FOMO

And ironically, we are going to talk a little bit about that FOMO or quote unquote, keeping up with the Joneses.

We had a consumer report recently come out that was pretty dire on the consumer and As far as the spending and where things are headed, Walmart came out and saw a great quarter for them, but they talked about how the consumer seems incredibly strapped and pinched, and they're starting to see a decline there.

And when you start to see a decline in consumer spending at Walmart, clearly that is not great.

And, you know...

Economies are cyclical.

We go through ups and downs.

We've seen some doozies since we started developing this show in 2019.

We went through COVID.

We went through the markets in 2022.

We've seen a lot over the last, my goodness, almost seven years now.

But one thing that remains consistent is that people are constantly focusing feeling the pressure of keeping up with the Joneses, watching what people are doing on social media, and have always the potential to spend money they don't have, to buy things that they don't really need, and honestly impress people that they don't even like.

So I want to kick that around a little bit.

Allie and I are in two different life stages, so I want to hit it from two different angles.

And we're going to start with you, Allie.

So you're in your 20s.

You're a young professional.

And I know because I am connected to a lot of 20-year-olds in an ironic way because many of them have been students of mine.

Others are business people that I'm connected with or associates, colleagues that I've had.

And I constantly, especially through social media, see...

these young people, because everybody likes to post and tell me what they're doing and all the rest of the stuff, where they're going, what they're doing, who they're involved with, what they're owning, what they're buying, what they're driving, what they're drinking, what they're eating.

And for me, I genuinely...

I get pleasure.

I'm like, that's awesome.

Now, a lot of times I'm like, wait a second, they can't afford that.

What are they doing? You know, that's ridiculous.