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It's not a recession. (Not yet, anyway.)

By the numbers, the economy is still growing. Barely. Retail sales are slowing, the labor market is starting to stall, and consumer confidence is circling the drain — but according to the official scorekeepers, we're technically still okay.

But it's hard telling that to everyone quietly slashing their grocery bills, canceling their streaming services, and reworking their budgets like it's 2009.

You can already feel it happening. And if you're not seeing it yet on your grocery receipt, you're definitely seeing it on your social feed — where the "recession indicator" meme has taken on a life of its own.

The meme is simple: Spot something that feels ominously thriftier than it should — like renters asking if their pet policies allow chicken coops — or like a throwback to the 2000s — "Mamma Mia!" returning to Broadway or skinny jeans making a comeback — and slap a "#recessionindicator" label on it.

It's funny. But it's also a little telling.

Because underneath the jokes about cheap manicures and forgotten aughts fashion trends, real people — especially young women — are quietly recession-proofing their lives. They're meal-prepping instead of UberEats-ing. Dyeing old sweatpants instead of buying new ones. Trading in blonde highlights for their natural hair colors. Canceling subscriptions, picking up side gigs, cutting back without waiting for a technical recession call.

And recently, I noticed it happening a lot closer to home.

Our Gen Z nanny, Eve — normally aware of money but not especially budget conscious — was suddenly talking about grocery budgets, canceling subscriptions, and trying to patch up her emergency savings.

So I sat down to ask her what's changed. How does she really feel about money right now? And what is her version of the recession indicator — the one that's not a meme, but real life?

"It Was Like Christmas Every Day"

For the past few years, Eve didn't think of money as a constraint.

It wasn't that she was rolling in it — she wasn't. It's just that when a little extra showed up in her account, she had no problem spending it. Simple as that. If she saw something she wanted — the nice coffee pods, the extra snack run, the impulse buy at Target — she got it. Why not? That's what money was for. She even admitted to being a little addicted to the thrill of coming home to her latest Amazon deliveries.

"There were times it felt like Christmas every day," she told me, laughing a little.

That's the thing about financial freedom when you're young. (Eve is only 22.) It doesn't take much to feel like you're living large. A paycheck that covers your needs and wants (and some savings) with enough left over for small impulse treats can make you feel invincible. No budget? No problem.

But slowly, it started becoming a problem.

First was the rent on her apartment. The building was increasing her rent by $150 a month just to stay in the same place. "I thought about moving, but that whole process costs a few hundred dollars too. Plus, I'd have to come up with a deposit for a new place. It just felt like a lose-lose."

Then it was the groceries. "I knew things were more expensive than they used to be, but it didn't really hit me until I realized I was paying $10 for an 18-count box of eggs. After that, it felt like prices were always climbing. Suddenly, I was spending $100 a week just feeding myself. And even worse, I was still throwing half of it away!"

Then her car broke down. Not a cheap fix, not a minor inconvenience — the kind of repair bill that wipes out whatever fragile sense of "I'm doing okay" you were clinging to.

One hit, then another, then another.

Suddenly, what had felt like freedom started to feel like being one step away from scrambling. Even with a job. Even with no major splurges. Even while trying to be "good with money."

"I don't even own a home or anything," she said. "But it's still stressful. Like, the increase in groceries and rent alone was enough to make me feel like I was drowning."

And that feeling — that creeping sense that you're doing everything you're supposed to and still falling behind — might just be the most accurate recession indicator of them all.

Learning to Stretch — and Stress — Every Dollar

The first battlefield was groceries.

Eve wasn't buying fancy organic salmon or $12 oat milk lattes. Just normal stuff. Eggs. Bread. A case of water. Basic cleaning supplies. And still, somehow, it kept hitting triple digits.

"It made me nauseous," she said.

So she decided to take control of what she could. She capped her grocery spending at $60 a week — non-negotiable.

That $60 had to cover it all: food, household basics, even the occasional treat. If there was money left over after stocking the essentials? Great. That became her "fun" fund for the week — a meal out, a coffee, a snack run. If there wasn't anything left? No extras. No cheating.

"I'm trying to roll everything into that grocery number," she told me. "If I don't spend it all on groceries, I let myself use it to go out. And if there's still money left over after that, it goes into savings."

The changes didn't stop at the grocery store, either. She started combing through her subscriptions — trimming anything she didn't use regularly, downgrading wherever she could. Student discounts have become her secret weapon: She told me she's only paying $1 a month for Hulu, and she's started making notes in her calendar about when free trials end so she doesn't forget to cancel.

