I damn near lost it all last year; not because I was squandering (I have been in debt reduction mode), the cost of living is simply shooting up. Thank God my lender worked with me on my mortgage to keep me on the right side of payments. These days its bare minimum as I try to free myself of all debt (minus my mortgage) in preparation for the inevitable collapse.
Debt will not matter if there is a complete collapse.
We got out of debt except for the mortgage and a $243 a month car payment. Another car is paid for. We still need at least $3,400 a month to survive. Medical bills or insurance premiums, two dogs, home and lawn care...It all adds up. Plus prices on everything has gone through the roof. That includes utilities.
Now, I’m not saying we’re starving. We eat good. But as prices go up our income stays the same. We never go anywhere so the price increase in gasoline has no effect on us. We seldom eat out. We’re cancelling Tmobile and going to Consumer Cellular to save $30 a month. We cut back to basic cable and that’s probably going away completely in January when it jumps to $89 a month. I don’t know where else I could cut.
“There are thousands of people who were living within their means right up until 2009.”
That’s right; their “means” included a job that paid better than McDonalds, and the rug was pulled out from under them. Regardless of what some resident gurus may think, without people borrowing against future earnings we’d have even less jobs related to homes and automobiles and anything related to children (the average person would be 60 by the time they could “afford” a family).
