Shift in Consumer Spending Habits Amid Economic Uncertainty
Media Hit, 5/18/25
I was on NTD News Today (I’m on at the 1:29:30 mark but can’t link directly to it), talking about the shift we’re seeing in consumer spending habits in light of, well, everything going on. I’ll be honest, this is the first I’m hearing of it but after doing some digging, there does seem to be some truth to it.
That being said, I think the headline of the invite (more on that at the end) is a bit… gratuitous? Probably not the right word, but hey - I did score in the 23rd percentile on the verbal section of the GRE when I took it (aced the math section, though!), so words aren’t exactly my forte. But the word I’m looking for is something like that, I suppose. Or maybe not - I wouldn’t know!
Anyway, on to talking points!
Talking Points
I think it’s very fair to say that all of this uncertainty surrounding everything has only made consumers more cautious with their spending.
Most of us aren’t exactly looking to do frivolous things in general, but these days we’re especially not looking to do them.
But by switching to subscriptions for various things (entertainment, sure, but also groceries!), we can transform some of our “variable cost” purchases into “fixed cost” purchases.
This is kind of like a hedge against inflation.
Yes, we might pay more now than we would if we piecemealed together various things, but by locking in a price now, we could end up saving money later.
Of course, businesses know this, too, and are almost certainly already pricing inflation expectations into their prices today, so the savings aren’t really as big as one might think.
We also have to worry about the whole “too many subscriptions being death by a thousand paper cuts” thing.
A lot of this has to do with the uncertainty surrounding tariffs and other trade policies, sure, but it also has to do with the economic uncertainty that we’re experiencing.
Trump is saying things like “prices won’t rise” but then Walmart says they can’t afford to not raise prices
Trump says that jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, are doing great but every. single. report coming out of the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the opposite.
We keep hearing that tax cuts are coming and that Congress is on the cusp of passing the Big, Beautiful Bill… but then it fails to even get out of Committee.
We hear reports of a potential recession looming but then Trump gets up and says that everything is great.
So What Happened?
It was a really great discussion, I thought, and I was able to incorporate all of the above, expanding on it in some instances.
I do think that the uncertainty surrounding the everything right now is really doing some serious damage, probably more damage than the tariffs themselves. There’s just so much that people, consumers and producers alike, just do not know and really can’t know given the whimsical and rapidly vacillating nature of this administration’s economic policies. That just makes everything harder than it otherwise would be.
More on That
So I feel like I should back up a little bit and offer a bit of a peak behind the curtain, so to speak. Whenever I get a media request (and I assume that this is the same for everyone else), I’m given a day/time and what outlet it’s for. Once I agree to do it, I’ll get a calendar invite and that will (sometimes) have a topic in it. Other times, I get the list of topics an 30-45 minutes or so ahead of go time.
Here’s verbatim what I have in my calendar invite as of this writing, which is Saturday evening (excluding, e.g. the link to join):
Shift in Consumer Spending Habits Amid Economic Uncertainty: American consumers are adjusting their spending behaviors in response to economic uncertainty. There's a noticeable trend toward prioritizing fixed-cost services like streaming subscriptions and all-inclusive vacation packages, while reducing spending on variable-cost experiences. This cautious approach reflects a broader desire for financial resilience.
So… Yea. Luckily, I had plenty of time to work on this before I went live!