ROCHESTER, N.Y. — John Viggiani is an 84-year-old retired Xerox worker living off of what's left of his finances. As the cost of living continues to increase, he's learning to adapt to inflation.
"It's just it's a lot of stress. Yes, it is," said Viggiani, "In fact, there's times when I had to sell some stuff I had, you know, you just accumulate so much stuff, right? I said, 'we need the money.'”
He's living off of his investments, retirement funds and social security, but after two decades of retirement, he says prices are getting harder to keep up with.
"One of my things just, just depleted, one of my retirement things," he said.
“Finance is very stressful overall, but when an increase in prices — your groceries, your everyday living expenses — that’s going to seriously impact your outgoing expenses," said Karyn Rando, director of Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Rochester.
Viggiani remembers when he got married, he and his wife bought their first house and the monthly mortgage was one of his paychecks. He remembers the stress of living paycheck to paycheck well.
“When I first started working for Xerox, it was paycheck to paycheck. And that was scary," he said.
That's one reason Viggiani has been a loyal member of Kinecta Federal Credit Union since 1977. The bank offers its members an opportunity to receive their regular income two days early for free.
"No matter when you’re paid, whether it’s once a month, weekly or bi-weekly, you would get it up to 48 hours earlier," said Marisa Howard, director of retail services for Kinecta Federal Credit Union.
Howard says the service is offered in hopes of relieving some of that financial stress.
"There are so many people that are struggling with the inflation going up right now," Howard said. "And Kinecta offers a variety of different services to help our members that are going through that financial difficulty. It’s more of that just financial security that, you know, there are so many people that live paycheck to paycheck, so just having that a little sooner.”
However, financial experts say sooner doesn't eliminate the risk of overspending.
"It’s really putting your budget [under] a strain because if you’re looking to get paid a little earlier, there's something going on with your budget that's throwing it off, that is pushing you to need that money earlier," said Rando.
Rando says these services highlight the importance of maintaining a consistent budget. That's something Viggiani has years of practice with.
“I keep track of my money and what I get a month and what I spend," said Viggiani. "And I keep track of that and I keep track of the prices when I go to the store because I’ve been doing the shopping for probably the last 20, 25 years. But it's still a challenge for everyone. This is the worst. The worse that I can remember."
