I’m in My 60s: Here Are 5 Items I’m Most Worried About Buying After Trump’s Tariffs Go Into Effect
Written by
Jordan Rosenfeld
Edited by
Molly Sullivan
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For many Americans in their 60s, the addition of steep tariffs on imported goods is a growing source of financial anxiety. With retirement on the horizon or already underway, many are watching the prices of essentials creep upward and wondering what costs might spike next.
At 61, Linda McCabe, a former laboratory scientist, was recently downsized from her work at a local clinical laboratory. She’s finishing up her unemployment benefits and then figuring out her next steps for retirement.
At the same time, McCabe is bracing for price hikes on essential items she and her husband purchase regularly, especially those dependent on international supply chains. Here are the items she’s most worried about buying as Trump’s tariffs go into effect.
Clothing and Gifts
McCabe has been keeping a sharp eye on supply chains, noting that if the outcome of tariffs as some news outlets predict is that shipping and trucking are about to “go through a devastation,” the economy will follow.
She suspects that clothing is going to skyrocket. “I recently bought some clothes online because I thought, who knows what the price of these clothes are going to do?”
She foresees a lot of “handmade” gifts forthcoming at the holidays, too. While she and her husband don’t tend to purchase much in the way of Christmas gifts, she said analysts are projecting “there’s going to be this huge war on Christmas because 80% of American product sales for Christmas come from China.”
She expects this holiday season will be tough for many Americans.
Groceries
McCabe and her husband already pay what they call a “coastal tax” because they live in a “geographically remote area” in California, making it much more expensive to get things, from food to gas.
When it comes to groceries, McCabe believes food is going to “take a big hit.” She is nervous, “because you can only stock up so much on food and then it starts to go bad. So, you have to continually buy food.”
While she belongs to a community garden, it’s not their sole source of fruits and veggies. “It supplements things and it’s great, but it’s not a replacement.”
She anticipates shopping more at Costco than her regular grocery store for better discounts but ultimately feels that they will simply eat the costs of higher priced food and may have to do without some things.
Cars and Appliances
She also hopes that her and her husband’s cars hold up because she anticipates that the cost of cars is going to get outrageous again, even used cars.
“I know during the pandemic there was a time where used cars were getting really expensive because new cars were not being produced at the rate that they had been. So that caused a crunch on things.”
McCabe is also grateful that, for now, all of her home appliances are in good working condition, because she recognizes that these will become more expensive as the tariffs hit the parts supplied by countries like China and Mexico.
General Financial Anxieties
In addition to anxiety about products becoming more expensive, McCabe is worried about the fate of Social Security, not just for herself when she is ready to take it, but for her 65-year-old brother, who is just retiring, and her 93-year-old mother.
“My brother does not have any other retirement income other than Social Security, and my mother has a pension and her Social Security. If she doesn’t have her Social Security coming in, I don’t know that she can survive on her pension alone.
Moreover, she said, “Nationwide, there are millions of people who are dependent upon Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. If those are destroyed by DOGE, it is going to devastate the social fabric of our country.”
McCabe is trying to hope for the best but finding it difficult. “I feel like we’re in the climax of a novel or a movie and I don’t know how many pages or how many minutes are left, but it just feels like we’re barreling very fast toward something ugly.”
Many Americans will be facing changes to how, where and what they shop for in the forseeable future.
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