Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
My wife and I are extremely fortunate in that we have a family friend rent situation that is way below market rent and both have decent income & no kids (yet). We enjoy a bit of light travel and go to 5-6 concerts a year and maybe one music festival. Outside of that we are fairly frugal. Don’t eat out often, do most of our shopping at Aldi etc. That being said, we don’t feel particularly well-off. And if we had a mortgage (minimum in our area with a 20 percent down payment) would be around $2k a month and a car payment, things would be pretty tight. I don’t know how people are getting by at this point… especially new families buying their first home and starting to have kids…
That’s the neat part. They don’t! (start families or buy houses)