Americans are cutting back on purchases of liquor in bars and restaurants, according to top executives at Pernod Ricard SA. They are also purchasing cheaper brands when buying alcohol at stores, although sales at grocery stores and retail outlets continue to grow.

Makes sense to me. Why drop the extra bucks at a bar or restaurant when you can get a bottle of wine, rent a movie, and stay home for a whole lot less money. I have always thought that expensive restaurants were a waste of money and you pay a premium for a drink. Often, a glass of wine will cost you as much as buying the whole bottle at a retail center. And watch out for designer drinks such as Cosmos and fancy martinis -- they can cost you $20 or more.

When we do go out, we like to find local restaurants that serve good food at a cheap price. We never go to chains, they tend to be overpriced and too homogenized for my taste. No, give me the $5.99 fish fry, served in a plastic basket with coleslaw and fries and I'm a happy South Sider.

Remember, there are two ways to be rich. Have lots of money or have simple tastes. We like to keep our expense chassis low so we have money when we want it.

Barbara Bartlein is the People Pro. For her free e-mail newsletter, visit: The People Pro.

Today the federal minimum wage increased 70 cents to $6.55, as the second phase of a series of moves meant to bring the minimum wage up over a three year period. The "raise" will affect roughly 1.7 million workers or 2.3% of hourly workers, which means that collectively the cost of employing all minimum wage workers for one hour jumped $1.19 million today.

Despite the increase, the new rate is still below the inflation-adjusted 1997 level of $7.02, and far below the inflation-adjusted level of $10.06 from 40 years ago, according to a Labor Department inflation calculator. And it obviously still leaves many families well under the poverty line.

You'd think that getting a 12% raise during poor economic times would be a great help for 850,000 people over 25 who are making minimum wage. Unfortunately the increase is often quickly passed to the items these same workers need to buy; including food and gasoline. Smaller Businesses will also feel the pinch as they struggle to cope with higher wages and customers who are sick of seeing prices go up time and time again.

In a recent New York Times column written by Marci Alboher, The Leisure Economy: How Changing Demographics, Economics, and Generational Attitudes Will Reshape Our Lives and Our Industries, author Linda Nazareth predicts that in the near future, as more baby boomers retire, we're going to see "leisure envy."

In a nutshell, Nazareth said: "I see us moving to a society where more people have time. Right now, baby boomers and people a little younger are working flat out and driving their kids everywhere, and they are proud of it. If someone asks you how you are, you have to say, 'I'm really busy.' I argue that the boomers are the most competitive generation we've ever seen, and they have made it fashionable to be busy."

She believes that as they retire, baby boomers will drive a trend of a new type of leisure where it'll become fashionable not to be busy, to have the money and freedom to not have to work every moment. That's where "leisure envy" will come in, of course, since the baby boomers who aren't prepared for retirement will likely be working into their 70s, 80s and beyond.

In any case, I hope she's right about relaxation becoming hip, because if it becomes fashionable to work a little less, then maybe I'll wind up, oh, I don't know, reading The Leisure Economy instead of writing about the fact that I'm too busy to read it.

Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).