Back when Dad was on active duty in the Navy we shopped primarily at the Navy Commissary, no matter where we were stationed. One of the unwritten rules was “don’t shop on or after a payday,” which meant the 15th and 30th of each month. This was back in the days when credit cards weren’t quite as ubiquitous as they are now, and maybe they weren’t offered to poorly-paid military personnel even when they were more common. Anyway, it was routine that the Navy Exchanges and Commissaries were swamped on those two days of the month, so the checkout lines were seemingly miles long.
Fast forward to today, the 15th of January. I didn’t even think about the date. I walked in to the Commissary at 2:20 PM, shopped for half an hour or so, and got into line to check out. There wasn’t a soul in line in front of me.
Times have changed.
If I were in Hawaii, I would be on the beach, not at the commissary.
When you’ve lived here since 1978, you’ve been to the beach. Some days you need to buy groceries.
I think it was in the book “Debtor Nation” that I read credit cards got going in the 1960s. By the 1970s lots of people had them. But the real explosion of credit cards took off around 1980.