BOSTON — Massachusetts is among a minority of states where you can lose your driver’s license for unpaid parking tickets, tolls and other minor violations.
But advocates want to change that. A proposal on Beacon Hill would effectively end debt-based driving restrictions by prohibiting the state Registry of Motor Vehicles from suspending drivers’ licenses over unpaid fines for non-criminal infractions.
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BOSTON — Democratic Gov. Maura Healey vows to reduce energy costs, improve health care, build more housing, fix the state’s transportation system, and push back against the Trump administration’s divisive policies.
Settling into her fourth year in office and seeking another term in the November elections, Healey used her State of the Commonwealth address on Thursday to tout her accomplishments and outline her priorities for 2026 and beyond.
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BOSTON — Democratic Gov. Maura Healey vows to reduce energy costs, improve health care, build more housing, fix the state’s transportation system, and push back against the Trump administration’s divisive policies.
Settling into her fourth year in office and seeking another term in the November elections, Healey used her State of the Commonwealth address on Thursday to tout her accomplishments and outline her priorities for 2026 and beyond.
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In November 2025, Statistics Canada reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was up about 2.2% year‑over‑year, driven by higher grocery and other household prices. Grocery prices alone rose almost 4.7% over the same period—one of the highest increases since late 2023.
Meanwhile, surveys show that Canadians are still feeling the squeeze. In late 2025, more than four in five Canadians cited inflation as a top concern, and more than half said their income is not keeping up with rising prices.
All of this makes saving money and finding creative ways to stretch the dollar not just desirable, but necessary. Personal finance gurus often offer the same basic advice—drop your daily coffee order, pack your lunch, cancel that subscription—and, yes, those things help. But there are other, more practical ways to put money back in your pocket that you might not be doing yet.
Below are some everyday hacks based on real tools and experiences Canadians have shared with me—and none of these is sponsored.
1. Get compensated for flight delays with Airfairness
Whether you’re heading home for the holidays or trying to grab a last‑minute getaway, flight disruptions are stressful, and expensive. What many travellers don’t realize is that if your flight is delayed more than three hours or cancelled, or you’re denied boarding due to overbooking, you may be entitled to compensation from the airline—and not just with gratuitous food vouchers.
Airfairness is a Canadian‑based online service that helps passengers claim this compensation—often up to several hundred dollars, without your having to navigate complicated airline rules yourself. It works by checking your flight details against eligibility and then helping submit a claim on your behalf. Companies like Airfairness have helped thousands of travellers recover money they didn’t even know they could claim.
If you’ve been out of pocket after a trip went sideways, this is one of those hacks that’s truly money you didn’t know you could have back.
Grocery prices were one of the bigger pain points for Canadian households in 2025. While the headline inflation rate may look moderate, food prices, especially fresh produce and meat have grown faster than the overall Consumer Price Index.
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OddBunch.ca is a great way to cut that cost without sacrificing nutrition. It’s a grocery delivery service available in most provinces (not in Atlantic Canada—yet) that sources “odd” or imperfect fruits and vegetables that don’t meet visual retail standards but are otherwise perfectly good. Because these items would otherwise go to waste, they’re delivered at a significant discount—and it doesn’t matter if the produce isn’t picture‑perfect.
Many Canadians I’ve spoken to say their weekly grocery costs dropped noticeably once they started using this and similar services for basics like carrots, potatoes, apples and leafy greens.
Prescription drugs are a huge part of many household budgets, and brand‑name medications can be shockingly expensive if you’re paying out of pocket. InnoviCares is a free prescription savings card used across Canada that helps you lower the cost of brand‑name medications by applying eligible savings at the pharmacy.
You present the card when your pharmacist fills a prescription, and the discount is applied automatically if your medication is covered. The best part? It works in addition to your existing insurance plan, not instead of it, so you don’t have to choose between the two. It’s not available for every drug, but for those where it is, this can mean tens or even hundreds of dollars saved annually, at no cost to you. Millions of Canadians have already used this card to cut their drug costs without switching brands.
4. Buy used books (even on Amazon) instead of paying full price
Let’s be honest, books are expensive. Fiction, non‑fiction, textbooks, manuals—they add up. One simple way to save when you want a book but your budget says “maybe later” is to buy it used.
Platforms like Amazon’s used books marketplace often list the same title at a fraction of the new‑price cost. The books are typically in good condition, may ship at low cost or for free if you have a Prime membership, and you still get the same content for much less. It’s a small habit, but over time it can save a surprising amount while still letting you read what you want, when you want.
Earning, saving and spending in Canada: A guide for new immigrants
5. Time rewards offers on credit and loyalty programs
Most Canadians carry at least one rewards credit card, and many don’t use them strategically. One easy hack is to pay attention to bonus offers, spot promotions and point multipliers, and to time your purchases accordingly.
Drug stores, gas stations and large retailers, for example, frequently run 4x or 5x points promotions for certain categories. If you’re planning a pharmacy run or a fill‑up anyhow, doing it during a promotion can dramatically increase your points earnings, which you can redeem for travel, statement credits or gift/grocery cards later. This doesn’t mean spending money you wouldn’t otherwise spend, but it does mean you squeeze more value out of everyday expenses.
Though holiday season spirits are usually merry and bright, concerns about the economy and labor market are leaving many people feeling a lot gloomier. In addition to surveys reflecting how tough it has become to land a new job, a huge majority of employees questioned also said their current work doesn’t pay enough to keep up with the cost of living. Business owners should know their companies aren’t the only ones pulled by economic riptides.
