Recession, What Recession?

Yesterday afternoon my husband and I went shopping to our local mall and surrounding shopping centers and I was left wondering “what happened to the recession”?  As I recall hearing, consumers aren’t supposed to be spending money as much now, right?  No one must have told my fellow western Pennsylvanians.

The restaurant where we ate dinner at was packed.  By the time we left, there was a huge waiting line.  We followed dinner with a trip to Sam’s Club and Lowe’s which were both super busy with shoppers.  And yes, they were buying stuff.  Those places weren’t anything compared to the actual mall itself.

By the time we got to the mall itself,  it was well after 7pm and it was difficult to even find a parking spot!  There were people walking all over the lot with loads and loads of bags.  What the heck?!  Did we go back in time?  There were so many people shopping that I thought Christmas was just around the corner again.  It was so busy that we left.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining that people are spending.  That’s good for all of us.  What I hate is that the news outlets give us such bad news that we panic and think that we SHOULDN’T be spending.  Even if we may not be affected by the recession personally, we’re made to think that spending is bad.  That we should be ashamed of still doing our normal day to day spending.

While I was initially shocked by the amount of people out and about yesterday, I was glad to see that bad news reports haven’t stalled shoppers from spending.  Keep it up, that’s what we need to fuel the economy and keep stores in business.

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