When Wendy's ignited the internet's ire in February with its dynamic-pricing proposal, the fast-food chain was forced to do some haphazard cleanup. It insisted that, despite rumors, it wouldn't implement surge pricing and charge more for burgers during busy times. Instead, it said it might offer discounts during slower times of the day and roll out promos based on the weather. The new framing made sense — who doesn't love a deal — but the overall notion was exhausting. Since when do we need to gamify the cost of fries?

Thanks to inflation, people have found themselves in the grocery aisle or a restaurant or a car lot over the past few years wondering just what is going on with prices. Maybe they're not sure exactly how much the item in question used to be, but they know it sure wasn't this. And now that uncertainty has been compounded by tech-enabled (and greed-fueled) dynamic pricing, which is creeping across the economy. Want to know what your Uber ride or concert ticket or bowling-alley visit is going to run you? It depends! Even Walmart is testing out digital price tags, which it says make life easier for associates and improve the customer experience. There's been speculation that the tags could be used for variable pricing, though Walmart says its "every day low price" strategy isn't changing.

All these changes add up to one pervasive sensation: America is suffering from a major case of price fatigue.

It's incredibly frustrating not to know what anything costs, and the situation is only getting worse. While inflation is cooling, the return of discounts doesn't mean a reversion to pre-pandemic prices. People are still on edge that high inflation could rear its ugly head again. The use of surge pricing is extra anxiety-inducing.

"If you're going to introduce something that's new and that may give a pause or a hesitation, you might not want to necessarily do it when people are very price sensitive," said Carly Fink, the head of research and strategy at Provoke Insights, a market-research company. "If it was a great economy and everyone felt like, 'Oh, yeah, I have the money to spend,' I would assume they would be less nervous."

It goes without saying that inflation has been a problem in recent years. The consumer price index is up by more than 20% since February 2020. Financially and psychologically, it's a pain.

When wages don't rise along with inflation, it hurts people's buying power and forces them to change their budgets and spending habits. Low-income people in particular suffer, and workers blame their employers' greed for their wages not budging. Even when pay does rise with prices, everything costing more still feels like a loss. Inflation is stressful, and it can make planning extra challenging. If prices are going up, how are you supposed to know how much money you need to save for your next vacation — let alone stash away for retirement?

And even as inflation settles down, the tool employed to fight it — higher interest rates — adds another layer of uncertainty. If you're in the market for a house, it's tough to gauge whether you ought to wait for mortgage rates to come back down or whether you should pull the trigger now. It's a similar story if you're in the market for a new car — maybe prices have come down some but interest rates have not, and it's hard to know what the right move is.

A "good" price for something today may have seemed outlandish five years ago.

Fink said her surveys indicate that even though inflation is calming, consumers are still nervous about it, with nearly two-thirds ranking it in April as one of their top two concerns. A similar proportion said they'd become more budget-conscious than they were six months earlier. We're looking at a very "price sensitive" and "worried" consumer, she said, adding, "It's very hard for them to keep up with everything that's happening."

Even relatively small-ticket items can come with a price tag that provokes a sense of whiplash. A "good" price for something today may have seemed outlandish five years ago, and it's understandable to wonder whether today's price is just as fleeting.

"I absolutely understand shoppers who have price fatigue. It just beats you down, and certain commodities have increased so quickly," said Jon Hauptman, the founder and president of Price Dimensions, a retail consultancy. "Think of carbonated soft drinks. The whole idea of what's a good price for a 12-pack of carbonated soft drinks has changed dramatically over the past few years."

Consumers tend to be price sensitive, meaning their buying behaviors change as prices go up or down, though they're not very price aware. Most people can name the specific prices of only a handful of things at the grocery store that they buy all the time, like milk or eggs. Overall, however, they intuitively sense that prices are increasing, and broad-based inflation means purchases big and small require a second thought.

"It forces shoppers to shop more carefully," Hauptman said.

The proliferation of dynamic pricing — meaning prices that fluctuate based on market conditions such as supply and demand — makes the landscape harder to navigate. The prices of a variety of products and services aren't just different from what they were a year ago; they may be different from what they were a day ago or even a few minutes ago.

Dynamic pricing isn't new. For better or for worse, it's well established in some industries. People have long been used to it when they're booking flights or hotels, for example. It can make sense in some of these settings, like hospitality, said Timothy Webb, an assistant professor of hospitality business management at the University of Delaware who's worked on pricing strategies for sports teams and tourism spots. "It really centers around the perishable nature of the product and that its capacity is constrained," he said. A hotel can't store up more rooms to rent out during the summer, so raising prices for peak times lets it stay afloat all year, financially, and may help prevent overcrowding. Conversely, dropping prices during the slow season means it's not sitting empty all winter.

People don't like the fluctuations because you always feel like somehow it's exploiting you.
Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management

Still, nobody likes paying extra for a Christmas flight or their summer hotel room. Yes, happy hours and early-bird specials have been around forever, but the idea of paying extra for a restaurant reservation or meal during busy times is not great. The supply-demand forces that make peak-time Ubers outrageously expensive or Taylor Swift tickets prohibitively pricey may be real, but that doesn't mean consumers feel they are fair or good.