A recently released poll of 1,200 employees by job posting platform Monster found a whopping 95 percent of respondents reporting their “wage has not kept up with inflation,” and no longer covers their fixed living costs. Only 9 percent of those participants said they’d received a raise in recent months to help them keep pace with rising prices. That led 75 percent of workers questioned saying they’d cut out nonessential expenses — up from 64 percent this time last year — and 42 percent saying they’d taken on debt to finance spending they had made.
In response to that financial pinch, 56 percent of poll participants said they’d begun looking for higher paying work to stay above water. Yet at the same time nearly 70 percent of respondents acknowledged it has gotten harder to find new opportunities — up from 57 percent last year. Meanwhile, another 50 percent said they worried about losing the jobs they have, as employers cut costs and reconfigure workforces. The reduced headcounts and increased workloads can amplify feelings of burnout and hurt productivity.
Those concerns are backed up results of other surveys. For example, 49 percent of employees answering a poll by remote and hybrid work posting platform Flexjobs said they were worried being laid off. Moreover, 26 percent of those respondents said fears about losing their jobs were higher than they were just six months ago.
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But that doesn’t mean participants — many of whom complained of burnout, blocked career advancement, or pay levels outstripped by inflation — are enthusiastic about the jobs they have. Fully 93 percent of participants said they’d be eager to ditch current employers for more fulfilling opportunities or increased pay, but acknowledged under acute financial pressures made them stay put.
A similar willingness to seek jobs paying above cost of living levels voiced in the Monster survey led authors of the report on its findings to warn employers that those attitudes may eventually affect staff stability if left unaddressed.
“With nearly all workers reporting that their wages are not keeping pace with inflation, the cost-of-living crisis is redefining both financial stability and career choice,” the report noted, warning the survey’s results underlined a “disconnect between wages and economic reality” today.
“Employees are increasingly open to leaving jobs for higher pay, while financial stress is contributing to lower productivity and higher burnout,” the report continued. “For employers, this signals an urgent need to revisit compensation strategies, benefits, and support systems — or risk losing talent to competitors.”
There is a caveat in that, however — and it’s a big one for employers.
Company hiring rates have been virtually flat since May. And despite the most recent data in August showing the unemployment rate was a relatively low 4.3 percent, anemic job creation has most employees hanging on tightly to keep work they have. Trading up for higher wages or better career opportunities is no longer an option for most people.
Meanwhile, if the labor market looks grim for workers who already have jobs, it’s even more foreboding for people entering the labor market, especially recent college graduates and students preparing to pocket their diplomas.
According to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies that have been slashing entry-level positions and using artificial intelligence tools to perform those work tasks iaren’t expecting to reverse course soon.
The organization’s poll found “employers are projecting just a 1.6 percent increase in hiring for the Class of 2026 when compared to the Class of 2025,” a report on the results said. As a result, 51 percent of business respondents evaluated the current labor market for those younger job hunters as either poor or fair — the highest level since 2020 when 65 percent participants described it that way.
As a result, a lot of people may be putting finding a new job, or hanging on to the one they have, at the very top of their holiday wish lists, but without being terribly confident they’ll get what they want.
Your first concern is wrapping up your obligations in your current city or town. “I think a lot of people get surprised when it comes to terminating their mortgage,” said Hexter. “They are two years or three years [into a mortgage term] and didn’t realize that, and sometimes it could be a $10,000 to $15,000 penalty. If you’re starting from ground zero, it’s looking at what is it going to cost for you to exit your current arrangements. Are you mid-lease? Are you mid-mortgage? And what are the implications with that?”
Plan for hidden moving costs and timing gaps
In terms of the move, if your move-out and move-in days don’t line up very well, Hexter noted that unexpected costs can include temporary storage for your possessions, and hotel or Airbnb costs if you need to stay somewhere. Ask your Realtor for recommended moving companies, he added—their referral might even come with a discount.
Otherwise, be wary of the cheapest moving quote; it could be a scam. Check with the Canadian Association of Movers, which has compiled resources and cases of common moving scams, which often start with very low quotes.
When moving across a significant distance, not all your furniture might be worth bringing, said Brandon Wiebe, a fee-only financial planner with Money Helps, based in Saskatoon. An upfront cost to consider would be buying new furnishings when you land. There’s also the expense of the travel to get there, whether a plane ticket or the cost of gas if you’re driving.
Test the lifestyle before committing to a home
Another landing cost that’s hard to track on a spreadsheet—your support system.
“One of the bigger things you want to consider is how your support system might change if your friends and family aren’t accessible,” Wiebe said. “That could mean you don’t actually have anyone to help you move. Maybe you were thinking of renovating something that a certain family member could help you with, but you’re not able to do on your own. Or, really, a big one is if you have children and maybe parents were helping out with childcare.”
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If you are lucky enough to have the option, Wiebe recommends a more cautious, “try it before you buy it” approach to relocating. Rent in the city first, don’t buy right away. If the lifestyle isn’t a good match, reselling a property within a couple years is costly in terms of recouping Realtor and closing fees, he said.
Wiebe had clients who spent time house-sitting in Montreal to get a feel for the city. “They ended up purchasing and were quite happy,” he said.
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Bigger city doesn’t always mean higher costs
Your projected budget in a new, bigger city shouldn’t always assume it will be more expensive in every aspect.
Rural properties, for instance, have their own unique costs, Hexter pointed out—everything from septic tanks to snow-clearing a very long driveway. Property maintenance can be pricey. Property tax rates can also vary widely across the country.
Some cities can let you live car-free, if they are walkable and have a strong transit system.
