Ted, > The Beamer is really not a big part of the problem but it does contribute. There is no one thing.....its just a little bit of everything...food, cable, telephone, internet, health plan, electric, oil and water, etc all have gone up this past year. Suddenly, I hit a wall......I had no money left over at the end of the month.
I know what you are talking about, because I've run into similar situations. Starting out after college, I was making much more money than I knew how to spend. Eventually though my standard of living crept up faster than my salary did. Now I'm at the point where I'm making even more money than I did before, yet I find myself with a lot less disposable income than before (sometimes none).
However, this is the way I see it. Back when I was younger, I would look at people who live in $900K houses and think, "Wow, that family must be rich. I sure don't need to live in such a house." Now, I see those same people and think about how much they've stretched their affordability to live in such a house, yet it still isn't enough to them. They even call themselves "middle class." WTF?
Sure, real estate boomed over this past decade, but the ultimate lesson here is that the world hasn't changed. I have. What was once big to me back when I was younger is now average. What was once a luxury to me is now a basic necessity. Back then, getting a new Ford Taurus was a really big deal. Now, anything less than a BMW 3-series would be a "sacrifice."
Maybe it will take a real crisis before people can figure out what really is important in life. Hence my view that things will get worse before they get better, because if you think about it, that's the only way things CAN get better.
In the meantime, I'd suggest ditching the cable and the telephone. You do have a cell phone, right? There's nothing really worth watching on cable TV anymore, since you can download TV episodes off the Internet. Health plan? We're moving to universal health care anyway, so that might be the next to go. Selling the Beamer might be painful, but if you don't think gas is going to go back below $4/gallon, even with Obama as president, you should really consider getting a Honda Civic or Fit instead.
Lot of things we can do as individuals while waiting for government to fix itself one way or the other.
Tenchusatsu |