People often interpret dynamic pricing as a mechanism for companies to maximize profits. Provoke Insights' research shows that most consumers still aren't super familiar with the concept, but when asked what they would do if a restaurant they visit implements it, two-thirds say they would eat there less often. A survey from consumer analytics platform CivicScience found that a majority of consumers say they agree with the statement that dynamic pricing is "price gouging."

Instead of focusing on getting a discount when they pop into Starbucks during a slow period, people think about the experience of trying to order a Lyft in the rain. They're not wrong to feel this way — making money is how companies talk about their pricing choices to Wall Street.

"Companies have framed this debate around profit maximization. And so as a result, people see it as zero-sum," Ravi Dhar, a professor of management and marketing and the director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management. "People don't like the fluctuations because you always feel like somehow it's exploiting you."

Constant prices aren't guaranteed and never have been. Discounts and promotions are well-trodden retail tactics, and the invisible hand of the market moves on the principles of supply and demand. Every business wants to charge a higher price to customers who can and will pay more and a lower price to those who can't and won't, said Z. John Zhang, a marketing professor at Wharton who focuses on pricing. We can't blame consumers for feeling like it adds uncertainty to an already tumultuous world, he said, but this is sort of the way things go.

"If you look at the big picture, there is actually no presumption for a constant price for a long time for a particular product, and the reason is that's not what prices are supposed to do," he said. "What price is supposed to do is to mediate between demand and supply to make sure that the product is really delivered into the hands of the right people, the right customers."

That sounds fine and good, except we do not live in a world where markets are perfectly efficient, and nobody wants to be constantly watching for changing prices throughout their day. Many industries are uncompetitive, meaning consumers aren't even getting a fair shake. Plenty of companies can move their prices, whether by using dynamic prices or downright raising prices, because they're the only game in town. That's true for airlines and car-rental companies and wireless providers. It's why if you call your internet company to threaten to change services unless your bill stops creeping up, the answer you'll probably get is "LOL good luck with that."

"With the airlines, if you asked people 30 years ago if they wanted to pay different prices, they'd be like, 'No way, it's not fair,'" Webb said. "But the airline also knows that, hey, there's limited providers here, so competition does matter, and if you don't want to pay, well, that's fine. We're still at this price."

Technology is a modern-day X-factor as well. Amazon changes the prices of various items throughout the day. Both Uber and DoorDash have been accused of displaying higher prices for certain customers with low phone batteries or those with iPhones, though both companies have denied this. Today's Blue Light Special is no longer in a store aisle on a Wednesday at noon; it's on a website that knows exactly who you are and is intimately familiar with your spending habits. Companies can use your data to identify an exact price for you, which may work in your favor but may not.

"Because of this optimization, it reduces trust in the company," Dhar said. "I don't trust them to do things that are good for me. They're going to do things that are good for them."

If companies were more transparent about what they were doing and how, it might ease some discomfort. But many aren't.

There are no easy solutions here. Most economists agree that government-mandated price fixing is a bad idea. Achieving a more competitive economy is a long-term project that won't happen overnight. Inflation is getting better, but the threat of it getting worse again still looms. The answer to getting accustomed to high prices is basically to forget what those numbers were in 2019. We didn't even get into hidden fees, another layer in the what-does-anything-even-cost-and-why maze.

You can't fault anyone for feeling tired of it all. After so much economic uncertainty, and with more uncertainty ahead, we're all in our feelings about prices. A prix fixe menu sounds pretty good right now, just to, for a moment, know what we're getting into cost-wise and enjoy a meal.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Job opportunities seem to have dissipated for some previously strong industries.
• Leisure and hospitality is one sector where job gains are far below where they were a few years ago.
• Government and healthcare are areas of the labor market where many jobs are still being added.

Job seekers have it rough these days. Pay raises have cooled for job switchers. People looking for remote positions find this kind of work in short supply.

Plus, the leisure and hospitality industry, which had particularly robust job gains in 2021 as the overall labor market was still recovering from its deep losses during the early pandemic, has slowed hiring dramatically, adding to the less-than-ideal picture for job searchers.

"We're a service economy, and the service sector seems now to be struggling with the kind of rolling recession that hit interest rate-sensitive sectors first," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told Business Insider. "We first saw tech and housing, real estate industries like that cool down, but we're now seeing weakness spill over into services, and that's the main engine of job growth in the US economy."

It took a long time for the leisure and hospitality industry to get back to where employment was in February 2020; it only surpassed this level this past May, while the economy as a whole passed that benchmark in June 2022. Still, the industry largely saw strong monthly job gains following the losses it faced early on in the pandemic, averaging 205,000 jobs a month in 2021.

But that breakneck pace has slowed to a trickle. Data out Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed this industry saw a month-over-month job gain of 7,000; the overall nonfarm payroll job gain in June was 206,000.

The industry has historically had higher rates of quits and job openings than the overall labor market, per the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Professional and business services was another industry that had healthy job growth for a lot of 2021, averaging 115,000 jobs a month that year, but the story has changed; it saw a one-month job loss of 17,000 in June 2024.

Other sectors are still growing. Federal, state, and local governments together have a historically high number of employees, with around 23.4 million people, and the public sector added 70,000 jobs in June.