“I think people in Saskatoon may assume that everything is just going to be more expensive [in another city],” Wiebe said. “You know, there may be areas like transit or even the cost of heating your home in the winter where you actually can save money in another city.”
Budget smarter with research and expert advice
As for the local cost of living, everything from groceries to gas, you can research online to understand how expensive your lifestyle may be in a new location.
Hexter recommends ChatGPT for summarizing reliable sources and cost calculations. You can drop a credit card statement into an AI tool and ask it to project the cost of your lifestyle in another city. Or you can do it yourself—look at your expenses, and research those costs where you plan to land.
You can also consult with your real estate agent, especially if they have experience with relocating clients. “Lean on your professionals,” Hexter said. “If you’re working with a Realtor, talk to them about moving costs. Real estate agents that have experience in relocation will have the professional partners that can help, and have you ask the right questions, and also maybe uncover any blind spots.”
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SALEM — The Salem Pantry will soon lease a 20,000-square-foot warehouse with five times the food storage capacity of the organization’s current warehouse with the help of a $2 million grant.
The new warehouse, strategically located on Highland Avenue at the border of Peabody and Lynn, will provide warehouse space, cold storage, and distribution infrastructure for up to 20 additional emergency food distribution partners in lower Essex County, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
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Trick-or-treaters hoping the trend is temporary are likely to be disappointed, as climate change and other factors are expected to make higher cocoa prices a new long-term reality. Companies trying to manage sky-high prices for ingredients can only pass along so much of the cost to consumers, so they have turned to portion sizes, alternate ingredients and other strategies as well.
Candy makers get creative as cocoa costs stay high
Cocoa prices have more than doubled over the past two years due to poor weather and crop disease in West Africa, which supplies more than 70% of the world’s cocoa.
The North American benchmark price for a tonne of cocoa stood at US$6,207 on Wednesday, according to the International Cocoa Organization, which releases a daily average of futures prices for the commodity in London and New York. That’s down from December’s peak of US$11,984, but it’s still 60% higher than two years ago. Prices had held steady at around US$2,500 for more than a decade leading up to 2023.
“It has come down a little bit from its peak, but it’s still almost triple what it used to be,” said Jo-Ann McArthur, president of Nourish Food Marketing. “You can’t absorb that as a manufacturer.”
Signs of a pivot have already emerged. Hershey Co. launched chocolate nuggets filled with pumpkin spice latte flavour this fall, while its Reese’s peanut butter cups got a Halloween makeover with werewolf tracks—substituting half the chocolate coating with vanilla cream. (Some of these new variations are not yet available in Canada.)
With the nuggets, “they’ve used that filling to really change the composition of the Halloween candy to reduce the amount of chocolate,” McArthur said. “They’re turning a negative into a positive. That’s clever product innovation.”
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Climate and economic factors point to lasting cocoa challenges
Some chocolate makers are also using cocoa substitutes, such as chocolate powder or a shea butter mix to reduce ingredient costs, McArthur said. “You’re going to have to fundamentally use less cocoa, less chocolate,” she said. “With climate change, this is probably a long-term phenomenon.”
Climate scientist Anna Lea Albright said climate change-induced heavy rainfalls in West Africa are affecting cocoa yields. “We find that heavy rainfall is damaging, so in a very broad sense, that poses a risk to cocoa production without adaptation,” said Albright, an environmental fellow at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment.
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On top of that, factors such as El Niño are factors in year-to-year variation, she added.
Environmental impacts are making cocoa pricing more volatile. According to the International Cocoa Organization, prices surged in early June on concerns about production in Ivory Coast but eased on optimistic forecasts for production in Ghana and Latin America. They rose again in late June after heavy rains in West Africa, which could worsen the outbreak of diseases that harm crops.
Albright said other non-climatic factors, such as rising fertilizer costs, are also adding to cocoa supply disruptions.
“It’s going to be challenging for any manufacturers who use cocoa in their products,” said Tim Webb, partner for supply chain and procurement at KPMG in Canada. “It’s unlikely that cocoa prices will return to more normalized levels given tight supplies, tariffs, and the added compliance cost of tracing and disclosing cocoa supplies,” he said.
Rising costs squeeze chocolate makers and consumers alike
Some chocolate makers raised prices to adjust to the rising ingredient costs earlier this year, while others have downgraded their sales estimates as consumer demand wanes.
Chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli AG, a global powerhouse, in July reported higher cocoa costs and lower volumes in its mid-year report, with the slower sales largely concentrated in North America.
Hershey’s, meanwhile, announced earlier this year it was raising its retail prices, and in some cases, shrinking the packaging with the same price. The price increases, however, were not reflected in Halloween packaging.
The average price increases were in the low double-digit percentages to make up for the higher cost of cocoa and other ingredients. Prices of confectionary products rose 9.2% in September, compared with 5.8% the previous month, Statistics Canada reported on Tuesday.
Gasoline prices continue to fall year-over-year due mainly to the removal of the consumer carbon price, though prices at the pumps were up modestly on a monthly basis. With gas prices falling less year-over-year in September than in August, StatCan said that put some fuel in the headline inflation reading.
Food, rent, and travel costs rise again
Consumers are meanwhile facing stubborn pressure at the grocery store. Fresh vegetable prices were up 1.9% annually in September after a decline in August, and sugar and confectionary costs also accelerated to an increase of 9.2% compared to 5.8% the previous month. StatCan noted that annual price hikes at the grocery store have largely trended higher since a recent low in April 2024. Short supplies of beef and coffee are persistent factors fuelling higher prices, the agency said.
Travel tours also saw a rare month-over-month price gain in September as the agency pointed to higher costs for hotels tied to major events in Europe and some parts of the United States.
