i haven't bought anything but food in last 4 months, the only thing I bought before that was a table subsidized partially by work firm. i have this estimate/sense/quota whether if i've over spent recently, and if i splurge on something that quota gets filled that i spent too much and need to delay or let go of future non-essential stuff, but recently just paying inflated prices on grocery has been triggering that sense and therefore not really even considering spending on anything else. Really feel the difference when $30 gives you only one bag and not too long ago it was 4 bags worth of items. hell i'm eating more carrots and eggs now, just stings less to eat this then say fish which costs $9 for small piece, that you need two of per person to have sizable portion for one meal only.
Yes, it's easy to read this as an "Oh no, our economy!" article, but it's not. It's an "Oh no, our sector!" article for people in shipping and consumer goods.
If you look at charts of consumer spending, the pandemic caused an explosion in spending on goods, while spending on services "dropped off a cliff". Now stuff is going back down to pre-pandemic levels. What are services doing? Climbing back to pre-pandemic levels: https://www.statista.com/chart/23574/consumer-spending-on-go...
Obviously, we "should" be about two years of growth higher than pre-pandemic levels, and I'm not saying the economy is 100% fine and dandy, but this article needs to be understood as being about a sector of the economy, not the economy as a whole.