My family are leaving for spring break tomorrow! Flights were outrageous, $500 a ticket minimum, so we drove. Gas was fine. I built in the seasonal spike because that's what I do. Spring break demand, summer blend switchover, refineries making the switch... I planned for all of it.

What I didn't plan for was a war.

On February 28th, the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Since then, gas prices have had their fourth-largest single-day spike since 2005. As of early March, the national average hit $3.32 a gallon. Analysts are projecting another 20 to 55 cents per gallon in the coming weeks if the conflict continues.

This hits right now, during spring break. During one of the busiest road travel periods of the year. At a time when families already stretched thin are trying to give their kids a week they'll remember.

 But here's what I really want you to understand.

 The gas prices are the thing everyone can see. The thing you feel immediately at the pump. But underneath that is a financial picture that was already serious before any of this started.

 FHA mortgage delinquency hit 11.52% at the end of 2025, the highest since 2021. In the lowest-income zip codes in this country, 90-day delinquency rates went from 0.5% in 2021 to 3% by the end of last year. That's six times worse in four years. Student loan serious delinquency is sitting at 9.6%. Total U.S. household debt is $18.8 trillion.

 That's the country we were living in before the first bomb dropped.

 On the job side, we've watched 300,000+ federal positions disappear under DOGE. The fastest reduction in the federal workforce since the end of World War II. The unemployment rate is past 4% and moving in the wrong direction. And here's the part that should make you stop and think... all those cuts, and federal spending didn't even come down. Because most of the money was never in those jobs. It's in Social Security, Medicare, and Defense. The same Defense that just started a war.

 War is the oldest distraction in the book.

 It takes over every news cycle, every outlet, every conversation. I'm not anti-military. I'm not telling you not to pay attention to what's happening abroad. But don't let it pull your focus so far that you lose track of what's happening to your own life.

 Your mortgage. Your job situation. Your cash reserves. Your plan for $4 gas if this conflict stretches another 4 to 6 weeks.

 What can you actually do right now?

 If you have income coming in, build in more buffer. Variability is here. Plan for it. If you're between jobs, now is not the time to wait. Side income, contract work, skills you can monetize, start moving. And regardless of your situation, come together with your community. Everyone around you is absorbing this too. We're in this together.

This will not last forever. When this ends, recovery takes 12 to 24 months. We're not there yet. But we will be.

 Episode 33 of Let's Get Real is out now.

 Let's get real. Always.