National rent prices accelerated to 4.8% year over year in September, up from 4.5% in August. Renters have seen price hikes generally decelerate in the past year with some occasional monthly volatility.
Taking some steam out of last month’s inflation figures were smaller annual increases in clothing and footwear prices.
Inflation readings add uncertainty to BoC decision
The September inflation report will be the Bank of Canada’s last look at price data before the central bank’s next interest rate decision on Oct. 29. The central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 2.5% at its last decision in September. The central bank’s preferred measures of core inflation showed some stubbornness in September, holding above the 3% mark.
The Bank of Canada looks at these figures in an attempt to strip out volatile influences on the headline inflation figures, but monetary policymakers have recently cast some doubt on the reliability of these metrics.
CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said in a note to clients Tuesday morning that, looking at a broader array of core inflation measures, September’s underlying price pressures seemed generally in line with August’s readings. Grantham argued that means there was less inflationary pressure to worry about than the headline figure might suggest, setting the Bank of Canada up for a quarter-point cut at its decision next week.
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Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients that the latest inflation release, paired with the stronger than expected jobs report for September, should tamp down rate cut expectations for the end of the month. But he said Capital Economics is “still leaning toward another rate cut” after Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem’s comments citing concern about a soft jobs market last week.
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Nearly 89% of Long Island businesses have five or fewer employees, making them vulnerable to inflation and rising costs.
Restaurants face pressure from higher labor, food and energy costs, forcing many to cut staff, raise prices or close.
Discretionary income has fallen as rent, energy and insurance costs rise faster than wages.
Consumers are shifting spending toward discount retailers and essentials, leaving small businesses struggling to survive.
Long Island small businesses are having a tough time, and with nearly 89% of Long Island businesses having five or fewer employees, that would portend difficult times ahead for the backbone of Long Island’s economy. The signs are everywhere. Neighborhood restaurants and shopping stores are closing, and vacant storefronts in community strip malls are growing. Even the haircutter I have been going to for over 30 years—after reducing her days of operation to three days—is wondering if she can hang on.
The combination of rising labor and food costs fueled by minimum wage increases and inflation, restaurants are deciding to either raise prices, reduce menu options, operate with fewer employees, or just close for good. Other small businesses are finding it difficult competing with online sales, which have increased by 9.1%. With consumers being 70% of the economy, Long Island consumers are not only having difficulty in supporting their local businesses, but also in meeting the needs of their household budgets. When household necessities of rent, energy and food claim most of what an employee earns, there is little discretionary income to spend in local stores.
The U.S. Census and related housing market and consumer expenditure data indicate that 33% of earnings are spent for housing costs, 30% for federal and state withholding taxes, and 13% for food. The balance of 24% of earnings—or discretionary income—would be spent on property taxes, insurance and transportation, with what’s left spent in local businesses. However, this discretionary income is sure to decrease, considering the latest data indicating that rents have increased by 3.8%—the largest increase since 2011. This also includes electricity and natural gas increasing by 6.2% and 13.8%, respectively since last year. Additionally, for those who purchase health insurance on the federal marketplace, premiums are estimated to increase by 75%.
The U.S. Census is scheduled to release updated consumer expenditure data at the end of this month, and with inflation and costs outpacing wage increases, it can be expected that (at best) the 24% discretionary income will remain. However, more likely any discretionary income will decrease. Both options are not good news for struggling businesses, with any relief from consumers not appearing on the horizon.
Consumers concerned about their financial future is not new. What is new is that consumer confidence is at the lowest level since June 2023, when the economy was struggling to rebound from the pandemic. This concern has impacted spending patterns, leaving businesses playing catch up with consumers as they become more selective in their purchase choices that include seeking better value for their dollar, and goods and services reflective of their lifestyle changes.
Placer Research has found that consumers are choosing to shop at discount, dollar stores and off-priced apparel than conventional department stores. As for major, big ticket costly renovations to homes and wardrobe, consumers are favoring lower-cost wardrobe updating and refreshing home décor, while deferring larger electronics and home improvement spending. And as my haircutter is finding out: Shorter customer trips are giving way to longer visits.
Discretionary income is crucial to Long Island’s small business base, and with economic headwinds and increased everyday costs, discretionary household budgets are being squeezed, leaving consumers with little choice but to be selective in how they spend their discretionary income.
Not a welcome message to Long Island’s small business base.
Martin Cantor is director of the Long Island Center for Socio-Economic Policy and former Suffolk County economic development commissioner. He can be reached at [email protected].
Inflation has risen in three of the last four months and is slightly higher than it was a year ago, when it helped sink then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. Yet you wouldn’t know it from listening to President Donald Trump or even some of the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve.
Trump told the United Nations General Assembly late last month: “Grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.”
And at a high-profile speech in August, just before the Fed cut its key interest rate for the first time this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said: “Inflation, though still somewhat elevated, has come down a great deal from its post-pandemic highs. Upside risks to inflation have diminished.”
Yet dismissing or even downplaying inflation while it is still above the Fed’s target of 2 percent poses big risks for the White House and the Federal Reserve. For the Trump administration, it could find itself on the wrong side of a potent issue: Surveys show that many Americans still see high prices as a major burden on their finances.
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The Fed may be taking an even bigger gamble: It has cut its key interest rate on the assumption that the Trump administration’s tariffs will only cause a temporary bump up in inflation. If that turns out to be wrong — if inflation gets worse or remains elevated for longer than expected — the Fed’s inflation-fighting credibility could take a hit.
