This Week In Your Wallet: Less Candy, More Plastic?

This Week In Your Wallet:
Less Candy, More Plastic?

Happy Valentine’s Day! I come bearing good tidings and a warning for all chocolate lovers: Ye olde heart-shaped sampler, the sweet icon of Valentine’s Day, may not hold as much candy as you think it does. Our friends at Consumer World shared a story on the small number of assorted candy pieces in a popular heart-shaped Whitman’s Sampler. And I hate to break it to you: you’re probably getting a lot of fluff, and very little chocolate. Consumer World bought a 5.1-ounce heart-shaped Whitman’s box of chocolates for $7.99 at a drugstore. When the inside packaging was removed, nine candy pieces barely filled the bottom third of the box, CW reported.

Granted, part of the reason we buy a paper heart filled with candy is because it’s, you know, more romantic than a King Sized bag of M&Ms. But still I always like to know I’m getting my money’s worth. Under federal law, most packages can’t have “non-functional empty space,” called ‘slack-fill,” CW reports, because the empty space that makes the packaging larger than necessary “could mislead a prospective purchaser into believing that the box contains more candy than it really does.” But this doesn’t always stop companies from scrimping — in 2019, Ghirardelli and Russell Stover were fined $750,000 for misleading consumers with candy boxes that were "predominantly empty.” No word yet if there will be a 2023 crackdown, so for now it’s just a matter of buyer beware. If you’re a last minute V-Day shopper (or trying to load up on the most chocolate during the 50% off sale that starts pretty much everywhere tomorrow) pick up the box with weight in mind, read the label, and check it twice.

Gen Z Great Resignation Remorse Hits Hard

A growing number of job hoppers – many of them Gen Zers – say they have regrets following the great resignation that swept America in 2021. Why? New research from payroll service provider Paychex, reported in Fortune, shows eight in 10 respondents regret leaving their old jobs. The top reason given for wanting to return to a former employer? In a word: relationships. People miss their old coworkers, the survey shows. Andrew Crapuchettes, CEO of Idaho-based recruitment agency Red Balloon, told Fortune data backs up the idea that job seekers who are “chasing a bigger paycheck” often find it’s not enough. How can you avoid the remorse that sometimes settles in after giving notice? More money doesn’t always equal more happiness. In other words, think long and hard before you leave.

Parental Dilemma: Daycare Worker Shortage Persists

The pre-pandemic nursery school and daycare waiting lists were already legendary. But once Covid descended, daycare slots became harder to come by than Taylor Swift tickets and the waiting lists so much longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that while nearly all sectors of the economy are back to pre-pandemic levels — day care just isn’t there yet. Journalist Harriet Torry points to Labor Department data showing the median price for an infant in daycare ranges from $8,000 annually in smaller communities to more than $17,000 in larger cities. That’s for one kid. (Some math: For a household earning $85,000, the price for one child in daycare at $17,000 would be 20% of a family’s pre-tax income.) The spiraling cost and lack of availability is keeping more parents, especially women, out of the workforce. Plus, the U.S has no federally mandated paid parental leave. And we wonder why the birth rate continues to decline.

Life in The Free Lane

She had me at porch ham. Someone sent out a Buy Nothing message in an Atlanta neighborhood offering up leftovers from a party: 8 slices of savory pork and gravy to be precise. Did anyone want it? You better believe it. Journalist Maura Judkis of The Washington Post dives into the Buy Nothing Project, a movement of free-cycling tight-knit communities across the U.S. that count more than seven million members among its ranks. The founders, Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller, two neighbors tired of watching plastic litter the beach where they brought their kids to play near Seattle, launched the initiative as a way to keep unwanted items out of landfills and waterways. How it works: You join a group in your area and start swapping. Community rules say that no money can change hands, and monetary values aren’t mentioned. (HerMoney’s Editor-in-Chief recently took to her local Buy Nothing group to give away 4 lemon-flavored granola bars she tried but didn’t like. The only hard part? Choosing one person to gift them to, since there were multiple interested parties.) The volunteer-led non-profit now has an app, investors, a website and even a podcast detailing some of the treasures strangers have shared. Here’s to keeping up the gracious giving!

Have a happy Valentine’s Day and a great week!

Jean

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