The Financial Squeeze

Graduation recession style in an article here is one of many cost saving attempts by many, including me, to keep to a solvency pattern.

Traveling between the UDV and Pittsburgh last year I stayed in a hotel in State College with a friend. The year before I stayed in an upscale hotel in State College alone.

This year, tired as I was coming home, I drove through the nearly 400 miles, stopping only for a coffee. On my way to Pittsburgh when I saw signs for State College, the mid-way point, I was alert and rested and kept going.

All the while, I told myself the hundred plus dollars ($100+) I was saving would be used for gifts for the children and grand-children, and more eating out in Pittsburgh.

But when I arrived in Pittsburgh, we ate out less frequently, fewer gifts were exchanged and only a wonderful Mother's day dinner could be classified as a luxury.

I so commisserate with the graduates and their families in wanting to tighten their belts by not staying at hotels.

However, I realized yesterday that my new sense of parsimony is also resulting in decline in consumer spending. Consumer spending is one of several indexes to weigh the health of an economy.

Am I starving the economy? Or am I just being prudent?