"I think the very high government payrolls number is a further testament to how much weaker things have gotten on the private sector side," Pollak said. "The government has been trying to rehire for years and struggling because the private sector was so strong. Now, people are falling back on those safer government jobs."

Additionally, the healthcare and social assistance sectors have seen robust job growth and likely will be looking for job seekers long-term. "The health care and social assistance sector is projected to not only grow most rapidly of any sector, but it is also projected to create about 45 percent of all the projected job gains from 2022 to 2032," BLS said in a news release in September 2023, as the US population continues to get older.

Pollak previously told BI healthcare is an industry that faces less risk of automation and could be considered a "recession-proof sector."

Still, healthcare monthly job gains pale in comparison to what the leisure and hospitality industry added for the majority of 2021 and the monthly gains in 2022. Healthcare added 48,600 jobs this past June, compared to leisure and hospitality's best month in 2021, which was 422,000 jobs added in July.

The overall tougher labor market still has potential for job seekers.

"I think it's one that workers still have some leverage, but not as much as in the recent past," Nick Bunker, the economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told BI.

When Matt Kugizaki and Nick Levenhagen first saw The Rainbow House in Joshua Tree, California, they knew instantly that they had to live there. It was 2023, and the couple wanted a home in the Mojave Desert. But initially, they wanted something simple.

"I remember telling Nick once when we were looking for homes that I want our house to be like a hotel — nothing on the walls, very plain interiors, no clutter," Kugizaki said. "I envisioned very minimal and easy spaces for our dream home, preferably painted inside using one color and with maybe one statement wall. That's it."

But when they saw The Rainbow House on Zillow, they had to go see it. Stepping inside, the couple were gobsmacked by the sheer number of rainbows. The 1,028-square-foot house had been thoroughly hand-painted over a period of two years by its owner, Patrick Hasson. Each room featured a different bright color with hanging light strings to match. Sixteen different rainbow skulls peppered the interiors. The garage, perhaps the standout feature, showcased rainbow lines that spilled out across the driveway — a real-life version of the unicorn-barfing-rainbows meme.

The house was anything but minimalist — and yet it struck a chord with the couple. "We met the artist, who actually came to the house. He said he painted the house this way to bring more joy to the world. That's certainly what we felt when we saw the house," they told me. The couple bought it for $385,000 and plan to keep all the rainbow features.

Kugizaki and Levenhagen aren't alone in their unexpected love for a kooky home. In fact, their house was featured in the third episode of the new HGTV series "Zillow Gone Wild," which tells the backstories of unusual houses people just purchased or are looking to sell. The series was inspired by the popular Instagram account of the same name that Samir Mezrahi, a former deputy director of social media at BuzzFeed, created in December 2020 when he started noticing weird homes randomly listed on Zillow. "There wasn't anything for the casual home browser looking for these," he told me, so he began sharing the unique houses he found. The account immediately caught on; today it has nearly 2 million followers.

While most people follow Zillow Gone Wild to gawk at the weird and bizarre features of other people's homes, some are looking to buy. And being featured on the account gives listings a leg up. Mezrahi said that real-estate agents actively try to juice up the bizarre elements of their homes to get picked up. "If it's around Halloween, for example, agents seem to use it as an excuse to cover the house in all these skeletons and spooky decorations," he said.

Thanks to a hot housing market and a growing boredom with cookie-cutter new-builds, there's a newfound fervor for bizarre houses. More people are ditching the white and gray homes of the 2010s modern-farmhouse craze for something that can show off their personal style. And with Zillow Gone Wild and a host of other real-estate influencer accounts, a wild home is now easy to find.

The homes that Mezrahi features aren't necessarily bad, ugly, or anything built in bad taste. These are not the over-the-top McMansions that Kate Wagner shares on the blog McMansion Hell. As Mezrahi explains it, a wild house just needs to have interesting or quirky features; it's the customization that matters. He cited a viral home in Gilbert, Arizona, that had been owned by the former Los Angeles Dodger Andre Ethier as the perfect example. The $20 million house came with a go-kart track, a golf simulator, a shooting range, a built-in aquarium, and much more. Other homes might have a single unique element like the giant peacock mosaic in one $2 million home in San Luis Obispo, California, or the McDonald's-style playroom in the basement of an otherwise normal-looking $750,000 home in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

These standout features make homes more likely to go viral, leading to more exposure and possibly a higher selling price. Nick Leyendecker, the founder and principal broker at Leyendecker Luxury Real Estate, said that if maximizing the sale price is the primary objective, the more attention a property receives from potential buyers, the higher the probability of success. When trying to sell a home, most real-estate agents try to garner attention in three ways: paid ads, organic sharing on social media, and earned media from news outlets — aka "organic attention on steroids," Leyendecker said. "There is no such thing as too much exposure."

Homeowners with highly customized spaces often ask Mezrahi to feature their homes before they're even on the market. "The homeowner that converted their swimming pool into a man cave was one that comes to mind," he said. And when homes get featured, they often sell.

There is no such thing as too much exposure.

At the end of April, Leyendecker had a listing in Plymouth, Minnesota, posted on Zillow Gone Wild. The house was decked out with flashy, customized designs including a secret room behind a classic Coca-Cola machine door. Within two months, it sold for $2.8 million.

