After wrapping up our Q3 data from our health and fitness tracker we discuss how we’re seeing inflation impact spending and whether or not our health and fitness is becoming more or less important.
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Maggie Bright 0:07
Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie Bright from Murphy Research and I am thrilled to be joined by two of the smartest people I know, Sarah Marion and Chuck Murphy. And we are going to chat about the economy. Full disclosure, we are not economist, we know very little about this topic. But what we're really going to talk about is the impact the current economy, and particularly inflation could be having on consumer spending. And that particularly, we're going to narrow it down even more in terms of consumer spending related to fitness and nutrition. As you know, we run a syndicated tracker called State of Our Health, that tracks consumer behaviors across fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, all sorts of great areas. Been running it since 2018. We've talked to 10s of 1000s of people at this point. And Sara Marion runs all of that I think she probably dreams about these statistics and stats and figures in her sleep at night, probably during her daytime too. Sarah wrote this great newsletter about how inflation is potentially impacting nutrition and fitness spending. And as of q2 2022, we had not seen any impact. So we wanted to revisit, take a look at what's going on in q3. These numbers are we just closed field on q3. So Sarah is going to give us the first view of the data. And so Sarah, what are you using as sort of indicators coming out of State of Our Health? And what's happened between q2 and q3?
Sarah Marion 1:45
Well, so we measure, we have a couple of ways that we use to look at consumer sentiment and it is focused on health. But um, so we measure general population, attitudes and barriers to fitness, including money and price. We have a lot of questions where he asked about spending in both fitness and food. And so particularly in food, questions around how important is organic what percentage of the groceries you purchase organic, that kind of thing, is a good Bellwether in terms of how people are pinched people are feeling in the pocketbook. And back, when I wrote that newsletter, we really had not inflation had been in the news and been headlines for quite a while, but we hadn't seen it affecting our data yet. And in fact, I will tell you that we really still haven't money as a barrier, it's holding pretty steady, at around, you know, 16-17%. And it's been there for a long time. It has risen a little bit since kind of mid pandemic, when money was much less of a barrier, people were getting government stimulus, they weren't going out and going out to dinner or traveling. But only by a couple of percentage points. And so in the newsletter, I had a couple of kind of theories around why that is, I think part of it is that health is important, it became more important during the pandemic, people are willing to spend on wellness in a way that maybe is even more so than they used to be than pre pandemic. And in a lot of ways people position here in interviews, people position their wellness spending, they're spending on good food they're spending on fitness as health care spending, which puts it in a different category than we sometimes think of it. So it makes it more necessary an expense that you can't really get around. And they'll make adjustments in other areas of their budget to be able to still do what they want to do and buy the food that they want to buy to maintain that their picture of how they need to eat and live to be a healthy person.
Maggie Bright 3:56
If you look at q2 GDP data, which is a phrase I thought I would never say they're actually spending on healthcare and basically public private services is up in q2, compared to the previous quarter, which is kind of a bad quarter. So I don't know, it's all relative, I guess. But like I agree with you, I think that people have reframed health in light of the last two years of being in a pandemic, and you know, there's just more of a movement now to be to be conscious of holistic health, not just one aspect of it, but of all the areas of it. And that requires spending in different ways or, you know, possibly on different things. And so I agree with you, I think there's something about our lives have changed enough that this has become slightly more important to enough people that perhaps it's a little less volatile than it has been in the past in terms of spin.
