A recent report from the U.S. Labor Department shows inflation has jumped by 3.7% since last year, but it’s worse in the Northeast. The data shows prices rose 4.2% in the region over the last year, and prices especially rose for fuel and housing costs, including utilities.
The data confirms the financial stress Granite Staters and other Northeast residents have been living with for the past year.
“It just seems like I'm getting further and further behind because everything just costs more,” said Domenic Tutela, 41, a Nashua resident.
Tutela said his rising condo fees, increased taxes and high grocery prices have put him in a tough position. He shares custody of his children with his ex-wife, so he pays for daily expenses in addition to child support and child care.
“Kids are really expensive to feed,” he said. “And I like to give my kids the same kind of quality of life I had as a child growing up.”
That means he’s also paying for their hobbies, like cheerleading programs. He makes good money in his marketing job, but his annual 3% raise hasn’t kept up with the region’s rising costs, he said.
Tutela has now fallen behind on paying his bills. He staggers his payments to the point where he now knows how long he can not pay his cell phone bill before it’s cut off. He also knows he can pay his condo’s mortgage 29 days late without risking foreclosure.
“I'm paying late payments on everything now, so it's making it worse, but I need to do it because I don't have the money” to pay on time, Tutela said.
He’s also stopped paying his student loan payments altogether. He knows that could get his wages garnished by the government, but he said he has to focus now on his other bills that would have immediate consequences.
“It’s one thing I'm ignoring right now until it becomes something I can't ignore,” he said.
Tutela is one of the growing number of Granite Staters who have severely delinquent debt. Currently nearly 12% of New Hampshire residents who haven’t made monthly debt payments in at least 90 days.
Tutela is seeing the consequences in his credit score. He says it was once in the 700s, but now it’s in the 500s.
Tutela is part of a national trend of falling credit scores. In 2025, the number of people with “poor” credit scores (300 to 579) increased to almost 15%, according to data from the credit agency Experian.
Greg David, assistant director of the state’s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, said people with high credit scores have easier access to credit from banks and are generally paying off their loans on time. When scores dip to “poor,” banks or credit cards are less willing to give a person a loan for fears they may not pay off the loans on time.
“This is showing that some people are getting less [credit] than they might have a year prior and are struggling to pay it,” David said.
Tutela thinks that the way he’ll get out of his situation is to sell his condo and become a renter. He’s not expecting to be able to retire, but he knows there are lots of people in the same position.
“Everybody I talked to in my age bracket are more or less in the same position,” Tutela said.