That credibility plays a crucial role in the Fed’s ability to keep prices stable. If Americans are confident that the central bank can keep inflation in check, they won’t take steps — such as demanding sharply higher pay when prices rise — that can launch an inflationary spiral. Companies often increase prices further to offset higher labor costs.
But Karen Dynan, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said this week that with memories of pandemic-era inflation still fresh and tariffs pushing up the cost of imported goods, consumers and businesses could start to lose confidence that inflation will stay low.
“If that proves to be the case, in hindsight it will be that the Fed cuts — and I do expect several more — are going to be seen as a mistake,” Dynan said.
So far, the Trump administration’s tariffs haven’t lifted inflation as much as as many economists expected earlier this year. And it remains far below its 9.1 percent peak three years ago. Still, consumer prices increased 2.9 percent in August from a year earlier, up from 2.6 percent at the same time last year and above the Fed’s 2 percent target.
The government is scheduled to release the September inflation report on Wednesday, but the data will probably be delayed by the government shutdown.
Tariffs have pushed up the cost of many imported items, including furniture, appliances, and toys. Overall, the cost of long-lasting manufactured goods rose nearly 2 percent in August from a year earlier. It was a modest gain, but comes after nearly three decades when the cost of such items mostly fell.
The cost of some everyday goods are still rising more quickly than before the pandemic: Grocery prices moved up 2.7 percent in August from a year ago, the largest gain, outside the pandemic, since 2015. Coffee prices have soared nearly 21 percent in the past year, partly because Trump has slapped 50 percent import taxes on Brazil, a leading coffee exporter, and also because climate change-induced droughts have cut into coffee bean harvests.
Most Fed officials are still concerned that inflation is too high, according the minutes of its Sept. 16-17 meeting. Yet they still chose to cut their key interest rate, because they were more worried about the risk of worsening unemployment than about higher inflation.
But the concern for some economists is that the ongoing rollout of tariffs and the fact that many companies are still implementing price hikes in response could result in more than just a temporary boost to inflation.
“It is a big gamble after what we’ve been going through … to count on it being transitory,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and a former top adviser to President Barack Obama. “Once upon a time, (3 percent inflation) would have been considered really high.”
Just two weeks ago, Trump slapped new tariffs on a range of products, including 100 percent on pharmaceuticals, 50 percent on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, and 25 percent on heavy trucks. On Friday, he threatened “a massive increase of tariffs” on imports from China in response to that country’s restrictions on rare earth exports.
Some companies are still raising prices to offset the tariff costs. Duties on steel and aluminum imports have pushed up the cost of the cans used by Campbell Soups, leading the company’s CEO to say in September that it will implement “surgical pricing initiatives.”
Chris Butler, CEO of National Tree Company, the nation’s largest artificial Christmas tree seller, says his company will raise prices by about 10 percent this holiday season on its trees, wreaths, and garlands to offset tariff costs. About 45 percent of its trees are made in China, with the rest from Southeast Asia, Mexico, and other countries. The cost of labor and real estate is too high to make them in the United States, he said.
Butler also expects there will be a reduced supply of artificial trees and decorations this year, which could lift industry-wide prices further, because most production in China shut down when tariffs on that country hit 145 percent earlier this year. Production resumed after Trump reduced the duties to 30 percent but at a slower pace.
Butler has pushed his suppliers to absorb some of the cost of the tariffs, but they won’t pay all of it.
“At the end of the day, we can’t absorb the entirety of it and our factories can’t absorb the entirety of it,” he said. “So we’ve had to pass along some of the increases to consumers.”
Many Fed policymakers are aware of the risks. Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, who votes on interest rate decisions, said Monday that high inflation that results from a loss of confidence in the central bank is harder to fight than other price spikes, such as those that result from supply disruptions.
“The Fed must maintain its credibility on inflation,” Schmid said. “History has shown that while all inflations are universally disliked, not all inflations are equally costly to fight.”
Yet some Fed officials say that other trends are offsetting the impact of tariffs. Fed governor Stephen Miran, whom Trump appointed just before the central bank’s September meeting, said Tuesday that a steady slowdown in rental costs should reduce underlying inflation in the coming months. And the sharp drop in immigration as a result of the administration’s clampdown will reduce demand, he said, cooling inflation pressures.
“I’m more sanguine about the inflation outlook than a lot of other people are,” he said.
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Maggie Perkins used to be a self-sacrificing “teacher martyr” who got paid “pennies” to take care of other people’s kids while barely making rent, she said.
This is the little-discussed “dark side” of teaching where you get “compensated emotionally instead of financially,” Perkins said. She got praised for performing a much-needed role for society, but she was still struggling to afford expenses for her own family.
At one point, Perkins “was teaching four different classes, which meant four different individual things to prepare for. But I didn’t have enough planning time to do it, so I was making my own resources for four classes, and still being called out of my planning to go sub for other people.”
Perkins recalled regularly staying at school until 7 p.m. to finish work she couldn’t do during the day. “I would kind of hate myself for doing that, because I had two very young children, and I was so tired of them knowing Mommy’s at school, not with our family,” she said.
Perkins had invested in a master’s degree in education theory and practice, and tried it all: She worked at public and private institutions. She tried big schools and little schools. Switched teaching subjects. Did a unionized school in Florida and a non-union school in Georgia. Taught middle schoolers and high schoolers history and language arts.
And yet, over these eight years as a teacher, she was deeply unhappy.
As she approached 30, Perkins recognized something had to give. She had started teaching middle schoolers for $31,000 per year, but she was only making $47,000 years later. “I could have stayed with the conditions for a lot more money, or I could have had better conditions and kept a low wage, but I couldn’t do both for the rest of my life,” she said.
