Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
The people who spend a thousand on concert tickets or five hundred on shoes will be complaining about their credit card debt on Facebook next month.
It took me a while to get it through my head why people who I knew were making less than I do had significantly nicer stuff. The difference is that I own what I have. They don't.
I'm fortunate that after many years of struggle and single parenthood that I'm finally in a place with a comfortable income and free of debt except a small mortgage. Nonetheless, give or take a couple of cheap flights to go see friends a couple times a year, I still live like I'm struggling. That shit will burn into your mind if you suffer through it long enough.
Caveat: In spite of what I just wrote, I still have to work until I collapse and die at my desk. It's a pretty great future for me presently in my fifties. Only another thirty or forty years to go before I can afford to stop working entirely. Save your money when you're young if at all possible, kids.
My wife and I are extremely fortunate in that we have a family friend rent situation that is way below market rent and both have decent income & no kids (yet). We enjoy a bit of light travel and go to 5-6 concerts a year and maybe one music festival. Outside of that we are fairly frugal. Don't eat out often, do most of our shopping at Aldi etc. That being said, we don't feel particularly well-off. And if we had a mortgage (minimum in our area with a 20 percent down payment) would be around $2k a month and a car payment, things would be pretty tight. I don't know how people are getting by at this point… especially new families buying their first home and starting to have kids…
That's the neat part. They don't! (start families or buy houses)
Middle class sucks. Doing well now but I know it will take so little for it all to go to hell. Glad things are getting slightly better for you.
Or not. Because they could just be well off.