The holidays have come and gone and it sure did feel different this year, obviously. The kinetic energy to grab the best deals and buy as much as you can carry to the car was…restrained. The checkout lines were not as long as in past years. I’ve been walking through the San Francisco Center for a week. It’s located in the heart of the downtown shopping district, a stone throw away from the famous cable car stop. It’s home to Bloomingdales and Nordstrom and the energy is very different, almost subdued. It’s like you want to dip your hands into the jar full sinful sweets but can’t because you know it’s bad for you. That’s what the crowds looked like as they snaked slowly between aisles of 50-70 percent off sales bins. They didn’t clamor over each other and hoard bundles of red tagged stuff. People browsed, poked and prodded, looked again and then walked away.
Before Christmas, the crowds were plentiful but not as packed and hungry. I figured the recession cloud was hovering over the center and as a result people were watching their wallets, waiting for the really big sales after Christmas, what retailers recently termed as the second Black Friday. I don’t have the sales numbers but even after Christmas, the usual frenetic energy I’m used to seeing in past years was absent.
It’s a weird feeling or vibe. You see and read the news reports of how people are cutting back on their spending. Merchants and retailers are bleeding badly. News reports says that even if businesses made profits on the second Black Friday, the revenues would not make up for the year’s losses. I’ve definitely cut down my spending and so have my friends as a result of the sinking realization that there is absolutely no guarantee that your savings, assets and job will be safe. How have I saved? I started to watch my everyday expenses when gas prices started to hit the $4 a gallon mark (ugh). I mostly drive when I do my errands and go to work, sometimes making several round trips, basically not effectively managing my time and polluting the air!
I got angry spending more than $50 on gas to fill my little Jetta that could (choo-choo). Plan of action: I started to map my driving routes so that when I visit a friend in the Peninsula or go to a café in San Francisco to write, I’d make a pit stop to the grocery store, bank, mom’s house or whatever along the way to my destination. When I worked briefly in the city’s financial district (where it’s cheaper and more sane to take public transportation), I bought a month long city fast pass which covers all of San Francisco MUNI buses/trains and the BART train. And guess what? I survived. Even though gas prices have dropped to their lowest in four (or five?) years, I still take public transportation and map out my driving pit stops. Now why did I not do this before? Can anybody relate?
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