Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Try losing all your savings, 401K, personal items of any value because you had to pawn them, and get laid off again and again since 2008 and see where you end up.
Then send out thousands of resumes to try to better yourself and your quality of life and realize that because there are no full-time jobs left with benefits, there are hardly any jobs period, and you are older now with several periods of unemployment-duh-and what you find is that the life you lived whether frugal or extravagant prior to the Recession is NOT coming back.
Credit cards? Be late a day and now all of a sudden your minimum payment has tripled. Pay them off and your score goes down because you are not using them. Use them and your score goes down. Apply for a car loan and you can only get high interest rates on crap cars and you wind up paying triple the value of a 10 year old car. It's all a racket and the poor are **** on while the elite get no or low interest loans, etc.
Try refinancing or getting a car or personal loan, even with collateral, and now you find out that even with no missed payments that you will never qualify for any type of loan because your income falls below some idiotic, discriminatory federal ''formula'' which really is just more discrimination against the poor.
Food prices have sky-rocketed as someone mentioned as well as the cost of eating out. Forget buying anything like new clothes or shoes. Entertainment cost in our house is the cheapest TV package available. We have even disconnected at times to buy groceries.
Soaring utility rates, car insurance, and forget health insurance. Can't afford that either.
Skyrocketing rent and the unavailability of affordable housing has families sharing apartments, people living out of RVs and cars, and dreams of home ownership fading.
We eat in, stay home, shop at Good Will, and a 5 buck Digourno's pizza split with a bag of salad is a treat.
Vacations? Impossible. Concerts, ballgames, plays? No way. Don't even think about being able to do things like that anymore.
The middle class is gone. We, like most I know, are barely squeaking by. It takes every penny to get by. We never lived like this 10 years ago. Had good jobs, got car loans when we needed them, had health insurance, took a yearly vacation. Nothing elaborate. Plenty of money for groceries, ate out a few times a month.
What's new is the lack of access to these things now and the experience of feeling hunger pangs because we cannot afford to buy enough decent food and constant worry over any money spent.
So yeah, a lot of us live this way now. Seniors, younger people starting out, many living week to week just trying to survive and feeling constant stress.
We've come through ok though, have adjusted our needs and wants, and are pretty content. But it is easy for me to see why most do not have an extra 400 anywhere in the budget.
I hear ya. But be prepared for the superior minds on here to blame you for not saving your money so when you DID lose your job, you SHOULD'VE had PLENTY of money saved up to be able to live. You also shouldn't have been eating out a couple of times a month. That's EXTRAVAGANT to these people. They'll also tell you how irresponsible you were for being late for a credit card payment, even though they themselves have done it but will never admit it because hey, they're perfect. Just wait for it, you'll get not an ounce of sympathy from them.
Part of the problem is that the average American has to have all the latest gadgets and are buying left and right. So that makes sense that they would have to sell something. On my street alone, there are only two families that park in the garage of their single family homes. Everybody else park in their driveway or beside the curb. Reason: too much materialism got the garages stuff to the gills.
Actually, I leave my car, which I love and care for quite well, in my driveway (which is very long) because my garage is occupied by my lawn mower, snow blower and assorted lawn and garden care things like yard debris trash bins, step ladders and recycling bins. Hardly a picture of "keeping up with the latest whatever.
I hear ya. But be prepared for the superior minds on here to blame you for not saving your money so when you DID lose your job, you SHOULD'VE had PLENTY of money saved up to be able to live. You also shouldn't have been eating out a couple of times a month. That's EXTRAVAGANT to these people. They'll also tell you how irresponsible you were for being late for a credit card payment, even though they themselves have done it but will never admit it because hey, they're perfect. Just wait for it, you'll get not an ounce of sympathy from them.
You mean the ones who own 5 houses, 13 businesses and paid cash for their kids to go to Harvard? Yeah they not only will fail to show sympathy, they will shame you as being irresponsible, lacking character, lazy, shiftless..oh yeah and at least one will call you a liberal.
When these amazingly successful people engage in poor shaming it sort of makes me wonder if they aren't really just about one pay check away from being broke themselves.
Yea and these are the ex-friends and ''family'' who continued to live their lavish lifestyle while people like us literally went without at times.
You learn quickly who your friends are, what is really priority in life, and how to appreciate every good thing on a daily basis.
I would not take anything for those lean years and I now enjoy a simple, frugal, happy lifestyle because of that sometimes rough journey.
If I can, I help others in need and no longer live a life focused on consumerism. We have what we need and it is much less than we ''thought'' we needed pre-Recession.
So I don't care what these people think or about their judging attitudes. And a few of these folks are ex-friends and ex-family affiliations. We just walked away from those people who shunned us when we needed grocery money just to get by until the next pay check.
''What goes around comes around'' and ''karma is a beach'' is how I let it go and move on to ''real friends'', most of whom have struggled too.
Of course the average person doesn't have $400. For if they did, they would just spend that $400 and say they have no money again. The average American lives at or exceeds their actual means consistently.
Yes, apparently those in power that we elect to run the country (and budget our tax money) aren't really very good at it either.
National debt is not the same as business or consumer debt. In the federal reserve system, money is debt and debt is money. All money is borrowed into existence. National debt can never be paid off because the interest to pay the debt was never created. As Thomas Jefferson warned, private banks will control the nation first through inflation and then deflation.
You mean the ones who own 5 houses, 13 businesses and paid cash for their kids to go to Harvard? Yeah they not only will fail to show sympathy, they will shame you as being irresponsible, lacking character, lazy, shiftless..oh yeah and at least one will call you a liberal.
When these amazingly successful people engage in poor shaming it sort of makes me wonder if they aren't really just about one pay check away from being broke themselves.
Don't forget those who claim to understand the poor while isolating themselves in exclusive gated communities and then laugh as you go to a movie and perhaps spend $100 just to let your kids watch it.
We know them as celebrities but because they so often take the liberal side of politics, they get a free pass.
Actually, I leave my car, which I love and care for quite well, in my driveway (which is very long) because my garage is occupied by my lawn mower, snow blower and assorted lawn and garden care things like yard debris trash bins, step ladders and recycling bins. Hardly a picture of "keeping up with the latest whatever.
Yeah, I can relate. We do keep our cars in the garage, but the kids' bikes hang on the ceiling to make room, and the lawn mower lives on the back porch. The green bin has a spot behind the fence. I hardly think a large trash can, a garden hose, and a lawn mower qualify as "keeping up with the Jones's," and those things take up a significant amount of garage real estate. That being said, I've seen the inside of my neighbor's garage, and it looks like a jumble sale, which might explain why his FOUR cars live outside. Sigh.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