This new trend flies in the face of previous wisdom that weird houses don't sell. When Hasson, the previous owner of The Rainbow House, was preparing to place the home on the market, his real-estate agent warned him not to have high expectations. "My real-estate agent was like, 'It's a rainbow house and not the easiest to sell,'" Hasson told The Desert Sun. But then the listing was shared on TikTok and blew up. Within two months of being listed, it sold.

Interest in outrageous homes has begun to expand beyond Zillow Gone Wild. A surge of other real-estate influencers and real-estate accounts showing off unique homes have cropped up. In a recent Zillow survey, respondents said that if cost weren't a factor, they would want a home with whimsical features they had dreamed of as a child: 76% said they would want a home theater, 43% pined for a bowling alley, and 58% wanted their own personal elevator. The study also found that different generations favored different features. For example, 38% of those born in the '50s dream of a home with a white picket fence, whereas only 21% of those born in the '90s shared the same vision. Millennials preferred a hot tub and an elevator instead.

Now that millennials are able to buy, those with the cash to spend are making those dreams a reality. And at a time when more people see into your home via social media, having cool features you can show off is a major bonus.

Ashley Spencer and her husband, both in their 30s, were looking for an eye-catching midcentury-modern home at the end of 2021 when they stumbled across one featured on Zillow Gone Wild. The house's interiors were covered in floor-to-ceiling tile — a showroom for the previous owners' tile business. "For us, it's really the Mid Mod architecture that drew us," Spencer said. "This house was just so unique with all the colors, and outside the home is shaped like a bow tie because it was built on such a thin lot. The home has really cool angles."

They also loved that the home was in the woods and next to a lake. They traveled from Austin to Minneapolis to see it for themselves and made an offer the next day. Within a month, they closed on the house.

When guests come over, Spencer loves to show off her 1955 home's built-in shuffleboard court. "I've never seen anything like it anywhere else," she told me. Her guests are always amused to discover the home was listed on Zillow Gone Wild. "My husband was a little bit more reserved and nervous about sharing that the house was from Zillow Gone Wild. But I have no problem talking about it," she said.

Of course, not every wild home will be loved by everyone. But Leyendecker said that with unique homes, it's always a matter of finding the right person. "Marketing exposure is just one piece of the puzzle — homes are a very personal thing," he said, adding: "Even the most broadly marketable properties imaginable are a good fit for some buyers and a bad fit for others."

As the old saying suggests, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The beholders are just getting more ambitious.

For their part, Kugizaki and Levenhagen don't plan on ever selling their wild rainbow house. They feel like stewards of the home and promised the former owner that they would keep everything the same. "He really wanted to make sure someone wasn't going to buy it and then keep the rainbow garage but then paint everything else over," said Levenhagen. The couple agree that rainbows mean a lot to people for many different reasons. "It's really important to a lot of communities including the LGBTQ community," said Kugizaki.

"It is in some ways just a house," Levenhagen added, "but I guess you could say The Rainbow House was a dream we didn't know we always had."

Michelle Mastro covers lifestyle, travel, architecture, and culture. When she's not researching or writing, she's hiking trails (badly).

• Amazon is reminding customers they can pick up Prime Day orders instead of having them delivered.
• The retailer has thousands of pick-up points, including its lockers, around the US.
• The option might be convenient if you shop at Whole Foods — and there's a benefit for Amazon, too.

Amazon has built its delivery chops for years. In fact, one big selling point of its $139-a-year Prime membership is free one-day shipping to customers' doors.

But this year, Prime Day promotions are pointing shoppers toward the option of taking on some of the delivery work themselves by instead collecting packages from its growing network of lockers and other pick-up points.

Prime members are "able to choose how and where those items arrive— whether at home, work, or places you frequent with Amazon's network of thousands of package pick-up locations," Amazon said last month as it touted the massive shopping event, which is scheduled for July 16 and 17.

Amazon has been adding pick-up points in recent years. Its locker banks, for instance, are common sites in apartment lobbies, college dorms, convenience stores, and even police stations. There are also staffed Amazon Counters at Whole Foods stores.

An Amazon spokesperson said that Amazon offers "tens of thousands of package pick-up locations" in the U.S. The spokesperson also directed Business Insider to a blog post from last year, which says that items ordered for pick-up at lockers must be fulfilled by Amazon and weigh under 10 pounds, among other requirements.

And while picking up parcels might seem contrary to Amazon Prime's noted quick-shipping benefits, it's could be useful both for the customer and for the company.

If shoppers already go to Amazon's stores or other places with an Amazon locker, it's quite convenient, said Jeremy Bartlow, a partner and consumer expert at PA Consulting.

"I know it's going to be sitting there in the locker on the way home or at the grocery store, wherever I'm stopping," Bartlow told BI.

It's especially convenient to get an order delivered to a locker if you've had Amazon packages stolen from your porch or apartment mailroom, or if you're ordering an expensive item and want the extra security.

There's another reason why Amazon would love for you to pick up your Prime Day deals instead of delivering them to your front door: their bottom line.

Amazon's annual spending on shipping has ballooned over the last few years, particularly as it ramped up its one-day and same-day shipping operations.

Amazon spent $89.5 billion on shipping in 2023 — an increase of roughly 7% over 2022, the company said in its annual filing with the SEC.

