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Half of American Households Living Paycheck To Paycheck...

MickeyW

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47% of American households save nothing

This could be the scariest chart in the world, from Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk. Nearly half of American households don't save any of their money.

If it it isn't obvious, this has a broad range of implications. People who don't save won't have any buffer should the economy turn and they lose their jobs. Longer term, people who don't save won't have the capacity to retire.

It's not good.

Half of America doesn't save any money - Business Insider
 
We're banking on winning the lottery or becoming famous. When all that fails, we'll just become democrats. :mrgreen:
 
I would venture to say that a good percentage of that 47% are people who are just stupid, or shortsighted, or fail at budgeting.


But a solid percent of those people aren't saving because they don't make enough TO save.
 
Seriously pathetic.

In some cases, it may be unavoidable, but from my experience over decades of dealing with many family, friends and neighbors....people make very bad choices.

My father did, and although we never went hungry or lacked a nice place to live.......he smoked and drank his way to the grave. When I was about 10 years old, I tallied up what he spent on smokes and beer per month. I was really surprised when I realized that he didn't have to go 3 or 4 years w/o a car, and could have afforded a nice car and a nice vacation every year. And why my mother was always stressed out because she didn't know how she was going to get all the bills paid each month.

That awareness made me very aware of other people's greed and/or waste throughout the years. By the time I turned 12, I was saving a certain amount of my earnings each month and hiding it in my bedroom. By the time I turned 15 and 9 months, I had enough to buy my first car.....and did, 3 months before my 16th birthday when I got my license to drive. Boy was Dad shocked when I told him I had enough to buy this car I wanted.
Today, I see people wasting lots of money on smokes, booze, illegal drugs, lattes and a load of silly ass crap....rather than save it.
 
clownboy said:
We're banking on winning the lottery or becoming famous. When all that fails, we'll just become democrats. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Great! :thumbs: The moochers on the Left. Hands Out.....Give me Free Sh*t!

KevinKohler said:
I would venture to say that a good percentage of that 47% are people who are just stupid, or shortsighted, or fail at budgeting.


But a solid percent of those people aren't saving because they don't make enough TO save.
Click to expand...

I would venture to say that would be correct.
 
Imagine that.....and this one was from Aug of last year.


Fed Report: Most US families can't raise $400.....

A typical American household cannot raise $400 without borrowing money or selling possessions, according to the results of a survey published Friday by the Federal Reserve, the US central bank. The Fed’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2013 points to the precarious state of the majority of US households, who risk poverty or bankruptcy in the event of job loss, accident or unforeseen medical expense.

According to the report, nearly two-thirds of those under 45 did not have funds set aside to cover their expenses for a three-month period.

The survey helps expose the fictitious character of the economic “recovery,” which has supposedly been going on for five years. Seventy percent of respondents said they were no better off than they were in 2008, during the depth of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. From this the report draws the extraordinarily understated conclusion that the recovery has been “uneven.”.....snip~

Fed Report: Most US families can't raise $400 - World Socialist Web Site






 
And then there are those younger baby boomers who are now the sandwich generation. That means we're paying to support our parents and our grown children/grandchildren.
 
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With nearly half our population at or below the poverty line, I'm not surprised. Exactly where is this money to save coming from when half the population is living paycheck to paycheck IF THEY ARE LUCKY. There's nothing left to save at the end of the month, most are fortunate if they aren't further behind than they were last month.

Half of Americans below or near poverty line - Salon.com
 
I was just reminded of a lot of Black folks in my home town. Several of them were driving Cadillac Fleetwoods....Dad had a Chevy. I asked Dad why that was and he clued me in to the fact that there would be several families in one house, and they would "share" the Caddy.
They would brag about how they drives a Fleetwood ....that was true....but many would put money into the pot and share the car. Their Caddys always had dents and scrapes on them. Being drunk or high often causes that.
 

That's where the old term "Cadillac Rich" came from.
 
A lot of this can be attributed to the day-to-day cultural norms of Americans. Things like taking a "Starbucks run" and "grabbing a bite to eat" all add up. If personal finance were taught as a requirement in K-12, we may not be facing this state of affairs.
 
Your post #4 was outstanding--and I would have liked to discuss this with you.
But then you had to go and say this in post #5:

MickeyW said:
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Great! :thumbs: The moochers on the Left. Hands Out.....Give me Free Sh*t!
Click to expand...
 
clownboy said:
That's where the old term "Cadillac Rich" came from.
Click to expand...

Now it's hood rich, because caddies are no longer symbols of opulence.




Fellas, your age is showing, lol.
 

Yep..........................pathetic.

clownboy said:
And then there are those younger baby boomers who are now the sandwich generation. That means we're paying to support our grown parents and our children/grandchildren.
Click to expand...

That too.


I'm not surprised either....but I can never understand it. Most people live way beyond their means and buy stuff they can do w/o. I did for years when I was getting very low pay and had 5 kids to support. Today, I can go a year on the food and water I have stored and I keep a certain amount of cash...at home. I live by the motto of ..."I Can Do Without this Today!"

No...you don't need those drugs or booze
No you don't have to have a Big Screen TV
No you don't need that cell phone with all the apps to survive.
No you don't have to own a gas guzzler because it looks sooo cool ...and make multiple trips a day to the same area of town.
I could go on and on and on...........................because people Want it All and Want it Now!
 

"How they drives a Fleetwood" gives you away again .
 

I take my lunch to work EVERY DAY.


I am alone in this, so far as I have seen, and my job takes me to 2 different stores per day on average, so I see about 250 employees in 6 different break rooms per day, and they ALL eat take out, and most ALL of them are making less than 14 an hour, with fewer hours per week than 30.

And still, people slip me little jabs about my aluminum covered plates that I cart in everyday. They think it's funny.




I don't. I think they're all ****ing morons.
 


The problem is, in a consumer economy, while this MAY help out on a MICRO economic scale, as in, it's good advice for a single family, if enough families across the country did this, we'd crumble, and all of us would be out of a job in a year, or less.
 

Absolutely and more power to you. That is a prime example! I eat for pennies on the dollar of what many people wastefully spend....and I eat very well.
 

Yep, that's the USA. Love it or leave it???
 
Immediate gratification.
 
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