Chuck Murphy 4:52
I saw something I started you know, I was just curious what other people had written on this. So I was kind of googling different articles on like how people think about fitness spend outside of our own sources? Because just for curiosity sake for this, and I found this stylesheet survey, it's from a couple months ago, it's from April, right. So it's, I feel like the we could talk more about that, but the pressure is going to change every month. But in April, they basically had people like say, okay, inflation is coming. How are you going to adjust your spending, and it was really interesting that basically, a vast majority people like 72% of people or something in this survey said that exactly what you just said that the gym membership falls under wellness. And that's not an area they'll cut, they're willing to cut trade down to store brands for food, they're willing to cut back on beauty, which I thought was very interesting, especially because it's, you know, I assume these I assume these are stylesheet readers, I didn't look too deeply into the methodology of this. But um, all the other categories, they said that they would cut back, but not fitness, and wellness. But then I found another one from July from a different source. I wasn't familiar with this source. And I didn't spend a lot of time vetting it. But they basically said you could see through the summer that there is some evidence of rotation, outdoor workouts which over and above the seasonal and there their hypothesis was like the people that are feeling pressure are going to still get their workouts in. But it's you know, instead of a treadmill go outside. That of course, you have the fall. In some places. Well, you're back on that, but, but it's interesting that we don't see that in our data. Because it's some physics, right? It's like, like, you could also like they get to, you know, to wade into the economic waters these days, you see those credit card balances go up every month. At some point, you're gonna have to make that trade off right on like things you could cut it and a gym membership is still not in the car, or rent or food category have on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
Maggie Bright 7:01
Like, you're the so what goes away or luxury goods normally, right? Or you trade down to, you know, something that may not be as superior of a product but still fulfills the need? And so it's like it I think the question becomes is gym, or fitnessyou know, health and wellness a luxury item? And I think that's a really pivotal question. And my guess is that if you know, as we look, over time, it's become less of a luxury item and more of a necessity item. So therefore it may not stay around in exactly the same capacity from a spend perspective, but it's still there. And the great thing about the silver lining, let's say of COVID is that there's so many more choices about how you can work out now or how you can fulfill nutritional needs, whether it be through online fitness, or, you know, different subscription service programs, all sorts of ways to do it. So we might see people like jumping around to try different things, but the idea of it going away. I just don't see that happening in the way that it might have. You know, I don't know what the right horizon is. But 10-20 years ago, I think it's it's just more of a staple than it was many years ago. And Chuck, I find it funny that they said that cosmetics are going down because we were sort of talking about this yesterday, but there's the the lipstick of factum, and it's this idea that you, you still need things that make you happy, you still want to be a consumer and downtimes. And so you buy things like lipstick that are a little boost, they improve your your mood, they give you that, you know whatever the serotonin or the dopamine, whatever it is that you get when you consume things. And they also help you know with your outward appearance, and so things like that, and I think we were talking about it more as vices, and we were talking about candy, liquor and cigarettes being immune to this type of thing. But I do I think that there's still like there's a happiness factor that might weigh into this a little bit that's even beyond the economic piece of it. And I can't quantify that. But I get the sense from the things that I've read that that exist and that, you know, sometimes fitness and nutrition can fit into that category, as well.
Sarah Marion 9:13
It's definitely in this last round of qualitative interviews that we did with consumers. These were, we were interested in this return to the gym where it is online fitness. So we're talking to people who are gym members and also use online fitness but none of them were back at the gym as often as they remember being pre pandemic and all of them when we asked what do you expect in the future? What do you think you would do if we have another terrible COVID Wave? And they all felt prepared, they have more options now so they don't need to go to the gym as often if the gym closes down, no big deal. I've set up my home space or I know what apps I'll use there. So for consumers, they have a lot of strategies now that they know will carry them through a tough time. And so if you need to cut down in one area, you know, you can book up some other area that will help you out in terms of fitness. And I suspect the same is true in nutrition, all the strategies that got you through the pandemic, when you couldn't go out to eat. When you're, when you're cooking all the time or cooking for more family members, you can fall back on those. So it's like people who feel like they have a cushion. And again, more options, like you said, more strategies. Maybe that means that they don't feel as pressured perhaps to change their behaviors just yet.
Chuck Murphy 10:38
It's really the office gym connection is always interesting to me, because I do feel like the fact that we've untangled a lot of where things happen. I feel like the gym like for me for my head that the gym was always tied to the routine of going to work, right? Like I was always a morning person inside, go to the gym on the way to the office, bring a change of clothes. And so when when the when the office isn't as strict, which is, you know, not true for everyone. But it's true for a large chunk of the population, then the gym routine goes away a little bit. And there's a lot more options that come into that. And I was I was talking to the person that manages the gym I went to for many years, and I really never go anymore, which there's no good reason for it. I'm still a member, which is dumb, but I just don't like it. It's partially because like my schedule is so different now. It was like it was so tied into like, the question before, it was like, What am I going to do at the gym tomorrow morning, right? Like, I might vary it by day, but the place didn't change. And now it's interesting that like, I could, you know, there's so many different places now where I'm like, I could do this, or I could do that. And it's almost like, once you break that routine or that cycle that all of the behavior down downstream of that changes, which I think is really fascinating.