That's despite offering options like "Amazon Day Delivery," where customers can choose to wait a few days if the order isn't urgent, and Amazon will try to put as many items in the same box as it can. (Amazon sometimes offers credits to customers who choose this option.)

Delivering orders to a single pick-up point instead of going out on an hours-long route through suburbia saves time — and probably gas — compared with individual delivery.

The cost of shipping back items that customers want to return is also steep for Amazon and other retailers — so steep, in fact, that Amazon may give you a refund and tell you to keep the product.

All of that has pushed Amazon to come up with new ways to get you to pick up or drop off stuff instead of relying on the company's delivery workers or third-party services like the U.S. Postal Service.

Earlier this year, Amazon offered a discount at Amazon Fresh grocery stores if patrons used one of the supermarkets to return something they bought on Amazon.com, for example. Whole Foods and Fresh Prime customers can also get their groceries selected from the selves and pre-packed for pick-up for free. Amazon's grocery delivery service for Prime members costs an extra $9.99 a month and requires a $35 minimum order.

Last year, Amazon offered customers $10 if they picked up purchases at a store, such as Whole Foods, Fresh, or Kohl's.

But whether the pick-up strategy will save Amazon money remains to be seen. After all, Amazon itself helped make free, fast shipping (at least, if you've paid for Prime first) an expectation for millions of consumers.

Do you work for Amazon, Whole Foods, or Amazon Fresh and have a story idea? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

• I've been sober for eight months and recently traveled to an all-inclusive resort.
• I was nervous about the trip but ended up enjoying it so much more without alcohol. 
• Sipping mocktails, reading sobriety books, and doing resort activities helped me navigate sobriety.

I recently planned a vacation with my husband to an all-inclusive resort, something I wasn't completely sold on since I've been sober for the last eight months. We'd visited all-inclusive resorts in the past, but my memories of those trips revolve around days spent drinking margaritas poolside and evenings fueled by wine and after-dinner cocktails.

I stopped drinking cold turkey at the end of last year, desperate to shake hangovers and increased anxiety. I've found a sense of well-being in sobriety that I won't be giving up anytime soon. Still, I wondered what it'd be like to be in a booze-centric environment and abstain from alcohol.

When we visited Sandals' newest adults-only, all-inclusive resort in St.Vincent and the Grenadines, I found that the beautiful resort and the island it lies on were way more enjoyable without the chaos alcohol brings to a vacation. Here's how I navigated being a sober person in an environment where the booze was always flowing.

I made sure my room was stocked with alcohol-free drink options

Even though I'm sober, my husband still drinks alcohol. I didn't request a completely "dry" room at Sandals St. Vincent and the Grenadines — though it's not a bad idea for others looking to stay sober — because I didn't want to stop him from enjoying that aspect of the all-inclusive resort.

Instead, I requested that non-alcoholic drinks be stocked in our room in addition to things like the wine and vodka that were included. With ingredients like club soda, Diet Coke, and grapefruit juice on hand, it was easy to sip a mocktail whenever I wanted.

"Quit lit" books and sobriety podcasts made me feel less alone in my choice to abstain

While I'm sober, I don't consider myself an alcoholic or work with a support group or sponsor to maintain my sobriety. To make sure I didn't feel alone in my choice to be sober at an all-inclusive resort, I listened to sobriety podcasts like "The Sober Mom Life" and read "quit lit" on my Kindle.

Having books like "Unbottled Potential: Break Up with Alcohol and Break Through to Your Best Life" by Amanda Kuda at the ready was a great way to keep other sober voices in my head throughout the trip.

The resort offered so many great booze-free drinks that I didn't miss alcohol

Sandals had a great selection of fresh juices and mocktails available across its bars and restaurants, so there was never a time when I felt like everyone else had a fun drink, and I was left sipping water. I used my time at the resort, where everything was included, to try new drinks, and even found a refreshing new summertime favorite: coconut water with ice and a lime.

I also had fun trying new-to-me treats on excursions

On days when we went on excursions around St. Vincent, I used the travel time to explore food and drink options I'd never find at home. From sorrel, a hibiscus and ginger drink I ordered at a bar on Mustique, to a line of canned sparkling water from the makers of Angostura bitters, there were many new-to-me drinks to try that kept me from craving alcohol.

Focusing on the flavors of the food at Sandals — rather than alcohol — made dinners feel special

Sandals has more than 10 restaurants on its St. Vincent property, so there was always some kind of food to try, from coconut macaroons at the coffee shop to jerk pork at our favorite lunch spot.

During my drinking days, food and wine went hand-in-hand, so it was refreshing to really focus on the flavors in the food at the resort rather than drift through each meal slightly tipsy and be left with little recollection of what was served.

I filled my downtime at the resort with activities

There were plenty of activities on the schedule at our resort, from poolside movies in the evenings to dance parties with Caribbean performers. I attended a bracelet-making class one morning with an iced latte in hand, and sipped mocktails at the property's rum bar one evening while watching guests do karaoke. Focusing on things to do rather than things to drink was the key to having a really great time in every circumstance.

My trip only solidified my decision to be sober

I spent many years trying to moderate my drinking and find a happy medium that would allow me to have my nightly wine but not feel like garbage the next day. As a sober person, the burden of worrying about when to switch to water or whether I'm talking too loud because I'm tipsy are now non-issues, and I feel a freedom I wish I could impart to others.

