At Freecycle, a similar site where participants typically offer up some 20,000 items each day, the number of posts each day has increased by about 15% in recent months, driven by the financial concerns, founder, Deron Beal says.
“People, understandably, they’re buying petrol or going to the store and seeing high prices…seek to pinch their pennies a little bit and Freecycle… is a good alternative,” he says.
Even families with higher incomes, who might ordinarily be insulated from the pressures, are reconsidering their ordinary spending, says Tania Brown, a financial planner based in Georgia, with more than 20 years’ experience.
“There is an across-the-board sense of worry about inflation: ‘How long is this going to last, how this is going to impact their daily life’,” she says. “I am definitely hearing differences and changes.”