Grasping

Saturday, June 28, 2025

I had some surprising learning, which began after I was involved in a minor fender-bender in a small roundabout that damaged my bumper, but my vehicle continued to run perfectly. That incident made me roll my eyes more than wring my hands. My insurance company sent me to get an estimate for repairing the cracked bumper. I did so, bracing myself for a wallet-shocker, but to my surprise, the estimated repairs came in only around $1,500.

I say “only” because that repair was far less than I had anticipated. It struck me as weird-funny, considering how almost everything else these days seems to cost more. My insurance bills keep climbing, and my groceries keep leaping off the shelves, totaling higher. These days, even the basics for my home and pets regularly strain my budgeting attempts, and unfortunately, very often.

The insurance estimate for my car’s bumper prompted me to explore why and how auto body shops are evolving, from fulfilling private repairs to focusing on fulfilling insurance claims. The costs for labor and materials are making the world of commerce out there constantly change, and so rapidly, both economically and otherwise, that my old mental price tags can’t keep up. Others are like me and equally surprised when comparing today’s costs to those we faced twenty or thirty years ago, making us feel vaguely foolish and newly worried all at once.

So what’s to do? Perhaps the best answer is learning to adapt, rethinking our spending more carefully, and also seriously reevaluating what we genuinely need and what we consume. Some of us, and indeed I, who are confronted with the need for more grace time, are struggling to reevaluate our economies and grasp how best to adjust our daily lives and expectations to the rapidly shifting economic landscape.

Dear Friends: The new economic realities are continually surprising and frightening. Diana