Maggie Bright 12:08
I'm actually really curious. There's something that we've talked about a lot. And then I know that has been in reports that we've done is sort of the difference between how men and women approach a lot of these areas. And my I hypothesize that women will probably be the first to start pulling back. I know they tend to spend less in general and then they, they tend to feel kind of guilty as the right word, but they're less likely to prioritize their spend on these areas. And so I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see the gap widen, between men and women on across some of these key areas and would love your kind of point of view around that.
Sarah Marion 12:51
Yeah. So women are always quicker to react to economic kind of trends. They have lower incomes, on average, they are frequently have larger households. So that makes sense. And they spend less across all of these categories, partly and particularly in fitness. Partly because they feel less permission to spend. And so if you're feel like your budget is getting tighter, you need to cut back well then yes, of course, you're gonna cut back right there. Especially if you feel like you have less permission to spend anyway. And so money is a barrier is always higher for women than it is for men. But we still again, have not seen that change a whole lot yet.
Chuck Murphy 13:38
Again, I was just, I was just going through all these different data sets here. There's so much data online now that you could just fight so I have no idea if this if the quality of this data is is accurate or not. But I was looking at some men and women's stuff. And one thing I found that I thought was an interesting hypothesis is that women are quicker to cut... You're right, they do spend less I agree, I agree with everything you just said. But the one one little twist I found that I was thinking about was men protect more of the going out food budget. And women will hold on to that to the gym and the wellness spend longer and cut more in the food categories, especially the out of the house food, which I thought was interesting. I was thinking about this just in terms of people I know in my life and I'm like you know what, I could see that being true like it was it wasn't a great data source but I can see that being true like that's an interesting analysis is like weird. As you start chopping budget away, which categories are you chopping first and where where do you go? And I thought that was an interesting hypothesis that that, according to this data set women will hold that that wellness budget longer, they'll help they'll cut deeper in other categories to protect that. Even though that doesn't disagree with everything you said earlier. It's just a slight kind of tactic change interpret.
Sarah Marion 15:00
And we actually see that in state of our health too. So at the beginning of the pandemic, and this has lasted, it's continued to, it's still there, men never stopped going out to eat. And in fact, the small gap and doing that they made up in outsourcing and other ways. So they never cooked more at home, whereas women shifted almost entirely to cooking at home. So that's where that comes from, which is exactly what you said, they also stopped going to the gym, but that was around probably health and safety issues, instead. But that makes sense to me. Because I do think that part of the reason wellness is such a trend is women drive that trend. And it's because wellness is a solution to healthcare problems that are difficult to address through the healthcare system for them. And, but also like keeping yourself in, like looking a certain way and feeling a certain way. Might be I don't want to say it's more important, because we know that that's very important for men too. But women are socialized to do that in a different kind of way.
Chuck Murphy 16:08
By the way, I could throw other hypotheses out as to why women, I'm not gonna necessarily say I don't agree with what you just said. But I think that what you just said might be might be one angle on it, but I would go I think my my first instinct would be more than women are... Get trouble for talking about men and women too.
Maggie Bright 16:31
More capable, is that where you're going? Totally kidding.
Chuck Murphy 16:40
That they're like a little bit more in touch with their bodies, men, there's, a, like a part of the way men are taught that like, it's funny, because this runs actually both ways, right? You can make this argument both ways. But in some ways, it'd be like, Hey, you got to be strong, and all that stuff. But they also like, do ignore a lot about how they, their bodies feel physically. It's a part of its I don't know, if you can make the argument whether that's a societal genetic, or whatever it is. But whereas women are a little bit more in tune, I think they make the connection faster, that a I feel better. And I, you know, it's funny, it's true for everyone. If you if you work out and you feel better, you're actually more productive like that hour that you spent working out? Probably you get back. But I think a lot of people don't make that connection naturally.
Maggie Bright 17:25
We see in the data set would support that, to some extent, I don't know, like, what's causation and correlation. But we I mean, men are more likely to stick to strict or formal diet plans or have more routine gym, you know, they have more of a routine and how they do it. Right. They find it's very important. Yeah. Whereas women are more likely to to have more fluidity around it. And like, I'm not saying that one approach is better or worse, but I do I definitely, we see that in our datasets. Right. And I don't know, I do think that women become more conscious of of body image at a slightly earlier age. And so maybe they have a head start on figuring out the intuitive piece of it. But I agree with you, I do think that there is more of sort of, you know, it, it's obviously not true all the time. But we see that men are more likely to gravitate toward a structured approach to this. And women have more fluidity and how they do it. And so that could play into this as well.