Sunday meal prepping also became a new routine. Ordering food delivery — once a casual indulgence — became a genuine treat, not a default. Same story for "self care." Suddenly, the girl who treated herself to a salon manicure every two weeks started showing up with bare nails. (A trend Gen Z is popularizing as "recession nails.")

Every small change — every packed lunch, every skipped Uber, every subscription that got the axe — was one more way to fight the feeling that she was losing ground.

Spending, FOMO, and the Gen Z Money Mentality

Even as she was cutting back, it felt like everyone around her was doing the opposite.

On social media, the spending never seemed to stop. Every picture or video she saw seemed to include concert tickets, vacations, shopping hauls, brunches. But it wasn't just the spending itself that frustrated her; it was the contradiction. Friends talking in personal messages about being broke one minute, and then posting an update about going to see Taylor Swift a second time the next.

"It's like... everyone's stressed about money, but they're still spending it," she said. "It's kind of wild."

When friends post photos from beach trips or new apartments, Eve's own urge to spend — to live — kicks in hard. She told me Gen Z has this spending mantra that she hears all the time: Money comes back, but memories don't.

It's the idea that money is replaceable because another paycheck, another gig, another deposit is always around the corner — but experiences aren't, so you might as well say yes to the trip, the concert, the dinner out, before the chance slips away.

And if I squint my eyes a bit, I can kind of understand how that mindset makes sense.

This is a generation raised in the aftermath of the Great Recession and then Covid, trained to expect that life can flip without warning. Stability was never promised. Spend it while you can. Enjoy life before everything disappears.

But Eve grew up in a family that often had long periods where the money didn't come back, and sometimes that meant not having enough food to eat or moving in with family for a while. She knows firsthand that the quick dopamine hits — the new clothes, the last-minute getaways — aren't worth the financial anxiety that follows.

She told me she knows social media is nothing more than a highlight reel. What she wants is the safety net that doesn't get posted online: a savings balance that can buy peace of mind.

It's not the flashy choice. But these days, it might be the smartest one.

Trying to Build a Safety Net — Without Feeling Safe

It's also not an easy choice to make. Even with all the changes Eve's made — the grocery caps, the canceled subscriptions, the cutbacks — she still doesn't feel fully secure. And she's not particularly happy about any of it.

The car repairs were a wake-up call. One unexpected bill, and whatever cushion she had built felt painfully thin. It wasn't a total collapse, but it was enough to make her realize how close the margins really were.

"If something else big happened, I'd be scrambling," she admitted. "I know that even people with a lot of money are feeling it right now. So where does that leave the rest of us?"

Eve said she has managed to start saving more now, and she's slowly stacking up an emergency fund in the background. She told me she's making an effort to think ahead in a way that feels both responsible and exhausting — planning not for big dreams, but for the inevitable next expense that will knock things off track.

When she talks about financial success these days, it's not about luxury or even comfort. It's about small wins. Saving steadily. Hitting tiny goals that will build toward bigger ones. Trying to feel proud, not annoyed, when extra money goes into savings instead of a shopping cart.

"Part of me resents how hard it is to choose the boring, responsible thing. I want to get to a place where saving feels exciting," she said. "Where it feels good, not like I'm just giving something up."

Maybe that's the real economic story playing out right now. It's not just about canceled Ubers or meal prepping to save a few dollars. It's about the quiet, constant work of trying to build security in a world that doesn't make it easy.

And the hardest part? Even when you're doing everything right, it still doesn't always feel like enough.

The Real Recession Indicators Aren't in Memes — They're in Your Grocery Cart

It's easy to laugh at the memes.

Skinny jeans are back. Mamma Mia is playing on Broadway again. Ed Sheeran is suddenly cool. ("Ed Sheeran has always been cool," Eve informs me.)

And sure, in a world where the official data keeps insisting we're not in a recession, it's tempting to point at every odd little trend and call it a "recession indicator" — a way to make a joke out of the quiet financial fear so many people are feeling.

But the truth is, the real signs aren't hiding in throwback fashion trends or even canceled subscription services. They're right in front of us.

They're in the way young women — the country's biggest consumer spenders — are cutting back without waiting for a government report to tell them things are bad.

They're in the way someone rethinks their entire grocery budget because paying $10 for eggs feels like an insult.

They're in the canceled Uber rides, the packed lunches, the $1 student-discount streaming plans.

They're in conversations like the one I had with Eve — where you can hear both the pride in making smarter choices, and the exhaustion of knowing those choices are a necessity, not a luxury.

Whether the technical recession ever gets declared or not almost feels beside the point. For a lot of people, it already feels like it's here, one small, stubborn act of financial survival at a time.