Visiting an all-inclusive resort as a non-drinker was a great experience for me — something I can't wait to do again. While I worried I'd feel like I was missing out on the value of an all-inclusive being sober, I realized the real benefit was the incredible scenery, delicious food, and relaxing activities. To my surprise, I didn't need a drink in my hand to enjoy everything the resort had to offer.

• Angelica Miller, a single mom from Arizona, was laid off unexpectedly from her recruiting job.
• She was was worried about supporting her son, but used the layoff to reassess her career priorities.
• She secured a new position that aligns with her values and allows her to prioritize herself.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Angelica Miller, a 31-year-old recruiter from Arizona who was recently laid off. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I knew that being a single mom would be tough, but I was determined to create a stable home for my son no matter what. It became my biggest priority to financially support him, and I worked tirelessly so he'd never feel my struggle.

I'd been working as a recruiter for an equipment rental company for only a few months when I found out I was pregnant, and I was grateful that they were so supportive. They gave me four months of maternity leave and allowed me to work remotely.

But, throughout the next two years, my company turned from supportive to difficult and micromanaging. Eventually, I was laid off. It was scary and unexpected, but in the process, I learned I needed to accept a job that honored my worth.

My layoff was difficult, but it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

I hated the job, but I couldn't leave

Before the layoff, my team started being micromanaged, and I questioned whether I even wanted to be there. But, when they raised my salary, and signs pointed to a promotion, I knew I had to stick it out.

I couldn't run from a stable job even if I hated it.

So, I kept working and began actually believing that I was building a lifelong career within the company. I paid the security deposit on a new rental home and honestly looked forward to the next steps. I was blindsided by what came next.

I was absolutely devastated when I was laid off

One morning, my boss pinged me to have a quick chat. We were super close and gossiped like friends, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. I clicked onto the call and it was just an HR representative on the other end. At that exact moment, I knew something bad was about to happen.

My boss joined the call and told me the news that I was being laid off. I was shocked.

I held it together during the call, but I was absolutely devastated. It felt like I was being broken up with over text. In the back of my head, I knew that I had just paid my security deposit on a new rental and I didn't know if I was going to be able to pay next month's rent. The safety that I had worked to create for my son had gone out the window all at once.

The company gave me a severance package which I used to pay a month of rent and pay my car off. The lump sum was helpful, but as a single mother, I still needed to be prepared for whatever unexpected costs came next. Wasting time was not an option.

My lay-off was difficult, but it ended up being a blessing

The next day, I jumped back into the job hunt. I posted about my layoff to my LinkedIn network and even made TikTok videos about my experience. I applied endlessly to jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed, and got ghosted by several recruiters.

I was overcome with worry, but I knew I had to push through for my son. I never understood 'why' exactly I was here. I was adopted at 15 years old, and my complex trauma led me to a life of substance abuse and self-harm. But, when I found out I was pregnant, I was given my 'why'.

He was my 'why' then, and he is my 'why' now.

When I was working, I lived paycheck to paycheck and felt too bad to take my PTO. I was tired and upset with the direction my company had taken, but I couldn't risk compromising my son and myself by taking time off.

In the pursuit of creating a secure life for my son, I sacrificed myself. I was mentally exhausted and needed a break.

I decided to use my layoff as an opportunity to finally rest

My son and I escaped the Arizona heat and met with my dad at a cabin in the woods. It was actually only their third time seeing each other since my son was born two years ago. My dad bought him a fishing rod and took him fishing. It was so nice to get away and spend time with my family.

When I returned, I reassessed the kind of job that I needed and deserved. I realized that if I was going to be working so hard, I deserved to find a company that aligned with my values, had growth opportunities, and allowed me time for my family.

The salary alone doesn't dictate how well I'm supporting my son. I realized that I could create financial security for my son while also prioritizing my needs.

This layoff taught me the types of jobs I should accept going forward

After three weeks of applying to jobs, I got a message in my LinkedIn inbox about an unfilled recruiting position. After two interviews, I landed a 90-day temp-to-hire position at a car sales company. The team is kind, and I'm extremely excited about the benefits and room for growth.

I'm using the 90 days to go inward and really assess if the company is a good fit for me.

Being laid off was scary, but I now know that I can take care of my son while also making sure that I'm working for a company that takes care of me.

If you were unexpectedly laid off and want to share your story, please email Tess Martinelli at tmartinelli@gmail.com.

• A 35-year-old FAANG manager's career in Big Tech has negatively impacted his dating life.
• He says work demands, long hours, and his company name make maintaining relationships difficult.
• Once he finds a partner who likes him for the right reasons, he wants to marry and have kids.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with a 35-year-old manager at a FAANG company in Silicon Valley. The source's name and employment history are known to Business Insider but are not named to protect their privacy. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I work at a FAANG tech company and have been an employee and manager at three other Big Tech firms over the last 10 years. Working in Big Tech has taken a major toll on my dating and personal life.

When I first started in the industry, I was focused on work and wasn't looking for a romantic relationship. Now that I'm more interested in dating, I'm finding it very difficult.

