Blog

Photo by Jim Donnelly (Flickr)

Earlier this week, I predicted that the nation’s resolve to stop shopping—which some see as a shift to more responsible shopping—won’t last long. As soon as there is an economic recovery, we’ll return to our shop-’til-you-drop behavior.

Denise Lee Yohn (who has an excellent blog here) commented that she was already back to her “old drive-everywhere self” now that the price of gas has fallen from its record highs of last year. She also raised the issue of generations of consumers and that perhaps a, “more socially-conscious generation that drives the trends today might be more committed to a scaled-back lifestyle than the repressed boomers who set the tone in the 80s.”

That reminded me that I’d seen something recently about boomer shopping behavior. I’m not sure what I read originally but this article from the Press-Telegram sums up the thought: “Baby Boomers have pumped up the global economy with their profligate ways for nearly two decades. It’s been a great party. Now the music’s over.”

“Millions of Boomers,” the article goes on to say, “are realizing that ‘hope I die before I get old’ was just a sarcastic line in a rock and roll song, not a life plan.” As Boomers hit their earnings peak right around the Millennium, the U.S. household saving rate went as low as 2 percent of income (from 10 percent during the early 1980s). Now the recession has probably provided an early wake-up call to this generation to change its ways.

Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton business school, commenting in the article says: “the Baby Boomers are going to have to work longer and eat less. And go back to what my mother was doing—saving string.”

From Brand Mix