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My perspective is from someone in manufacturing in Charleston, SC. We have no kids so I am unaware of what they run these days.
Food: people have already touched on it numerous times, but it seems as though both groceries and eating out have increased much faster than anything else. The crap food however (Banquet TV dinners for example) seem stationary with a lot of marketing for the flavor of the month. Atkins/organic/lactose/gluten free...
We replaced the wife's car twice last year and it seems like new car prices are spiking thanks to insane financing terms, but that they depreciate just as fast as ever so we bought used. No apparent discounts for cash at dealers since everyone can get financing somehow.
Housing in the area is bubbling again. Flippers and shoddy contractors have come back out of the woodwork and there are long queues for starting major projects.
What troubles me is that a lot of people at work seem to think things will be on the up and up indefinitely. When the time comes someday, it will be easy to tell who will have to go because they are nowhere near as productive or efficient as the others. It will be a rude awakening. These are not younger people either.
The job market remains tough for the wife's field (IT). She would really like to move beyond being an hourly employee but her options seem very limited. I'm still able to cover her under my insurance for not too much additional cost but we're concerned about how much longer that will last. We looked into additional education but...
The cost of education seems to have increased faster than any single other factor. The ROI for a (second) degree appeared terrible but there's an endless queue of people lined up for it because they're approved for an insane amount of debt.
Within our family we're doing quite well but we are building towards our long term strategy of being able to survive if a major job loss or something else comes our way. It seems that overall things are not going well enough for enough people for this to be a real economic recovery.
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