Chuck Murphy 18:33
Yeah. This could be this is a big rabbit hole that we could we could spend a lot of time on but what you know, you touched on something earlier that I wanted to circle back to which is another thing that's happening here with with it, by the way, we're really timely with this podcast, because the inflation print this morning just came like a you know, 40 minutes ago, the Fed just talked and everybody's the stock market is roiled right now because it was it came in again, higher than they expected. But the other thing that that I thought was really interesting in some of the spending data was just kind of looking through, I was trying to find something really recent, which it's hard to find data for the past month, which is why standard for health is so amazing. But um, the other thing that's happening is that return to Office is slowly inching up. We're past 50% Now, and in especially in bigger cities, it's inching up and one of the little data nuggets I found out there was that it's caused a little bit of an apparel spend squeeze because people have not bought what you might call work clothes in two years. And so now they're kind of having to kind of make up a little bit for last time and spend a little bit more on wardrobe stuff which is coming at a bad time, which I thought was interesting. And you can see that some of the credit card data that that the apparel is going up. So I thought that was an interesting one too, because there's there's so many things going on right now. This is a really crazy time but the return to the office you would think is a tailwind for the physical gyms obviously, right? Because you get more people back in that routine. And I actually there's part of me that really misses that routine I miss going to the gym in the mornings, it was like my whole little, you know, there was the same, you know, 25 people that were there the same time as you every morning, you get to know him, how's the work? Like, you know, it's it's funny like and, and it was, those are fun workouts. But that then at the same time, it's a little bit more likely what Sarah was talking about in the qual that there is all these other options that people have now got comfortable, it's because of the pandemic. So I'm just curious, like, if inflation continues, is that I think my instinct would be that's a tailwind for the peloton, and the apple fitness' and the YouTubes of the world. And it's probably also a tailwind for the lower end gyms, the Planet Fitness' of the world. But maybe a headwind for the higher end physical gyms. But I don't know there's there's so many things going on, it's hard, it's hard to figure out like, like, how you would, how you would like where your gut lies. And in terms of what's happening in this category.
Maggie Bright 21:03
I think that makes sense. But I also think people want to, if they're going back to work, you want to look good, right? And if you know, if you go into your closet, you realize you haven't bought clothes in two years, and that the ones that you have don't fit it, like we are a we've spent a lot of times looking at ourselves on camera for the last two years. And I think going back in person, you're like, No one's seen me from the, you know, from here down to keep, I need to keep working out. So I don't know how that piece factors into that's the part I can't figure out as it's like, we want to continue to we've emphasized Holistic Health, we're going to start seeing people again, like where does the gym piece fit in to that, and I think it's funny that you mentioned, you know, you're like you want to get back and see people because, you know, Sarah just finished the online fitness annual report. And it says that that is what men search for in in a gym relationship, there's a social component to it, whereas women are less likely to meet that they're more like, I gotta get this thing done. I don't really want to lift weights around other people. I like the some of the protections of my home. And so I think that's one that I'm really excited to see it play out because I don't have a strong hypothesis on which way it's going to go. I think if an economist would be like, yeah, luxury goes away, and the lower stuff stays. But...
Chuck Murphy 22:24
So Sarah, when Maggie says that, is that your instinct? My instinct is absolutely the other way women prefer group classes. Women are way more socially than the workout is. So although I get that and I am a man and we are this is we could get into the other part too.
Sarah Marion 22:42
Yeah, there's two types of socializing going on, women are more likely to do group classes. And that's what they miss about the gym. Some of them are fine with a solo workout. And certainly there's men that do classes as well. But women are more likely to do group fitness classes. And that's what they miss. And I still don't think group fitness classes have come back to the level they were at pre pandemic. And so there's a lot and even before then, even before the pandemic, there's a lot of limitations, right? If you like to do bar, but they offer the bar class half an hour later than you can do, then you can't do that class. But now you can do it online. So definitely like online fitness has stolen some of those classes, because it's so easy to do what you want when you want and men are more likely to do the solo gym workouts and they like having the other men around, especially if their gym buffs. So like you said, you go you see the same people every day. It's great. So you have this social experience. You get the workout buddy, you see their arms, like we had one guy's like, yeah, I see this guy with bigger arms. I go and I asked him and then he actually had to stop going to the gym because so many people were asking him for advice about how to get his arms.
