General Discussion

My partner and I are DINK professionals, so expenses vs. income isn't really a thing for us.

However, we both grew up poor and are pretty frugal about things, so we notice costs. The big things we've noticed are groceries in particular and insurance things started jumping for some reason. We installed solar last year, so utilities haven't really been on our radar (we use very little gas, because we both tend to shower at the gym most days, so not a lot of hot water).

We have, however, been sliding money to young adult nieces and nephews and been seriously side-eyeing the rent they're paying on various apartments. It's easily double what I was paying on my own apartment before we bought the house four years ago.

So groceries, housing, and insurance are anecdotally where I've noticed how a paycheck-to-paycheck family could be feeling it.

Complete side note: WTF is going on with streaming services? They're all increasing. The whole point to the situation is that I didn't want cable. We can afford it, but we're thinking about clipping out a few of the services out or putting them on rotation. It's the principle of the thing. Especially when they think they're going to put ads on shit I'm already paying for. That's a real hard no.