It’s not about the coffee specifically, it’s about all the pleasantries. Sure walks are nice and stargazing is lovely. And yeah, those things are great with friends and partners! But you know what else is a nice little treat? Coffee. Snacks. Watching that movie together. Some lovely flowers. Slick shoes.

Some of the pleasantries that make life worth living are free, but many of them cost money. You obviously can’t have everything, but having to give up on literally every pleasantry that costs money (even the cheapest of ones) just to afford enough to live what used to be a normal middle class life is definitely not something that should be treated as normal. There’s a clear trend of sinking purchasing power for the masses and, with it, sinking morale.

Switched to Mint recently. So far it’s been smoother than I expected, but still had some crazy rough patches. Luckily, helping me through this junk seems to be one of the things AI excels at. I’m set up mostly how I want to be and it’s been mostly working well enough so far. Mostly.