I’m shocked by the sudden rise in prices on just about everything. Our grocery bill is higher than ever. The cost of eating out has skyrocketed. Cable got so expensive that we cancelled it in favor of paying for our favorite streaming services. Utility bills keep rising, especially electricity. And we have solar! The electric company informed us that they now need to impose a baseline charge for electricity of $25 per month despite not depending on the grid for our electricity but in fact sending them our overage. I understand that the increases are driven by the fact that Edison was sued for fires caused by downed power lines and that data centers (to power the Cloud and AI technology) are now competing for electricity and water. In recent years, renters have been dealing with rising rents. Higher education tuitions keep rising faster than inflation forcing more students into greater debt. The drastic change that few of us saw coming though was the steep rise in the cost of health insurance and homeowner’s insurance.
I have a Medicare Part G supplemental insurance plan. Last year the premium began at $142 per month and a few months later it unexpectantly rose to $178 per month. During this open enrollment period that just began on October 15th, I’ll research other Part G plan carriers. However, after listening to some of my senior friends, I’m not at all optimistic. They are paying more than me. Of course, Medicare itself is going up again from $185 to $206, higher than is typical.
While I lament our higher healthcare insurance costs, I’m worried for younger people who only have medical insurance because of the subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act. The fight to prevent the expiration of these subsidies is the reason behind the government shutdown. Democrats are trying desperately to save them, while Republicans are keen to finally destroy the subsidies (and by extension the ACA) without a plan to insure those who rely on it. Once again, Republican representatives will be harming the very people who elected them. I don’t think this kind of reckless behavior is sustainable in the long run as people start dying, going bankrupt, or filling the emergency rooms because they lack insurance. Even worse is the probable closure of hospitals and nursing homes in rural areas. In the Big Beautiful Bill, they took away one big source of funding and replaced it with lesser funding. That’s one way to gaslight your constituents into believing you have their best interest in mind when you don’t.
We are also being made more vulnerable to financial ruin by natural disasters as this president cuts FEMA funding and threatens to withhold disaster aid from blue counties and states. This is especially scary as homeowner’s insurance policies are either cancelled, or premiums are substantially increased. Some carriers have left California and Florida altogether. One friend can’t find an insurer. Another said her premium rose from $1500 per year to $3000. We just received a letter from our carrier explaining to us that our premiums were going to go up because of the huge fires last year and the anticipated higher construction costs. While I understand their rationale, we will have to bear the increased cost for now.
I consider us lucky because we spent our entire adult lives saving for retirement. We’ll survive. My concern is for young people and young families starting out. The last couple of job reports show weakness. Of course, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he was angry about the negative jobs report. He’d prefer to suppress bad news or lie about it. The point is that young people will need to work harder to find jobs that pay a livable wage. And even if they do, it appears that AI may displace many workers in the near future.
I think this nation is headed for a serious financial downturn. We have a president who doesn’t understand how tariffs work, who prioritizes unnecessary tax breaks for the wealthiest citizens, and wastes our tax dollars on brutal ICE raids, military parades, bombing “suspicious” fishing boats in international waters, detaining migrants in camps, and bailing out Argentina. The president demonstrates that he doesn’t understand basic math with his nonsensical promise to lower drug prices by 500, 600 and 800 percent. And his administration has spent more money running the government this year than last year despite all the unprecedented layoffs.
Now is not the time to spend money on anything that is not absolutely necessary. It certainly isn’t the time to rack up student loans nor credit card debt. Transferring to a local state university is a smart cost-saving option for students without full-tuition scholarships at private universities. For college bound students, unless a graduating senior is the recipient of a full-scholarship, the tuition-free junior college should be the destination for the first two years followed by a local state school. Even better is sending ambitious high school students to junior college to double dip on high school and college credits for subjects like math, history, science, etc. I know students who graduated from both high school and junior college in the same week and entered university as a junior. Neither parents nor students can risk going into debt to pay for college in this economy.
I’m thinking about how to thrive in this economy. As a financially able grandparent, I’m happy to help finance the upbringing of my grandsons, giving them the necessary advantages in this world. Contributing to childcare, clothes, activities, toys, and even school supplies are ways to expand their access to opportunities and reduce the financial pressures on their parents. Last year, I began passing along notable Christmas decorations to help my adult children decorate their homes without spending much.
Another way to thrive while cutting costs is to return to multi-generational living situations especially for families whose adult children are just starting out, young families, single mothers, and families with elderly parents. My neighbors across the street live in a large-enough home owned by the grandparents (my friends). Their son and daughter-in-law and two grandsons have been living with them since the grandsons were babies. I watch the parents go off to work while one of the grandparents takes the boys to school every day. I have a good friend who is doing the same with her son’s family. She still works, but her husband is retired and takes care of their grandson while everyone goes to work. Her daughter and son-in-law just moved into a house down the street so they could share in the mealtimes and access childcare more easily. She loves it. This is an option for healthy functioning families who like each other.
In healthy relationships, sharing housing costs, housework, and living expenses while also dividing up the care responsibilities for children and the elderly benefits everyone emotionally and financially. My eldest daughter and her husband are making plans to build a family compound as our family expands and we grow older. Sharing space like this could be a good option for single mothers. They could ban together under one household and share expenses and childcare.
What’s becoming evident is that young families need help with childcare and living expenses and the elderly will eventually need support too as nursing homes become unaffordable and unavailable. I have a friend who recently placed his 98-year-old mother in a nice nursing home that costs them $9000 per month. I believe they sold her house to pay for it and he and his sister are also dipping into their retirement funds. Neither of them wanted to care for her in their own homes. The reality is that most people can’t afford to do what they are doing.
I think it’s becoming evident that the old mindset of roughed individualism is fast becoming an economic relic. The economic outlook is that few people will be able to afford to own a home and raise a family in the nuclear family lifestyle we’ve become accustomed to. The elderly without family close by may perish alone. I’m aware when I look around the table at my crochet and knit group at the senior center, that the majority the women are living alone in the large homes where they raised their children. One of our friends fell in her home and was able to call a neighbor for help. It’s clear to all of us that her dementia is getting worse. However, her four children all live in different states, and she refuses to inconvenience them with her problems. I sometimes wonder if the elderly single women would do better joining forces like the “Golden Girls” living together under one roof to care for each other and share living expenses. However, we’ve been conditioned to value our independence, perhaps to our detriment. The next generation may not have that option. And I’m not so sure that that’s necessarily a bad thing given how chronic loneliness becoming a problem.
As the cost of living continues to rise and Republicans remove social safety nets in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy and the privatization of every human necessity for individual profit-making, the time to start rethinking how we live and thrive together is now because the cost of everything continues to rise.