Reply to America is in an economic tailspin. Why does life feel so normal?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I paid my house off last year.  Nothing fancy, bought it 18 years ago and added onto it, mostly myself.  Its far better than I could live in if I had to pay someone else to do it for me.  We live on one salary, mine, albeit its GS-15.  I'm 42.  I have 150 grand in the bank, cash savings.  We drive old cars, clean our own house, and cook our own meals at home.  I repair my own older iphone when it breaks (they do).  I'm having to telework but grateful to have a job.  (Just because I'm debt free doesnt mean I'm expense free.)  People in bread lines in BMWs had the income, they just chose to spend it and not build up a 6-8 month savings.  Maybe now they'll learn.  [/quote]
Why don’t you walk up and down the line at the food bank telling everyone they should eat cake.  :roll: [/quote]

People do live beyond their means. Or rather, they live to very limit of their means. In these BMW anecdotes, they didn't have to do that.

I get what PP's saying. If you're rolling up to the food bank with an iPhone 10 and a 50k car, well, you made choices.[/quote]

You're not totally wrong, but most people don't pay $50k out of pocket for a car. Interest rates have been low, even before this pandemic. And you can now finance a car for 7 years. When you both have good jobs and no reason to think that you will lose them it doesn't seem like a crazy idea to finance a more expensive car especially if you plan to hang on to it for a long time.  It sounds all great to say folks should just pay cash for a car, but good used cars aren't easy to find. We were lucky to have $13k that we could liquidate several years ago to get a used SUV. We still have that car and have been able to pay cash for our used commuter cars, but guess what, we're two Feds and we know exactly what our paycheck is going to look like for the foreseeable future. And very, very thankful for it too.[/quote]

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