Living Large [Drew Carey on America's Middle Class]

Wait you were making 50K in 1985? Median family income for the US at the time was $23K.

And the Median Family income for 1988 was 32K.

Now if we look at Lee County, it’s current family income is $45K a bit below national average.

Now, mind you I’m not criticizing you for your frugality, it’s your money and you can do whatever the heck you want to with it for all I care. But until you reduce your current family’s income by 2/3rds - you really can’t tell the average middle class family how to live. You haven’t anywhere near average for 25 years.

We should also note, if everybody was as frugal as you were, we wouldn’t have had the economic recovery for the last 6 years. About 2/3rds of our economy is based on consumer spending. And from what I’ve read 3/4ths of that was based on people treating their homes like ATM’s. So if you really love America and want to have the Republicans take the White House, get out there and spend :)

You posted, in part: Now, mind you I’m not criticizing you for your frugality, it’s your money and you can do whatever the heck you want to with it for all I care. But until you reduce your current family’s income by 2/3rds - you really can’t tell the average middle class family how to live. You haven’t anywhere near average for 25 years.
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In 1985 I was in grad school, and my wife made made maybe $30K. She is a pharmacist, and went to college for 5 pretty hard years for her degree. I went back to school for 3 years to get my degree. During that time we lived frugally, and continued to do so, without regret, I might add. I haven’t tried to tell others how to live, only how we have lived. This includes some sacrifice on the front end by spending money to get college degrees and not spending all we earned on a lot of frills. (I did referee soccer games to earn $500 to buy a VHS VCR while I was teaching.) I understand that we are fortunate, but it wasn’t as if we won the lottery, we busted butt to get what we have.

We are pretty good consumers and contributed to the economy if that is done by consumer purchases as you suggest. We just try to pay as we go rather than carrying credit balances. We have GPS in the cars, XM radio, Tivos in two rooms, my big screen tv and cell phones.

I do suggest that living within one’s means, whatever those means may be, makes good sense, but I am all for freedom to incur as much debt as people wish. I grew up living well below the median, didn’t care for it much, and did what I could to avoid it in the future. I recommend it for anyone who cares to listen, while at the same time, I understand that everyone does not have the same level of discipline, or even concern about how much they earn, as others.

In my work I see people of all means living beyond those means (I do a fair amount of foreclosure work). It may sound trite, but it isn’t what you earn, it’s what you save that counts.

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