So, in 2022, when she saw that Costco was opening a new store in Athens, Georgia, where she lived, Perkins applied for a clerk membership role and got hired.
“I really thought that Costco was going to be just like my ‘good enough for now’ job,” Perkins said. “And then, as I learned more about the company, it became very clear to me very quickly that I could happily work at the warehouse for the rest of my career.”
The Surprising Financial Opportunity She Had At Costco
Illustration: HuffPost; Photo: Getty Images
At first, Maggie Perkins thought Costco was just going to be her “good enough” job, but she says working there has been like a weight being lifted.
“At first, I wasn’t making more,” Perkins said. In her first job at Costco as a membership clerk, she earned $18.50 per hour. After every 1,000 hours of work, she got a $1 raise. She supplemented her income by freelancing for a tutoring company on the side.
But she quickly caught up as she worked more hours. “I was making $19.50, and then when I was doing the supervisor-in-training program, it was $29 an hour. You get time and a half on Sunday … I worked every Sunday because I wanted to.”
Through this manager training program, “I was pretty easily clearing what would have been $62,000 a year by only working a 40-hour week,” Perkins said, which was a marked contrast from working $47,000 “for a 60-, sometimes 70-hour week” as a teacher. In this way, “I was already making more when [I was] teaching, and I had not yet hit my first year of employment at Costco.”
Now, after doing warehouse stints as a front-end cashier and in the bakery, she earns $84,000 as a corporate Costco trainer and content developer who moved to Washington state in 2023 to work from the retailer’s headquarters.
“Another sign of psychological safety is that I don’t have to check my bank account before I buy coffee” anymore, she said.
Does She Have Any Regrets About Saying Goodbye To Teaching?
Perkins has built a popular following on TikTok where she explains why she left her former profession.
Perkins said she sometimes still dreams about teaching and misses seeing kids learn: “I loved it so much, it made it that much harder to walk away.” At the same time, “I don’t miss bus duty. I don’t miss working for a principal who had never taught in a classroom.”
What helped Perkins move on from teaching was how she felt freer, like a weight being lifted. At Costco, she got to take whole lunch breaks and leave her work at work.
“I used to have terrible sleep. I was medicated for anxiety and depression. I didn’t eat well, I wasn’t exercising,” Perkins said. “Now I have energy. I’m sleeping through the night … I’m just happier. I had to teach myself to go to the bathroom when I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. As a teacher, you just hold it all the time.”
Perkins just wishes she had made this switch sooner. Sometimes she wonders how much better her life would have been emotionally and financially if she had never gone into education in the first place: “What if I had just not made pennies to do 60-hour weeks and have terrible leadership?”
One of the systemic education problems that Perkins believes led her to quit is how technology is replacing engagement in classrooms, “because we can measure memorization on a Chromebook much more easily than we can have a class discussion.”
“People who have these degrees and depth of knowledge, they’re no longer being used as the core teaching resource,” she said, which has a cascading effect: “Now parents don’t fully trust teachers. Admin kind of view teachers as the people who are just rolling out the curriculum.”
“Somebody said ‘Teaching got the best of me, and my family got the rest of me,’ and that kind of broke me.”
– Maggie Perkins
Perkins has made popular TikToks about her quitting experience. “I try to be really honest about it, because when I was in it, I could not really talk about it,” she said. “Teachers aren’t allowed to acknowledge that teaching is hard because it gets framed as complaining.”
A lot of people who comment have been teachers or teachers’ kids.
“They said, ‘it’s so good that you’re finally prioritizing your family, because I have all childhood memories of my mom being at their football games, their basketball games, their plays, but then showing up for us tired and grading at home,’” Perkins recalled. “And somebody said ‘Teaching got the best of me, and my family got the rest of me,’ and that kind of broke me.“
For teachers wondering whether to switch out of their field, Perkins said many of the skills that made her a good teacher transfer well to corporate America.
“I could walk into any room at any time and speak to a group of people. I can easily make a presentation. I work well with mixed personalities,” she said. “I don’t get flustered easily by tension. Once you’ve been gaslit by 12-year-olds, you don’t get flustered by adults who are like, ‘You didn’t send me the file.’”
Perkins said she could have had many different second careers with what she learned as a teacher, but she’s happy with where she landed.
“It could have been Home Depot … It could have been the service industry. It could have been self-employment, it didn’t have to be Costco. I’m glad that it was Costco. It was the right place, the right time,” she continued. “But teachers have so many skills, and they can transition into so many different industries and areas.“
To any teacher who relates to Perkins’ experience, she said it’s OK to try something new.
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“I just would really say to teachers … please prioritize yourself,” Perkins said. “It’s not possible to know how much better you could feel because you haven’t tried leaving yet. And also that you’re not betraying your students, you’re not betraying yourself, you’re not betraying your teachers by leaving, because you are making your own life and health better.”
Cost of Living is a new series that reveals true stories of how people make money, lose money and deal with all the pressures of our current economic climate. Have a candid story about how you switched careers, spent a windfall, combined finances with a partner or survived a mass layoff? Or maybe you’ve been personally impacted by the current administration’s changes? We want to hear it all. Email monica.torres@huffpost.com.
For Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, the political implications of still-elevated inflation are not lost on him.
Inflation has come down a lot from 9% in 2022 to 2.9% in the government’s latest CPI report. Core PCE prices, the Fed’s favorite gauge of inflation, rose 2.9% in August, matching July’s climb.
But inflation has been sticky as tariffs take hold, and Griffin predicted inflation will continue to be in the mid-2% to 3% range next year, still above the Fed’s 2% target.
