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Bare Bones

We were at our local Home Depot recently to shop supplies for a small project that had been on the back-burner since last year. The weather has been great and I wanted to use it to finish the job. I don't have strict records, but it seems like the price of just about everything has increased - sometimes buy a lot. I generally have a ballpark estimate of what supplies will cost for a project and I was nowhere close to right this time. Based on the numbers that looked ridiculously unreasonable, we scaled back the scope of our DIY project to something that would check the complete box but skip all the extras beyond that. As Lowe's CEO points out:

"Two-thirds of everything we sell is non discretionary. And there are other tailwinds, millennial household formation trend, baby boomers aging in place and more widespread sustainable remote work, so all of these things give us some confidence that the backdrop remains supportive,"

So these stores are counting on the non-discretionary expenses to keep your home safe and livable combined with people spending more time at home like they did during the pandemic. It seems that the other one-third which DIY work people did to make their space better and more comfortable is a big part of the draw. Small improvements made on small budget to get to the ideal state over time. That strategy has become unsupportable at the current price point. If a DIYer does not see a path to the finish line within the budget they have in mind, they will likely not embark on the project. So the likes of Lowe's have to depend on the the two-thirds of their merchandize to realize their revenue goals. That is not easy. 

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