Money-saving tactics—choosing cheaper venues, substituting products, just eating less—don't seem to work anymore.

Grocery days used to be happy. Smiles all around. The bounty was all around us. We met people and had quick and charming conversations, even talking about recipes with strangers and making short introductions in line.

The bad mood from shopping started years ago—a year after COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began, when prices started responding to the flood of newly printed money funding stimulus payments. The checkout line was filled with grumpy people wearing masks. People stopped talking with one another except to register shock. You left feeling like you had been pillaged.

Time healed that wound even though prices kept rising and predictably so. We all started making changes. Less eating out. No more restaurant cocktails, which had oddly doubled in price, because menu items are hard to change. We stopped shopping at the fancy stores and found the grittier venues. We joined wholesale shopper's clubs and bought in bulk to save money.

This worked for a while to keep the bills down and the budget in check. There are so many money-saving tricks you can use, such as giving up products you never should have bought anyway and buying things such as vinegar and baking soda instead of branded junk. It's shocking, once you look around the house, how profligate we've been during boom times.

All seemed like it was going to be OK after the inauguration in 2025, when price increases stopped and inflation fell dramatically. The prices of 2019 would never come back, of course. The dollar had lost some 30 percent of its valuation in a mere five years. Dealing with that psychologically wasn't easy, but at least good times were coming. We could make up in income and salary what we've lost in purchasing power.

Those times seem to be at an end. Our money-saving tricks are not working anymore. Every once in a while, we like to sample what it was like in the old days and go out to dinner. The bill comes and the shock hits hard. It seems like we are paying twice what we did before all this chaos hit. What were we thinking getting those appetizers anyway, when we could have spent the same amount for 5 pounds of chicken at the store?