Maggie Bright 23:55
I have that problem all the time.
Chuck Murphy 24:01
Well, it is it's funny, because it's funny because this is this has to do with inflation. But this but I've actually been fascinated by this for a long time is that I know many women who will not go to the gym, right? It's everything is on a schedule for class, they will not do the thing that men will do. Whereas I have like an adverse reaction to that. Like if someone tells me that the workout has to start precisely at 10 It's just my is my own issues. But I'm like no, what if I want to start at 945? Like I can't stand group classes for that reason that I'm on someone else's schedule.
Maggie Bright 24:30
That has nothing to do with fitness.
Chuck Murphy 24:33
But I do think it's an interesting dynamic that it's true how they socialize different ways but I do think at a high level women are much more suited where workouts are much more social.
Maggie Bright 24:44
I agree with that for sure.
Sarah Marion 24:46
Yeah, I also the other factor going on there is the how much you like somebody else telling you what to do. And women are more likely to want a directed workout. They don't want to have to think about and plan their own workout where as men are more confident in their fitness knowledge, a lot of them say, they're much more likely than women to say I just prefer to plan my own workout.
Chuck Murphy 25:08
Some of that is the confidence and fitness intelligence some of it is just less social beings, right? Like, I was talking to somebody about this last week, because like, we started talking about this. This Pilates, sounds dumb, but this Pilates studio that had got real popular real fast, but it's a local thing. And it's funny, I was debating whether I should even say this, but I guess I'll tell you she is this, this instructor is super active on Tiktok. And basically started making fun of some of her clients. And it's, it's a local thing. So it's pretty easy to to like, go back and be like, I know who you're talking about here. So it's funny, but that was not the point I was gonna bring up right now look at both of your faces and like probably come back in for this part of the conversation. She's like hold on I have to get out of here. But what I was gonna tell you is we started I started talking to this to this guy there was there was a couple other guys there. And we started having this dynamic of like, that aspect of someone who's really knowledgeable to what to do is I think is really interesting. I like it what drives me absolutely crazy isn't having to make small talk with that person for an hour. And I think that's how a lot of guys are like it's not necessarily an ego thing. It's more just I now I'm stuck with this person and hearing about their life for an hour which I think women are more a lot of women are more patient with that kind of stuff. Where is that? Like that is honestly like if I if we had to rank what drives me crazy in life that is like up there with like the rental car counter person like that is people that just like being trapped with someone who just is going to make small talk for an hour. Yeah, but so it'd be curious if so you answered a little bit, where do you see the tailwinds? Because I am dying to dive into the online fitness data which we we're not going to do today but I'll be very curious to see like, if there's still like to reset, you have, you know, 10% year over year costs increases which is hurting people's budgets and you can see credit card numbers going up but at the same time, wages are going up and there's there's really not a loss of jobs. There's no evidence of loss of jobs yet even though we hear anecdotal stories, like none of the big numbers are showing massive changes in employment rates. So it's, it's hard to read like, the fundamental question is like if if if a big like gym chain or and this would apply to digital first to like peloton or Equinox, whoever you're talking about, can they bake in a 10% price increase and basically keep most of their audience? Or is that is this going to start to hurt soon? Because that's the squeeze right? Because the wages aren't going down the cost for their for everything they're buying is going up?
Sarah Marion 27:54
Yeah, I as you said, I do think that we know that people did a lot of jobs switching so they're making more money than they were before and people are in better jobs than they were before. The economy is really weird right now. There's things that look really good there's things that look really bad even the what you were saying about having to buy clothes to go back to the office there's also these headlines about retailers have this glut of inventory so you at least you get to go buy the clothes on sale right?
Chuck Murphy 28:25
It's funny I think you're starting to get this weekend I got an email from a retailer I'm not going to name names but a retailer I really like and everything was 70% off for the weekend. And I'm like yeah, let's load up 70% off we're gonna see according to the experts, we're gonna see a lot of that over the next couple months
Sarah Marion 28:48
In some ways it's like good to be a consumer right now.
