canceled pizza parlor outings, a New Jersey couple miss their monthly filet mignon treat and an Idaho family-of-four are planning to rear chickens and are leaving their SUV idling in the driveway. Meanwhile, a California couple vacationed with relatives on the East Coast this year rather than splash out on another trip to Spain.
Some blamed the administration of President Joe Biden for runaway inflation. Others pointed to the ebbing coronavirus pandemic, supply chain snarl-ups and fighting in Ukraine scrambling the global economy.
With another interest rate hike looming, more than three quarters of Americans are expecting the economic crunch to last until the end of the year, according to a survey by financial services firm Primerica.
Nearly three quarters are cutting back on restaurants and takeout, about half are scaling back on groceries and 42 per cent are pushing back retirement plans, says the study of 1,384 adults with household incomes between $30-$100K.
Here's how families across America are managing the crunch:
Gas prices make softball away game trips for 18-year-old Idaho twins too costly
Jennifer Liebrum's family have had to cut back on driving long distances across Idaho, meaning softball away games for 18-year-old twins Devon and Gracie are in the rearview mirror.
Jennifer Liebrum, 56, from Bellevue, Idaho, who works with special needs children, and husband Tyler Peterson, 51, a farrier, used to enjoy driving their twin 18-year-old daughters Devon and Gracie around the region for softball matches.
The sporting vacation trips came to an end when the cost of a full gas tank shot up from $70 to $160. Their household income is $50,000-$100,000.
'They canceled the team, because we're not the only ones in the predicament,' said Liebrum.
An SUV now idles in the driveway. The family increasingly gets around by walking and cycling in an effort to ‘get through this crunch’, she added.
Groceries used to cost $100 a week, but a recent haul of two days’ supplies was $170 — prices that left Liebrum feeling like she was ‘going to a jewelry store’.
Even driving 60 miles to the nearest Costco to load up on more affordable produce stopped making sense due to gas prices.
‘We're considering getting chickens again, which I hate,’ she joked.
‘We've been getting ready to launch two girls into life. And now those savings are for survival.’
They are the sixth generation to live in the valley and ‘part of the pioneer group that established this place’, said Liebrum.
Billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates descend on the area in private jets each year for the nearby Sun Valley Conference, a networking extravaganza for tech and media moguls.
Once-a-month filet mignon treats are out for New Jersey family
Thomas Crowell's New Jersey family is struggling with inflation and the couple's retirement plans have been pushed back, but the wedding of son Connor, 25, at the end of the year is a highlight on the calendar
Thomas Crowell, 58, a benefit consultant from Forked River, New Jersey, says he has ‘cut back on splurges’ like the tasty filet mignon stakes he and wife Chris, 57, an administrative manager, used to savor each month.
Even by avoiding meat and poultry, weekly grocery bills of $250 have risen to ‘well over’ $300 and filling the gas tank has shot up from $45 to $70, said Crowell. The household income is between $100,000-$150,000.
Their son Jack, 21, lives at home, but Connor, 25, moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and is getting married later this year.
The Florida and Caribbean holidays the family previously enjoyed are in the rearview mirror.
'We would go out to mom-and-pop restaurants three times a week, we’ve cut back on that,' said Crowell.
Worse still, the couple's retirement savings have been 'eaten away' as stock values are 'demolished', said Crowell.
‘We do not know how long or deep this recession will be,’ he said.
‘When's it going to be possible for us to retire?’
The country is ‘paying the price’ for overspending early on in the Biden administration, he added.
California couple switch European vacations for relatives on East Coast
Megan Aaron, 36, has been struggling with gas, food and daycare costs for daughter Harper, two, but says the family is still 'lucky' to be able to make their rent and put food on the table
Megan Aaron, 36, a theater worker from Los Angeles, California, husband Tim, 43, a paralegal, and daughter Harper, two, did not have expensive vacations in Spain or Mexico this year.
Instead, the family holiday was to a relative’s home in Massachusetts.
Weekly grocery bills shot up from $170 to $220 and gas prices in California are among the highest in the country.
Daycare for Harper at $1,400 per month takes a big bite out of the $100,000-$150,000 household income.
To make ends meet, Aaron is more careful about using up leftovers. She visits her hairstylist less often and has reverted to her natural brunette locks without highlights to save cash.
‘It has been really challenging,’ said Aaron.
'Cutting out the luxury things that we just can't do anymore.'
Downsizing to one car has been ‘logistically challenging’, she added, but the bigger problem is how the unstable economy makes it tougher to buy a home and plan for the future.
‘We're very lucky that we're able to afford our rents, daycare and the big expenses. We're not in fear of being homeless or not being able to put food on the table,’ she said.
‘But it does make our lives a little more uncomfortable.’
Pizza parlor trips nixed as Maryland family hunker down for months of belt-tightening
Summer camp was cancelled this year for 11-year-old twins Daniella and Natalya Neubauer and their family. Instead of jetting off overseas for a summer vacation, the Neubauers spent a week at the Delaware shore
Family outings to the pizza parlor were the first casualty of the financial crunch for Sigurd Neubauer, 41, an online publisher from Maryland, his wife Hannah, 45, a doctor, their 11-year-old twins Daniella and Natalya and son, Cyrus, four.
The twins have to skip summer camp this year as prices have ‘skyrocketed through the roof’, said Neubauer. The household income is $100,000-$150,000.
Average camp costs have more than doubled to $178 a day from about $76 last year — putting them out of reach for many Americans.
International travel was off this year, and the summer vacation was a week spent on Delaware’s beaches.
The dad-of-three is skipping his morning visits to Starbucks and is brewing coffee at home instead.
Mum and dad both drive hybrid cars, meaning a full tank rose only from about $25 to $40.
While cutting back on restaurants, the family has focused on healthy activities like tennis and swimming.
‘This economy is going to be with us for a long time,’ said Neubauer.
He blames inflation on geopolitics and global food price hikes and other 'structural problems that every American president would have to deal with'.
Source: dailymail.co.uk.
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