Speaker 1: It's Thursday, January. I'm Oscar Rame Mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Inflation remains at a forty year high, and many are
Speaker 1: having to adjust their buying habits. More than just the
Speaker 1: simple switching to generic brands at the grocery store, people
Speaker 1: are scaling back on other life events and picking up
Speaker 1: new skills to make do. You can't make cuts on
Speaker 1: things like medication, so the savings need to come from
Speaker 1: other areas. Veronica Dagger, personal finance reporter at the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Veronica,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Well, we've seen record high inflation
Speaker 1: right now, and you know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: having to adjust their buying habits. Obviously, some of the
Speaker 1: big things you do right away, maybe don't buy some
Speaker 1: of those common things you're always getting. Maybe indulgences you'll
Speaker 1: you'll take away for a little bit, uh, simple changes
Speaker 1: at the grocery store. You know, you'll buy cheaper brands
Speaker 1: of things that you're used to buying. Probably, but the
Speaker 1: inflation has tended to stick around a little bit longer
Speaker 1: than usual. Wool, and that's not enough anymore. For a
Speaker 1: lot of people, they're having to get pretty creative on
Speaker 1: how to save money. Some are picking up new skills
Speaker 1: to supplement that, you know, start making up some some
Speaker 1: treats for yourself throughout the weak things like that, so Veronica,
Speaker 1: help us walk through what are people doing to counter
Speaker 1: inflation right now? People are making some bigger decisions to
Speaker 1: blunt the impact of these rising prices. So they're making
Speaker 1: no small cuts, like you're talking about maybe buying a
Speaker 1: cheaper option a generic at grocery store. All that is
Speaker 1: going on, absolutely, But some people are making larger changes
Speaker 1: like scaling back their wedding or learning a new skill
Speaker 1: to save money. For example, I spoke to a guy
Speaker 1: who recently bought his first house in Florida. He paid
Speaker 1: a ton of money for it, even though it was
Speaker 1: an old house, because you know, this housing market is
Speaker 1: so hot, and he realized, you know what, we don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of money left over. And even if
Speaker 1: I wanted to pay a contractor to do things do
Speaker 1: repairs or redo my popcorn ceilings, the prices the contracts
Speaker 1: are charging me for their labor and material loose days
Speaker 1: because of some supply chain issues and the shortages and
Speaker 1: the like is pretty astronomical. So what I need to
Speaker 1: do is I need to upskill myself. I need to
Speaker 1: learn skilled on places like YouTube or other online tutorials
Speaker 1: and learn how to make repairs on my house myself.
Speaker 1: And this guy was, you know, he had a learning curve,
Speaker 1: but it actually ended up saving him something like three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And I mean, you know, if you've got
Speaker 1: popcorn ceiling, that's obviously got to go right away. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, you know, he said, online tutorials and YouTube
Speaker 1: have been a blessing. And obviously that's the way a
Speaker 1: lot of people operate right now. They'll go and kind
Speaker 1: of get some of that guidance and then you just
Speaker 1: jump in and you start making those changes. But definitely
Speaker 1: a big saver right there when you can do some
Speaker 1: of your own home improvements. You mentioned the wedding thing
Speaker 1: that was an interesting one to this couple that was
Speaker 1: getting married, was getting some quotes two years ago it
Speaker 1: was gonna be twenty grand for a hotel that they
Speaker 1: wanted to get married in. When they finally got up
Speaker 1: to it and they were gonna check the prices again,
Speaker 1: it jumped to fifty dollars. That's a big problem at
Speaker 1: that point. It's staggering. I mean, that's like two weddings,
Speaker 1: I would call it. I mean, it's just so much money.
Speaker 1: And so this couple was smart with their money and
Speaker 1: they said, you know, listen, it would be nice to
Speaker 1: have this so called dream wedding, but not for more
Speaker 1: than double the price that we initially budgeted for um.