A few years into my career, I ended up in a "situationship"

I was working for a company known at the time for work-life balance. It was a different time — no recession, no hiring freeze, no layoffs — and I was younger, so I wasn't as interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

I spent my time outside work in theater groups, writing, acting, and making short films. I met a woman in one of these creative spaces with whom I started a two-to-three-year situationship.

It ended when I decided to move for a better job, and she felt I didn't consult her. When I asked myself why I was stuck in the same company, salary range, and location while people with me at university were in a much better place from a career standpoint, the answer was that I'd been prioritizing her when I felt I shouldn't.

A few years later, my dating life halted again

In my next job, I couldn't date much because I was overworked. We had meetings in different time zones, so my mornings and nights were very busy. I'd get some time off in the afternoons, but it's hard to date at that time.

I was using dating apps, which I like to some extent because they expose you to people you otherwise wouldn't meet. They also allow you to see a different perspective of the same person. A girl projecting herself to be a certain way in real life or a friend circle can be different on an app.

In addition to apps, I meet women at conferences, through custom matching services, and through family or friend introductions.

I worked at that company for just over a year before joining my current company.

My first year here was a good time for both work and dating

When the managers who hired me left and new managers took over, my work and personal life were affected. Like most of the biggest tech firms, there was a strict return-to-office mandate.

Returning to the office meant my dating life was suddenly limited to one geographical area, and my previous dating plans went kaput. I'd been traveling and working remotely sometimes from different locations, even on the East Coast.

Dating in New York is much different than dating on the West Coast. I don't prefer one place over another, but I feel New York has more variety of people. I've had an equal number of matches here on the West Coast, but they're all of the same personality type.

I've had to stop chatting with some people I wanted to date just because I know they won't fit in my geographical area restriction.

While working here, I did meet someone, and it was going smoothly until last year

I was dating a woman who lived in Boston for a while, but I couldn't visit her often after I had to return to the office. We tried a long-distance relationship, but that wasn't sustainable.

Eventually, the spark and chemistry died — when you aren't with each other daily, you start drifting. We also had arguments and differences of opinion, which led to a reduction of sexual or romantic tension.

She knew the relationship would end even though I said it could work out. With layoffs looming, I didn't have the luxury of choosing her over my career, which was a big deal for her.

I've noticed women care about a company's brand name

I get much more attention now than before I had my Big Tech job and lived in Silicon Valley, and I can tell it's because I work for a FAANG company. It feels like most girls in the Bay Area are sussing guys out based on their educational background, earning potential, and company brand name.

It's fair that company status matters to some of them because they themselves are making that kind of money, but it's off-putting to me. Just like a girl wouldn't want someone to be with her just for her looks, a guy wouldn't want someone to be with him just because of his employment tag — at least I wouldn't.

One girl I was seeing was very impressed with where I work, and I had to explain to her that I could be fired any time and the guy who's at a random company today could be the CEO of Amazon in 10 to 20 years. My instincts told me I should've just shut up and enjoyed my status and what it brought me, but it didn't feel right. No wonder I'm single.

I haven't yet found a super supportive person who doesn't care about these things and just cares about what kind of human being I am. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

My work has to be my priority

Finding another job wouldn't be easy right now. I've dealt with being on a performance improvement plan (PIP), which I just completed this spring. I'm still worried about being on shaky ground, particularly because I'm here on a visa, which spills over into my personal life.

For a new relationship to blossom, you need time for long calls and chats — and with work stress, I just haven't been able to do that. I also feel responsible for not leading someone on when I could move again or soon be unemployed.

If I were to go somewhere with lower pay but isn't a cutthroat culture, I could still be laid off due to cost cutting or other factors. Even though it hurts my personal life, I'm sticking to my job as long as possible.

But one day, I want to have kids — that's one of the top three reasons to get married, and it's just as important to me as financial stability and achievement.

Is your Big Tech job affecting your dating life? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@businessinsider.com

• The Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference draws the ultrawealthy to Idaho for a weeklong retreat.
• The event allows business leaders to connect — and potentially strike some deals.
• Attendees include Open AI CEO Sam Altman,  media heir Shari Redstone, and Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Investment firm Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley Conference is again drawing in the world's ultra-wealthy for a weeklong retreat in the idyllic Idaho wilderness from July 9 to July 13.

Often called the summer camp for billionaires, the conference has been held since the 1980s and provides CEOs and business leaders a chance to connect over outdoor activities and presentations on national security and geopolitics.

Sometimes, these leaders connect and create billion-dollar deals — like Disney's acquisition of ABC or Jeff Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post.

Although many well-known names have already made their way to the Sun Valley Lodge, some notable power players like Warren Buffett and Elon Musk will not be in attendance, Variety reported.

Here's who's already shown up.

Media heir Shari Redstone, who recently reached a deal for a Paramount-Skydance merger, was one of the first to arrive on Tuesday.

Redstone, who owned a majority stake in Paramount, agreed to sell her controlling shares to allow a merger between the flailing media company and Skydance.

"We're gonna save the world together!" Redstone said to reporters on Tuesday as she arrived, per Bloomberg's Michelle Davis.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a Sun Valley regular, rolled up in a golf cart.

Altman has had a whirlwind couple of months at OpenAI, including some high-profile exits of two top AI safety researchers and a hacking scandal.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who recently won his proxy war against activist investor Nelson Peltz, was also in attendance.