Chuck Murphy 28:53
Yeah, by the way for those of you that don't know my last comment we just did this this study that we do every year on online fitness deep dive into spending all that so that that's when is that coming out? Is that like a month from now?
Sarah Marion 29:03
So the report will be out tomorrow!
Chuck Murphy 29:06
Wow. I didn't even know this so that way I'm dying to dive into that one because I'm so I also I could do a whole nother half hour right now on I've talked to so many people about you know, specifically peloton a lot but things like peloton total. And it's fascinating, because I'm always fascinated when there's some behaviors that change for very clear reasons, right? I used to go to the gym on the way the office, I don't go to the office anymore. It broke the gym behavior. However, I still drive by that gym all the time, and I easily could integrate it into my schedule, but it's for whatever reason, I'm having trouble. And you see the same thing happening with these people that had this routine with things like peloton and that chain has been broken now and it's interesting to see how that settles out and it's funny to talk to like you'll talk to people they're like I love it. It's a lot like the physical gym, right? I love it. I want it to be part of my life. I am not making this space for it that I once was a year ago, for reasons I can't really explain right? You'll hear people say things like that over and over.
Maggie Bright 30:11
Well, I think they're like, Sarah and I were actually talking about this, the back to school timeframe this year, has been more insane than usual. And I don't know if that's because we lost all of our stamina for this type of thing over the last two years, or if it's like, it's the first sort of, quote, unquote, normal return to school that we've had in a few years, but it has been intense. And you know, I don't know, maybe it's just me, I don't manage my time well, but it's been really hard to fit in workouts. I mean, I got on my peloton this morning, for the first time in probably a month. And I was like, Oh, I remember why I love this. But like, it's dusty. You know, it's sad. And but I think too, like this is normally a time when we would see people fall off perhaps a little bit because of all of this craziness, we're going into the holiday season. So it's a weird time to judge how inflation is impacting it. Because normally we would start you know, there is a seasonal pullback to some extent and like the, you know, the better time to look at it would be in April, when people are gearing up to, you know, to get back in shape for the summer or you know, whatever we're going to call that now.
Sarah Marion 31:21
I would actually argue the opposite. In the fall, we frequently see a pickup in health engagement. And it was really, it was very pronounced, though, during the pandemic, and has been much like the opposite has happened this fall. And I do think that it's because things have been much busier. So my little anecdote is my kids went back to school last year, but it was masks, we couldn't go in the school, there were no extracurriculars, whereas now there's a lot more activities around the school. There's things happening before and after school. So it's been it's much busier, even though kind of on the surface, the same things happened. So if you combine that with maybe going back to the office more often, you know, maybe now you're both so for instance, my husband, they said, We last spring, they said you have to come back 50% of the time, and nobody did. And so in the fall, now they're saying now we really are going to come back and 50% of the time. And so people are really having to go back in a way that they weren't before. So I do think that things have gotten a lot busier. And so unlike previous years, where in August and September, we see a little bump as as people go back to school, as people get back into regular kind of real life routines back from the summer. That hasn't happened. And instead fitness in particular has fallen off significantly since the summertime since q2. Nutrition has not.
Chuck Murphy 32:51
Well it it's crazy. It's like anything else, right? You stopped doing it and you lose the muscles. And I've talked to so many people. I'm specifically talking about parents with kids. But I've talked to so many parents with kids who are just overwhelmed with this year's back to school. And I think it's exactly what you said, Sarah, it's all the activities like we really didn't fully go back. And it's crazy. From all indications it looks like we're you know, 2, 3, 4 weeks away from another massive COVID spikes, and then it's going to we're gonna go back. So it's like, it's really it's there's just so much choppiness and just so much, and I think that kind of stresses people out and it breaks all their routines again, then it's like, oh, now we're gonna go back to, you know, I had to go to the, you know, the thing last night at the school where all the parents huddled together and talk through all the scenarios and issues for the year. And it's like, we didn't have to do that for the last two or three years. And it's like, now we have to do it for like every class and then you add sports and meetings. It's a lot. It's a lot.
Sarah Marion 33:47
Even just regular things. You know, you'd haven't seen a concert for two years, you want to see all the concerts now you want to go to the sporting events. So that exactly. So that adds up. And all of a sudden, you wonder like, why why did I have all this time to exercise every day last winter? And that's why it's because you and everything else do?
