Gas shortages, Memorial Day weekend & a Friends reunion | Bolt Trend Report

May 17, 2021

Welcome back to the blog! We hope everyone had a great weekend and were able to knock out their taxes in time – this writer waited until the last minute again… We’re officially two weeks out from Memorial Day weekend and with that comes the unofficial start of summer! Don’t know about you, but the Bolt team is ready for some sunshine and the great outdoors .Knowing that you have a busy week ahead of you, we’ll cut to the chase and get right to the trends you need to know for this week.

Upcoming Holidays & Observances

  • Tax Day – May 17
  • National Craft Distillery Day – May 22
  • Did you know we have clients across the country blending up their own craft bourbon, like Olde Raleigh Distillery in, you guessed it… Raleigh, and Balcones Distilling in Waco, Texas? 
  • National Road Trip Day – May 28
  • Memorial Day – May 31

Trends You Should Know

  • Starting July 15, parents can start receiving a $300 monthly child-tax-credit check, courtesy of the Biden administration. The checks would continue throughout the year and be issued on the 15th of every month, unless the day is a holiday or weekend. Parents need not apply to receive the check – the IRS will use their records to send out checks, so no one needs to sign up! It’s estimated that around 29 million households would receive the payment. Check here to see who qualifies.
  • It was a wild week on the East Coast when the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline led to gas shortages. Prices increased to over $3/gallon, thousands ran to fill up their tanks and stations even ran out of fuel. It was such a whirlwind that many stations had to print out reminders for customers that gas can only be stored in legitimate containers, not plastic bags or water bottles! What caused all the hubbub? A cyberattack shut down pipeline operations. The good news is that gas deliveries are on the way – the bad news is that it will take several days for most states to receive gas and time is of the essence to return back to normal before Memorial Day weekend.
  • Stock up on them while you can! Due to supply chain disruptions nationwide, Chick-fil-A is experiencing a sauce shortage in their restaurants. To try to combat this as much as possible, the chain is limiting each customer to one sauce per entrée, two sauces per meal and three sauces per 30-count chicken nugget entrée. A quick tip if you have a Walmart nearby: they sell Chick-fil-A sauce in bottles that you can save in your fridge. Crisis averted!
  • Friends fans, prepare yourselves! It was announced last week that the cast of the hit sitcom will be reuniting for a reunion episode, set to begin streaming on HBO Max Thursday, May 27. Just to make it clear, this is not a new episode – it will be the case reuniting, visiting the set, looking through behind-the-scenes footage and talking through filming the show.

We hope you have a great rest of your week and we’ll see you back on the blog next Monday!

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