PostgreSQL error: `Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432` - node.js

Question

I'm trying to make a request to postgreSQL from a Node and Express server on localhost. But I keep getting this error Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432 when trying to open localhost:8000/todos - not sure why.. I changed the username to 'postgres' (which is the defualt username), password, host, database name and port are all correct.. I can check the todos using SELECT * FROM todos; however, the app just breaks and gives me that code. I made sure that the server is running. I started it in services, and I can check the content of todos (which I manually added) in the SQL shell. Any ideas on why this is happening? I've gone thru all the other pages with similar issue, but I'm pretty new to postgreSQL overall and I'm unable to find an answer. I'm not using docker.
this is the exact error in the console:
Server runnnig on PORT 8080
Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432
at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (node:net:1487:16) {
errno: -111,
code: 'ECONNREFUSED',
syscall: 'connect',
address: '127.0.0.1',
port: 5432
}
main server.js
const PORT = 8080;
const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const pool = require("./db");
app.get("/todos", async (req, res) => {
try {
const todos = await pool.query("SELECT * FROM todos");
res.json(todos.rows);
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
}
});
app.listen(PORT, () => console.log(`Server runnnig on PORT ${PORT}`));
db.js file where the connection is coming from
const Pool = require("pg").Pool;
require("dotenv").config();
const pool = new Pool({
user: "postgres",
password: process.env.PASSWORD,
host: "localhost",
port: 5432,
database: "todoapp",
});
module.exports = pool;