Chuck Murphy 34:09
Yeah. And then you get into the habit you get into the routine and, and it's funny like a hybrid, you know, the I don't know exactly what your husband's schedule is. But the hybrid schedule in some ways makes it even harder for the routine, right? If you're fully remote, then you get into the kind of, you know, at home routine, or and if you're you know fully the office, you get into the gym routine, but now it's like I'm going to this day and not this, it's there's a lot to figure out that I don't think people have their rhythm or their cadence figured out yet where where it's just routine.
Maggie Bright 34:38
I think from a financial perspective, and Sarah would know this much better than I would but the the idea, or what I seem to keep seeing is that there's this there's a committed group of consumers who are over indexing on spend and engagement with fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, all of these things and they will be somewhat undeterred by financial stresses in their life, they will prioritize this over other things and will make whatever tradeoffs they need to make. And I mean, my guess would be, that's like a third of the people we talk to at any given time who are somewhat engaged in fitness and nutrition, there's this group of a third that are like, I'm in this no matter what, this is part of my life, it is a necessity. It's a staple. It's the other two thirds that I think would be will be interesting to watch in that, you know, do they do they continue to be engaged in the category, but to a lesser extent? Do people fall out of the category, which it looks like we're already seeing that from a fitness perspective? And by category, I mean, just sort of engagement with these areas, regardless of what the what the actual behavior spend is? And does that get exacerbated amongst certain subgroups more so than others, like there are, you know, if it would stand to reason that people with lower incomes might be more affected by this than those with higher incomes? Or, you know, are men and women going to behave differently in these set of scenarios? And so I think that third remains like a very safe like, Yes, I'm going to keep the peloton, I will, I will weather that tent. And I'm saying I as those third, I will weather that 10% increase, because it's important to me, and in the grand scheme of things, you know, the extra $4 per month is worth my spend. But I think it's the other two thirds that are particularly are potentially vulnerable. Once the time stops being a barrier. Will finances become a barrier? And I think that's the interesting thing to watch. And, I mean, I think it's really uncertain right now whether what's going to happen next. I mean, like y'all said, there's so many conflicting indicators right now. And it's kind of like, what do we do with this? Listen to this podcast yesterday, it was going through like, you know, both stocks and bonds are down. That's weird. And at the end of the podcast, the best correlation they found was the whatever music is at the top like this, like the chart topper is the best indicator of what's going on with the economy. So if it's a happy song, then we're in a recession. And if it's a sad song, we're not in a recession, but the one that was at the top when they produced this was like, he couldn't tell if it was happy or song sad because it had elements of both and so what are we it and it's like, that sums it up for me.
Sarah Marion 37:21
That sounds like a bet on horse races. Do I like this name? No.
Chuck Murphy 37:25
That may not be the best way...
Maggie Bright 37:30
I wrote down the songs for the last couple of recessions because I thought it was really fun.
Chuck Murphy 37:36
You remember what the chart topper was in 2007?
Maggie Bright 37:39
So 2008. Okay, it was Beyonce "all the single ladies."
Chuck Murphy 37:45
That's a happy song. Right?
Maggie Bright 37:47
Yes! We were in a recession, happy song.
Chuck Murphy 37:53
Oh It's the other way?
Maggie Bright 37:57
Yes. We want something happy to look forward to.
Chuck Murphy 38:00
The Smiths and The Cure, we're saying that was clearly a good economy with them? Okay.
Maggie Bright 38:06
So 1982 When they were the last like major, there were two recessions in the 80s. So this I think, is the second
Chuck Murphy 38:12
Call me by Bondi Blue Jean by David Bowie?
Maggie Bright 38:16
Olivia Newton John, Let's Get Physical.
Chuck Murphy 38:20
Hey, that's, that should be our theme song for this podcast by the way.
Maggie Bright 38:25
It's kind of funny. I'm like and it's so the one right now and I like this is gonna show my age because I don't know. It's so the one that was the chart topper was a Harry Styles song. And I am totally blanking on the name of it, but it has like, the lyrics are sad, but there's like a poppy beat to it.
Chuck Murphy 38:41
I don't think there's a sad Harry style song right? I mean, Harry Styles.