In 2024, the high cost of living was a focal point in Trump’s reelection campaign, and Biden-era inflation hurt Democrats. They lost the White House and Congress, while Trump won all seven swing states.
Many voters blamed Democratic policies—including stimulus spending—for sustained, high costs, exit polls found.
“There’s no doubt that the president and the Republicans came to power on the back of frustration with inflation,” Griffin said. “I would not underestimate how grating a 3% inflation rate could be to tens of millions of American households.”
Inflation could feature heavily in midterm elections next year, as the Republican Party looks to defend narrow majorities in the House and Senate. And voters are souring on Trump’s economy.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed only 28% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of their cost of living. A YouGov/Economist poll put Trump’s approval rating on the economy at an all-time low of 35%.
One indicator of affordability has been a thorn in Trump’s side: high mortgage rates. Yet as Trump looks to the Fed for homeowner relief, many worry about political influence over the independent body.
Trump has been criticized lately for pressuring the Federal Reserve and threatening its independence. Critics argue that his efforts to appoint loyalists to the Fed, public calls to lower interest rates, and attempts to remove a sitting governor represent a clear move to sway monetary policy for political purposes.
Griffin advised that continued Fed independence would be in Trump’s interest.
“If I were the president, I would let the Fed do their job,” he said. “I would let the Fed have as much perceived and real independence as possible, because the Fed often has to make choices that are pretty painful to make.”
The Federal Open Market Committee cut interest rates by a fourth of a percent earlier this month to buoy a slowing labor market. The move comes after months of continued pressure from the Trump administration on Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other committee members to cut rates.
Still, President Donald Trump has been vocal about cutting rates further, even though the move likely will risk further price increases.
Griffin warned that erosion of Fed independence could lead to Americans conflating the White House and central bank.
“If the president’s perceived as being in control of the Fed, then what happens when those painful choices have to be made?”
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Restaurants Canada chief executive Kelly Higginson said it’s an “alarming” trend for the foodservice industry. She said the younger generation in particular is “who we’re really going to be targeting more and more as they start to grow into the main consumer of the demographic.” The report found younger Canadians placed higher importance on price, value, and convenience compared with older Canadians.
Rising costs and weaker spending squeeze restaurant profits
Restaurant spending has slowed compared with pre-pandemic levels. Per capita, Canadians are expected to spend $1,035 at full-service restaurants and $1,135 at quick-service restaurants this year. In 2019, they were spending $1,165 and $1,150, respectively.
As fewer people dine in, sales of alcohol at restaurants have also slowed because of rising menu prices and a consumer shift toward wellness, the report found. Forty-one per cent of Canadians surveyed said their alcohol consumption has decreased over the past year.
“With our operators seeing less drinking or no alcohol, it’s making it even more challenging to be able to focus on those value meals that Canadians need right now, and also be able have some profit at the end of the day,” Higginson said.
Sales in the foodservice industry are projected to reach $124 billion this year. However, when adjusted for inflation, the growth is going to remain relatively muted.
As consumers pull back on spending, businesses are also dealing with rising operational expenses. The cost of food, labour, insurance, and utilities, among other expenses, have grown by double digits between 2023 and 2025, the report said. The report showed 41% of businesses were operating at a loss or breaking even as of June 2025.
“The last five years, our operators have really been put into a pressure cooker of how to remain viable as a profitable business in order to keep the doors open and to continue to staff and serve the communities that they’re in,” Higginson said.
As population growth slows, the industry is facing a labour shortage. Higginson said restaurants in rural and remote areas will see the worst effects. She said key positions, such as a cook or an early morning baker, are harder to fill in rural areas, which then affects restaurant operations.
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Restaurants pivot to brunch and snacks as dinner demand falls
Many restaurants are trying to adapt to the difficult operating environment by changing menus to reduce waste and operating fewer hours on slow days to cut costs. Some businesses are moving toward serving brunch instead of offering dinner services as demand for breakfast has gone up, Higginson said. “Because of the lack of discretionary spending, Canadians are increasing their spend on breakfast segment and less on dinner segment, which tends to be a bit more expensive,” she said.
Lunch hour sales at quick-service restaurants rose 7.6% in the first five months of 2025—topping pre-pandemic levels, reflecting the return-to-office mandate and a shift toward value. “That really does impact our operators because the dinner used to be a bit more profitable spending for our operators,” Higginson said. “Now, they’re making less profit off of those two segments, breakfast and lunch.”
There’s also a shift in the industry to capture the snacks trend, especially among quick-service restaurants. Supper and evening snack traffic grew 3.4% and 4%, respectively. The report found snacking as a meal replacement was most prevalent among younger generations.
Higginson said the snack segment is an opportunity for the industry to capitalize on. “It really is time for that soft reboot and taking a look at where we can meet our consumers where they’re at,” she said.
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METHUEN — Voters on Tuesday will choose which four Central District City Council candidates will move on to the General Election.
The race for central district councilor is the only race to require a preliminary vote this election season. Neither of the incumbent central councilors are seeking reelection. The city wide election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
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The app includes prices for many of your basic needs, from food to housing to transportation, spanning a decade of data points.
Tuesday, September 9, 2025 3:00PM
The ABC Data Team has launched the Price Tracker, an interactive tool that provides up-to-date information on the price of household necessities in your area.
It displays regional prices of essentials for the 100 largest U.S. metro areas over the last decade. Simply search for your area to see how the cost of living has changed for households like yours. Then select groceries, housing or utilities to drill down into each category of basic expenses.
