The govt has been artificially stimulating the economy through QE for a long time.

For us, this stimulated new savings techniques for paying off our vehicle or other lines of credit by using things like the 1/12 rule.Another thing we do that we have found super helpful is getting a credit card that accrues points every swipe, and immediately moving that money into our 'credit card payment' checkings account that covers that expense plus a little extra (basically rounding up to the nearest $5-$10).