Speaker 1: And so they got a little creative and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still going to have the wedding, but
Speaker 1: we have this vacation rental in Sedona that is letting
Speaker 1: us have a small wedding at that venue, at that home,
Speaker 1: and we're going to be able to do our entire
Speaker 1: event for fifteen thousand dollars. And so they're not going
Speaker 1: to fork out that fifty four thousand dollars because they
Speaker 1: just don't see it at this time if something that's
Speaker 1: worth it, you know. And the guy spoke to me said,
Speaker 1: two is this year of catch up weddings. And so
Speaker 1: everywhere you go, like a lot of the venues are booked,
Speaker 1: and if they aren't booked, you're gonna have to pay
Speaker 1: top dollar. And some people just don't want to have
Speaker 1: anything to do with that. You know, these are some
Speaker 1: of the bigger decisions that people are trying to make.
Speaker 1: Obviously that they can change things that they have control over,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of stuff that we're seeing being
Speaker 1: affected by inflation. Prices going up for things that you
Speaker 1: can't really substitute, medications, different things like that. You know,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: make the cuts everywhere else because those prices are going
Speaker 1: up and you still need that, that's right, Yeah, something
Speaker 1: like your medication. You're you're pretty married to that. This
Speaker 1: isn't on medication, but some people are really married to
Speaker 1: their tobacco habit, and so they're gonna pay whatever they're
Speaker 1: going to be charging for that in certain people's cases.
Speaker 1: And also things like gas prices. I mean, look, if
Speaker 1: you're commuting to work each day, Um, some people are
Speaker 1: still doing that and or need to use the car
Speaker 1: a lot, you're going to be using up a ton
Speaker 1: of gas potentially, And so some people are thinking through
Speaker 1: their travel decisions a little bit more carefully. One woman
Speaker 1: I spoke to is batching her errands so she'll only
Speaker 1: instead of doing multiple trips multiple errands, she will do
Speaker 1: everything in one shot. That way she's saving sometimes making
Speaker 1: multiple runs with her car. She'll also just drive less
Speaker 1: in general, she'll double book family doctor's appointments. All of
Speaker 1: these things are making her think twice about how often
Speaker 1: she gets in the car because she's dealing with rising
Speaker 1: prices in other areas of her life. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the big changes that people are having to make in
Speaker 1: response to what's going on with inflation. One of the
Speaker 1: people that you spoke to, and this is a big
Speaker 1: change both in price and lifestyle. So this was a
Speaker 1: pretty cool one that I thought. You spoke to a
Speaker 1: guy who had a big soda habit. He was deciding
Speaker 1: he's wasting a lot of money on that. He's he
Speaker 1: said that he thinks he spends about seven dollars a
Speaker 1: year on soft drinks and bottled iced ta. So what
Speaker 1: he did was, I'm gonna start making my own iced tea.
Speaker 1: I think he started losing some weight, you know, saving
Speaker 1: a ton of money in response to all this, but
Speaker 1: bettering his lifestyle too. That that was a pretty cool one.
Speaker 1: That was a cool one. Thank you. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he like he said he lost a lot of weight,
Speaker 1: he's saving money. He's actually just didn't make it into
Speaker 1: the story that he's actually taking that differential between the
Speaker 1: seven dollars he used to spend in the thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1: He thinks he's going to spend this year on things
Speaker 1: like making correct of un sweet and nice tea. He's
Speaker 1: going to take that money and put it in the
Speaker 1: stock market. So he's going to invest that money. I
Speaker 1: thought that was really interesting, you know. And in general,
Speaker 1: he's losing weight, he's feeling less anxious, I guess because
Speaker 1: the less sugar. He's just feeling good about himself. So
Speaker 1: this is a habit that he started that has had
Speaker 1: all these other positive to it that he didn't anticipate
Speaker 1: going out there initially. Well, I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: these are just the changes that people are making. I
Speaker 1: know everybody's case is different, and and it is a
Speaker 1: problem the longer that inflation continues to affect us. But uh,
Speaker 1: this is how a lot of people are starting to
Speaker 1: make those cuts. Veronica Dagger, personal finance reporter at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez, and this has
Speaker 1: been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories,
Speaker 1: you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast
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