BOSTON — Plans to bring back rent control to Massachusetts, roll back the state’s personal income tax, repeal the MBTA Communities Act, ditch the state’s gas tax and require voters to show ID to cast ballots are among a record number of proposed referendums inching toward the 2026 ballot.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Andrea Campbell certified 44 proposed initiatives filed by individuals and groups seeking voter approval for changes in state law.
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Of the five income options given, $100,000 was the most popular answer, chosen by 37% of respondents. The next biggest group (25.8%) aimed higher, selecting $150,000. Slightly fewer, 23.8%, opted for the median Canadian salary of $74,200. Smaller cohorts chose $200,000 (8.5%) and $250,000 (4.9%), which is very close to the top federal tax bracket.
There isn’t a clear consensus around how much money it takes to live comfortably in Canada. Your own answer will likely depend on your age—younger and older respondents tended to choose lower sums, and people in their prime working and child-rearing years chose higher ones—as well as the size of your household, the city you live in, whether you own your home outright, and any number of other variables.
What we know about Canadian incomes
The average Canadian household had a disposable income of $100,702 in 2024, according to Statistics Canada. Households in the top (fourth and fifth) income quintiles averaged $115,656 and $212,741, respectively.
To crack the top 10% of income earners in Canada as an individual, you must earn at least $125,945. For the top 25%, the threshold is $81,184. People who earn between $57,375 and $114,750 are considered middle-class. Note these are individual earnings; household earnings would be higher, on average.
Just as there are varying ideas of what constitutes comfort, so are there measures of its opposite: poverty. Living Wage Canada is a non-profit that measures what it considers a sufficient hourly wage to cover essential living expenses in communities across Canada. It pegs a living wage in Calgary at $24.45, and in Vancouver, $27.05. In the Greater Toronto Area, it’s $26. That works out to $48,672 a year based on a 36-hour work week.
Likewise, Statistics Canada measures the cost of living in different locations to find the point at which the low-income cut-off (LICO) applies for federal tax rates and benefits. The highest costs for raising a family of four are all in the far north, peaking at $125,784 in Iqaluit, Nunavut. South of the 60th parallel, the poverty line for families is highest in Vancouver, at $59,508.
The economics teams of major banks try to get a little more sophisticated about what constitutes “affordability” in the housing market. They examine the share of average incomes required to cover average home ownership costs in various cities. But even this makes certain assumptions, such as the rule that average shelter costs should not exceed 30% of gross household income. Focused as the banks are on the mortgage market, they don’t take in a range of other contributors to the cost of living.
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How MoneySense calculates a comfortable income
In an attempt to get a more scientific measure of what it means to be comfortable in various parts of Canada, we turned to a cost-of-living tool developed by the job site CareerBeacon. Below, you’ll find a list of Canadian cities with populations of 50,000 or more and the monthly cost for the average single person renting their home to live there, including rent, transportation, food, utilities, clothing, leisure, and other expenditures.
We then considered the additional needs for income taxes (including Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan contributions), which typically net out to between 20% and 25% of gross income for middle-income earners, and savings at 10% to 15%. We then rounded up a further 10% to 20% as a “margin of comfort” allowing for unplanned expenditures or additional savings.
Using this as a guide, we took a comfortable living in each community to be approximately double the calculated average cost of living. The pie chart below gives a rough diagram of the assumptions that go into this methodology.
While the cost-of-living numbers from CareerBeacon are based on single earners renting their homes, in most cases they can be extrapolated to similarly comfortable living standards for two-income households and home owners. For example, a home-owning family of four with two parents in the workforce would likely need to clear $200,000 to feel comfortable in Vancouver or Whitby, Ont., but could get by very comfortably on just $115,000 in Trois-Rivières, Que.
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Comfortable income levels in Canadian cities
In the table below, the communities are listed alphabetically to make it easy for you to find the comfortable income for your community, or one close to you. Only municipalities with 50,000 or more residents are included in CareerBeacon’s survey.
City
Avg. monthly cost of living
Annual income required to be comfortable (single person)
The annual income required for a comfortable lifestyle varies from about $58K to over $106K, which is almost a two-fold gap depending on where you live. In general, though, the most expensive cities are around major job centres, like Toronto and Vancouver, while more affordable cities fall outside or large metro areas and have lower housing demand.
What is slowing Canada’s economy down? What’s growing?
The manufacturing sector was the largest drag on the economy, followed by utilities, wholesale and trade and transportation and warehousing. The Stats Can report noted shutdowns at Canada’s two largest railways contributed to a decline in transportation and warehousing.
A preliminary estimate for September suggests real gross domestic product grew by 0.3%.
Statistics Canada’s estimate for the third quarter is weaker than the Bank of Canada’s projection of 1.5% annualized growth.
Are there more Bank of Canada rate cuts to come?
The latest economic figures suggest ongoing weakness in the Canadian economy, giving the central bank room to continue cutting interest rates. But the size of that cut is still uncertain, with lots more data to come on inflation and the economy before the Bank of Canada’s next rate decision on Dec. 11.
“We don’t think this will ring any alarm bells for the (Bank of Canada) but it puts more emphasis on their fears around a weakening economy,” TD economist Marc Ercolao wrote.
The central bank has acknowledged repeatedly the economy is weak and that growth needs to pick back up. Last week, the Bank of Canada delivered a half-percentage point interest rate cut in response to inflation returning to its 2% target.
Governor Tiff Macklem wouldn’t say whether the central bank will follow up with another jumbo cut in December and instead said the central bank will take interest rate decisions one a time based on incoming economic data.
The central bank is expecting economic growth to rebound next year as rate cuts filter through the economy.