Peltz, the 81-year-old billionaire and former Disney investor critical of Iger's leadership, waged a $70 million campaign to place himself on Disney's board. Peltz failed and sold off his shares.

Apple CEO Tim Cook flashed a peace sign when he arrived for the conference.

Tim Cook, who succeeded Apple's founder Steve Jobs as CEO in 2011, said last year that he hopes his successor will "come from within Apple."

Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg is attending the conference with her husband Tom Bernthal

Sheryl Sandberg stepped down as Meta's COO in June 2022 and left the social media giant's board in January 2024.

The Harvard alumna tied the knot with former NBC News producer Tom Bernthal in August 2022, seven years after the death of her husband Dave Goldberg.

Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who once dated Sandberg, was also in attendance

Bobby Kotick left Activision Blizzard in December 2023, following Microsoft's acquisition of the company in October 2023. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Kotick was thinking of buying TikTok.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok unless the social media platform's parent company, ByteDance, sold it.

Michael Eisner, former Disney CEO, was also in attendance.

Eisner served as CEO between 1984 and 2005 before Iger stepped in and took over.

David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, chatted with the press before entering the lodge.

Zaslav was also photographed chatting with Rob Manfred, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, outside the lodge.

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, walks past the press after her arrival Tuesday.

The GM CEO recently announced that the company would abandon its plan to be 100% electric and focus on hybrid vehicles.

Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, spoke to reporters while clutching bike handles.

Diller, a known Democratic donor, recently joined many business leaders dismayed by President Joe Biden's debate performance. He's expressed that he would no longer support Biden's candidacy for president.

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, steps out of an SUV during his arrival Tuesday.

The Palantir CEO recently made controversial remarks about Pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia, saying that they should be sent to North Korea.

Billionaire and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was spotted arriving on Tuesday as well

Robert Kraft, a frequent attendee, was seen in past conferences in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

The Columbia University alum and megadonor pulled his support for the Ivy League school after it became a hotbed of unrest and protests over Israel's war in Gaza.

• There's no one secret to living to 110 like supercentenarians.
• But supercentenarians tend to share nine traits, according to an expert.
• These include having friends and maintaining a healthy weight. 

A supercentenarian expert shared with Business Insider the nine things people who live to 110 and beyond have in common.

Jimmy Lindberg has studied thousands of supercentenarians in her role as a scientific advisor for Longeviquest, an organization that verifies the ages of the world's oldest people.

She said factors out of our control —such as long-living relatives, being born in the winter months, and being female (95% of supercentenarians are women) — are associated with longevity. Living somewhere warm helps, too.

It's unsurprising that research also suggests wealth is a factor. According to the Financial Times, the poorest Americans live 50 fewer years than their wealthy counterparts, as they are more likely to be obese, be exposed to opioid use and gun violence, and have less financial security and access to medical care.

But "lifestyle is of course a contributor" to a long, healthy life, Linberg said. Here are the factors she shared.

Be resilient

Being resilient and able to endure hard times is one of the key predictors of longevity in supercentenarians, Lindberg said.

"You don't have to be a super endurance athlete or anything like that, but you have to keep going," she said.

A 2023 study by researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid on the traits centenarians tend to share found looking for a silver lining and carrying on in the face of adversity was common.

Business Insider has previously reported on how to build resilience.

Be spiritual

Spirituality, meaning believing in something greater than ourselves versus following a specific religion, is also very common among the supercentenarians that Lindberg has studied.

This is reflected in research, with one 2016 study by a team at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health finding that women who attended a religious service more than once a week were 33% less likely to die of any cause, potentially because it provided social support and boosted their optimism.

Dr. Joseph Maroon, an 83-year-old neurosurgeon and Ironman triathlete, previously told BI that he believes spirituality has contributed to his health and longevity as much as diet and fitness.

Maintain a healthy weight

"There haven't really been any obese supercentenarians," Lindberg said. "They tend to maintain a relatively healthy weight throughout their lives."

Obesity is associated with an increased risk of conditions including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney diseases, and liver disease — all of which increase the risk of early death.

One 2022 study published in the journal JAMA Network Open on 29,621 people found that those with a BMI of more than 30, which is considered "obese," lived to 77.7 on average, while people with "normal" or "overweight" BMIs (18.5-29.9) lived almost five years longer, to around 82.

BI has previously reported on how to lose weight healthily.

Take steps to prevent chronic disease

Chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes, are the leading causes of death and disability in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Whether we develop chronic diseases is partly out of our control due to a range of factors from our genes to our environment, but there are certain steps we can take to lower our risk.

They include not smoking, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in sodium and saturated fats, being physically active, and reducing how much alcohol you drink, according to the CDC.

Eating a Mediterranean diet can help reduce the risks of developing chronic disease, BI previously reported.

Have a strong support network

Multiple studies have found links between maintaining strong social relationships with living longer, including the Harvard Study of Adult Development, an 85-year-long project that followed three generations to see what kept them healthy and happy.

Dr. Robert Waldinger, the study's lead researcher, previously told BI that healthy relationships had a surprisingly large impact on people's odds of living longer.

And, according to professor Rose Anne Kenny, a gerontologist at Trinity College Dublin, having good relationships is just as important to longevity as eating well and exercising.