I always hear that people are living beyond their means, but…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear how many people live beyond their means. And that those people’s lifestyles will change as they get older and have to figure out retirement (or they aren’t able to retire). I’m just not seeing this with the UMC people I know. The people that seemed to have money just continue to. They really do, it seems. People don’t seem stressed about being overextended on CC debt etc. Obviously, people don’t always share their financial stresses but there would be signs. Is this just because I roll in boring circles with people in “boring” jobs who are risk averse? Or do you think a good portion of people who seem to be doing well financially really aren’t?

Because the whole ‘everyone doing well is aCTUaLlY poor’ thing is just a prole cope.

I concur. Yes, there are those who live beyond their means. But they will be a distinct minority among the affluent. I cannot think of anyone I know or heard of who downsized because they couldn't afford their previous house. I'm sure people found themselves in tighter than expected spots for a period of time but the advantage of larger incomes is that there's more flexibility in where you spend your money. Scale back on vacations, hold on to the car for longer, and so forth, and eventually you come out ahead.