Maggie Bright 38:45
According to these economist it's sad and happy!
Sarah Marion 38:49
Economists as arbiters of pop music.
Chuck Murphy 38:52
I think when you see like, government stepping in to bailout pension funds, you should just assume that something bad's about to happen. I think the easy move mark here is like, this can't be good. I know. I know a lot of smart people. They're like, No, no, this this is a slow moving train but it's crashing.
Maggie Bright 39:11
And there might be a train strike to add on to that. So then that'll make things even worse.
Sarah Marion 39:18
I also wonder if so, as a millennial, there have been a lot of once in a lifetime, terrible economic things that have happened all in my adult lifetime. And they have not I like I don't feel like they have ever affected my spending very much. Because that's just the nature and the nature of the economy for me, and I wonder if there's some generational things.
Chuck Murphy 39:43
I will say if it is the last thing I'm gonna say and it has nothing to do with inflation or fitness really, but in terms of millennials, this is a generational buying opportunity, right? You have this is this is what Warren Buffett looks for is like, oh my god, stocks are cheap. Everybody's panicking and that you know it. It 2008 or whatever it was, it was buying Apple and Netflix, super cheap. And now it's now there's gonna be a lot of good deals in five years from now you're gonna be like, that was my opportunity.
Maggie Bright 40:11
I have to tell you, it's raining in DC. I walked my dog this morning, I grabbed a raincoat hasn't worn one in a while I put it on and it had it was a it was a giveaway from Lehman Brothers, which I thought was hilarious. Given that we were talking about things. I was like, How funny is that? And I was like, Oh, 2008 was rough.
Chuck Murphy 40:32
Right that you have schwag from the last crisis.
Maggie Bright 40:35
That I still wear. Great raincoat, I mean, not so great at bonds but great raincoats. Anyway...
Chuck Murphy 40:47
All right. Well, this was super fun, you know. And I'm excited the online fitness report is coming out tomorrow, which means we could dive in - that's my favorite. I think that might be my favorite report day of the year. No offense to any of our wonderful clients.
Maggie Bright 40:59
It's a good one. It's really good.
Sarah Marion 41:01
I hope that I live up to your expectations.
Maggie Bright 41:04
You did, I took a sneak peek.
Chuck Murphy 41:06
You already saw it?
Maggie Bright 41:09
Of course I did. Come on, I have I have an inside source.
Sarah Marion 41:12
It went down a little bit last year, but then went up again this year. And I really think that it's people are just their lives are so different. And they're having trouble not having trouble. But there's a lot of experimentation going on.
Chuck Murphy 41:30
You'll always want to be part of a habit or routine, right? Think about smartphones, right? Four years trying to figure out what these things are going to do in our lives. And then the last 10 years, they basically done the same thing slightly incrementally better every year, like you figured out what they do what they don't do. And I think I think that's how it's going to be for a lot of this stuff is like what, what what's the habit that this will hold on to for long term?
Sarah Marion 41:53
Yeah. And it's also I mean, we've this has been obvious now, from these, state of our health reports for a long time, people's lives change dramatically. Over the last two years, we think of it as this big pause. But if you interview anybody, they will tell you how dramatically their life changed. So there's nothing that is the same kind of on a individual personal level for most people as they they're just totally different than they were in 2019. And so they're still trying to figure out what that means as everything else comes back online and returns to whatever normal means now.
Maggie Bright 42:29
If only there was a data source that you could follow all these changes.
Sarah Marion 42:35
To see how it works out from year to year and month to month.
Maggie Bright 42:38
Oh my goofness do you know something?
Sarah Marion 42:39
Folks there is!
Chuck Murphy 42:42
It's like a gold mine in my own computer.
Maggie Bright 42:45
It's amazing. With 10s of 1000s of completes at your finger tips!
Sarah Marion 42:50
It's a great value.
It's called state of our health. Let's put the name in.
Maggie Bright 42:57
It's you know, it'll help you get through these inflationary times. Really good spend.
Chuck Murphy 43:01
Good value, good value.
Maggie Bright 43:03
Thank you guys. I know I was supposed to moderate and I let us get off the rails. But I think this was really fun. And I love talking to you all and hopefully we can come back maybe in early q1 and see if any of these major indicators have moved around and you know, kind of what's what's at play still. So, thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai