Raising $400?

I saw on some news show that a very large percentage of the people in the USA couldn't come up with $400 cash if they had to for an emergency not just out of their pocket but go to the bank too.Kinda unbelievable to me
I don't think there has hardly been a time I couldn't have come up with 4 or 5 hundred$
since I started driving a school bus back when I was 16 years old.Guess they do everything
on Credit Cards?

I think a lot of people live check-to-check... more people than one would think.

Don't know how people can operate that way - the stress would drive me crazy.

I KNOW a whole lot of folks who live paycheck to paycheck. I've been there myself and it wasn't all that long ago. In fact, for most of my working life, I could not have come up with $400 dollars for any kind of emergency, or $300, or $200. Also, for most of my working life, I could not even afford a car payment. Had to keep patching up and repairing the clunkers.

People operate that way,because the middle class is gone. Nowadays 12 dollars an hour is considered a good fair blue collar wage. No one can maintain a decent standard of living on that. It is no surprise that 400 dollars is considered good money!

Lol, was that way a good bit of my life for various reasons. Unlike most folks who just work a job, I was always able to find the extra I needed by doing some extra odd job such as welding or helping someone.

Maybe why we have so many crazy folks..?

I've seen times when I coulden't have came up with the two or three dollars much less adding the other two zero's. The good old day's wasn't always so good.

[i:68f6dc0ea2]After[/i:68f6dc0ea2] paying the bills and making sure my wife and kid had food?
sure, lots of times in my life....fact is, $4 would have been a challenge at some times in the past.
(when I lost my job about 1980 or so and there were no jobs to be had comes to mind...thanks again to the farmer that took me on even though he really didn't need me)
Life is just life, I never fretted about it.
some had it worse, and worry didn't make money appear, so...

I'd be curious to see how many of those people had a $100/month cell phone bill and a $100/month TV bill. A lot of people seem to find these to be essential, but on a $12/hr pay scale they may not be a good choice.

Yes, the stress is an issue ! ! Living from SS payday to SS payday... Me. wife & 11 yr old dau !

As I understand it, there are a lot of folks who have lost their better and better paying jobs whom now have not just one, but maybe at least two jobs with combined incomes that don't equal that of the job they had but no longer have. These days, we are dished up new jobs numbers every month that tout x-amount of jobs, but don't tout what kind of jobs have been "created", and what most don't focus on is that when these jobs numbers are tossed out, there always seems to be a much quieter accompanying announcement that "...last quarter's jobs numbers were revised downward to the number of...". I particularly pay attention to the jobs numbers at the end of the third month of each quarter to hear that much quieter, less focused on "downgrade" of the last quarters revised numbers. Happens every quarter and will next be heard at the end of July for January, February, and March, albeit quietly. A couple of years ago the department of labor did announce where these newly "created" jobs were occurring, and they seemed to generally fall into the same four categories of "hotel, restaurant, bar, ..." and I forget what the fourth was, but none of the four pay a wage to support a family for sure. Unemployment is now calculated under what are called "U3" numbers, which do not factor in unemployed people that are no longer eligible to collect unemployment benefits, a number half of the truer "U6" numbers that do include those unemployed that are not collecting unemployment.

I try to be kind to those that are either under employed or unemployed by no fault of their own. I hate the thought of having the big, big, big guy above the clouds strike me down either literally, or financially. I don't want to tempt fate.

Mark
Call it what you want

(quoted from post at 06:28:32 06/06/15) I'd be curious to see how many of those people had a $100/month cell phone bill and a $100/month TV bill. A lot of people seem to find these to be essential, but on a $12/hr pay scale they may not be a good choice.

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And right there is part of the problem. TV used to be free. You only had to buy the TV, and a roof top antennae. No other fees ever again. Today, If you want to watch TV, you WILL pay at least $100 per month.

There where times during the mid 1980s that we could not have come up with $400 at times during the month. There wwhere a few times I walked out of the bank after paying my notes that I did not have a dollar left. I had to hustle up some side work to have food money.

That is one of the reasons we changed our way of doing things. I sold a bunch of later model equipment and bought much older equipment. I also started working at the JD dealership then too. Since then I have had a good emergency fund.

A big part of the trouble is the lower wages many get as pay. I do not mean minimum wage either. Around here there are darn few $18-20 an hour jobs and a lot of $10-12 dollar an hour jobs. MY youngest son and his wife had those type of jobs until he got on with the welding outfit his is working for. HE came to me 4-5 years ago and asked me to help them get their budget set up. HE was tired of living check to check. HE was making $11.80 and she was making $9 per hour. So they had the two boys and themselves to provide for. After they paid their rent, utilities, and reasonable food cost they had about $50 bucks each month left. They did not have a spending issue they had an income issue. My son did a fair amount of after hours repair work and that is the only way they stayed afloat. Now with his better job they are doing fine.

So I think that the loss of good paying manufacturing jobs that have been replaced by lower wage "service" jobs have shrank the middle class. Then you add in the fact that our schools do not even teach basic economics anymore you have train wrecks. I remember my High school basic math class teaching us how to balance a check book, set up a house hold budget and figure an insurance proration, etc. Just normal everyday house hold things. Now that is not done. They claim they don't have the "time" for it. But they can teach kids how to use a condom.

Also credit cards are not good for most people they end up paying retail plus for everything they buy. So this shrinks their buying power even lower. It just starts a snowball effect of a economic trouble. They do not have enough for this months electric bill so they "charge" it to their credit card. So next month they still are "short" plus now have a larger credit card balance. So then they can't make their credit card payment and switch to nnalert, the modern day "legal" loan sharks.

The saying: "Poor people have poor ways" is really true today. Many people are poor due to their poor habits and actions. I also think that there are more predatory businesses these days that take advantage of the poor money habits many have. The rent to own and nnalert type of businesses.

Taken out of context, that doesn't mean a lot. How much time did they have to raise the $400? Were they allowed to draw on their credit?

I think if you dig into it deeper, you'll find that statistic covers a lot of different situations. Certainly if you ask some homeless person living under a bridge to come up with 400 bucks, they'll think you're crazy. But there are a lot of middle-class folks who live paycheck to paycheck, even if they have a steady job. If an emergency comes along, they plunk down the credit card. It's not as though the emergency causes them any real hardship, but it's the nature of life that every month brings a new crisis, and it's very easy to dig yourself into a hole you can't get out of.

The folks who are really in a bind are the working poor who have no bank account and no easy access to credit. They end up going to payday lenders, who get snare them in a vicious cycle where they are borrowing money every week just to pay off their loan from the previous week.

Amen to that. $400 is STILL a lot of money to me.

There is a story on the news this past week here in NH about a women working in a school lunch room and giving meals to children that couldn't afford to buy a hot lunch. She was warned 3 times then fired the story is still ongoing. Supposedly the school has a policy in place where a child that can't afford a hot lunch can get a free cheese sandwich, but some are to embarrassed to get in that line. As far as not being able to come up with $400.00 my word, in the 70s when I was raising a family there were many times when we had to hold off on the electric bill or telephone bill to buy groceries but we survived somehow.

Been there myself. Zero to $5 dollars/week left after paying bills. Didn't bother me that much as I had a pretty young wife and 4 healthy kids. Kinda miss those days.

In the mid 1990's new trade deals were implemented and there went our manufacturing jobs mostly to China. I remember callers wanting to discuss the downside with R. Limbaugh, he said "you have to give the American people a choice" (where their products are made) "let them make typewriters, we'll build computers" "American people are too innovative to let this put them down"--- and more. I remember yelling at the radio, tried several times to call in but always got the busy signal.

When I was a kid, we were taught to save for a rainy day. I've done that to the best of my ability, starting out with nothing and basically ending up with nothing when compared to the big boys. I opened a CD notice from our local bank yesterday. 0.48% interest is what they're paying. It's hard to convince folks to save for a rainy day with interest that embarrassing. Ah yeah - I could get into the stock market or any other gamble, but some of us aren't cut out for that. I'm still saving for that rainy day, but I can't help but wonder who is making the money off of my savings. It sure ain't me.

I am with you down until the last paragraph. It was true a generation ago that poor people had poor ways but that has changed. Some people stil have difficulty due to poor economic habits but a greater percentage are doomed from the get go no matter what they do and it takes luck to break the cycle. A lot of it is relative to having lower paying jobs versus a generation ago while certain costs adjusted for inflation have not gone down.

To be honest the local economic situation scares me because I don't see any of the 10-12 dollar per hour jobs you describe at least in terms of availability to be applied for. If the farm gets to the point to where it is not working out then most likely I would have to leave the area altogether. 30 hours between 3 eight dollar per hour employers would mean living in your vehicle. That is the situation some people face. I would agree that there are people out there that do not try hard enough but there are people who are just caught up in circumstances. When you have no set schedule at McDonald's or WalMart it is hard to go to the community college to get the education that leads to a better job elsewhere.

I could come up with ten times $400 Monday morning. I still have a stash, but when you're old, crippled up and on a fixed income, the worry is constant even if you do have some tucked back. The unexpected things keep whittling at your pile: just last month I had to replace an air conditioner, a water heater and make repairs on my car and a lawn mower. I had to write a big check to IRS. I have some large medical expenses coming up soon. I'm past the point where I can go out and get part-time work to replenish the pile.

Also, I don't know if the economists say we're in a period of inflation; all I know is that things seem to be higher every time I go to the store. I don't know how the folks who retired on a fixed income 25 years ago are making it. I may find myself hoping I don't outlive my assets.

Ok guys. We have been treading water for a while. Just can't seem to find the rock to get a foot on. Gonna listen to Waylon Jennings, Old five and dimers (like me). I'll feel better.

TV is still free where I live.

2 years ago we were helping my oldest daughter get a car. We were there for moral support, she'd been saving her money. It was a Friday and the salesman told us that a lot of people would be in on Saturday to buy a car rather than taking the kids to the zoo or a movie. They could make the payments but didn't have the cash to take the family out. The salesman and us have a mutual friend so I don't think it was all a pressure tactic.

As if Rush has some power over out national trade policy...
When you go to bed at night do you run and leap into bed so the boogey man under there doesn't grab your feet?

I was a fan of Rush until the mid 1990's when he wouldn't let the opposing opinion be discussed. I still listen and watch conservative talk,(not his) it was just that he was so bull headed about that and it's HAS turned out badly for the middle class.

When I graduated from high school in 1962 you could go to work with a factory job right away. The factory where I started hired scads of college girls as summer help. Soon the job provided me with a company paid apprenticeship and I got a journeyman card and had a good paying career. The entry jobs paid around $2 an hour, back then gas was 25 or 30 cents a gallon, sales tax was just starting, a new car was around $2,500. Now things are 10x as expensive with more taxes besides. To equal the same entry level pay now would need to be at least $20 an hour and taxes would just take more of it.

According to the IRS the average person has a net worth of 600 bucks.

Who's fault is it? What kind of an education do they have? What kind of skills do they have? Most will never try to improve either. You want a real eye opener, work at a Plasma center where they pay people to donate. Talk about room temperature IQ's. Down and out or just too lazy to improve their situation. They are happy to make $20 donating plasma.

Economically, a lot of people were better off 50 years ago. I think we have only begun on our downward descent. I wish I could jump into a time machine to see what 50 years from now looks like. I don't see the middle class being squeezed indefinitely without repercussions. I think in 1965 the only thing holding most people back was the lack of willingness to work. I do not think that is true for a great many people today.

Maybe I worked in the best of times. A guy could start in our factory making a decent wage, not even close to the wages in the Detroit auto companies, and with some careful management, end up owning a house free&clear, drive decent car, and enjoy some good vacations. I'm not so sure that can happen today, most of the manufacturing jobs like that are in China.

Geo-TH,In
I take issue with your plasma center remark!
I have sold/donated near 350 times and find that the average donor is a college student, trying to get a couple extra bucks to spend. That is their alternative to doing without, spending borrowed money or begging their parents for more. I also see quite a few middle aged people that I don't know what their motive is. Some need to supplement their current income. The first donation per week is $20, but the second is $30 or currently $45. I am over 60 and find that it is the easiest way to get gas money (for 60 miles a day) and maybe a little fun money. It takes 70 to 75 minutes of my day, twice a week. Lately I made a payment on my late wife's chiropractor bill. Fortunately for me it is less than a mile from my "day job" location.
I have heard people say that they were saving for a vacation. However I agree that some only spend theirs on beer money. For the most part, the people I see there are of a normal I.Q. or above and few appear to be the lazy type as you refer to! Research the need for plasma for all the reasons, and be thankful if you never have needed the body fluids of a lazy uneducated sub-human as you make us sound like!!!!

(quoted from post at 08:18:14 06/06/15) I saw on some news show that a very large percentage of the people in the USA couldn't come up with $400 cash if they had to for an emergency not just out of their pocket but go to the bank too.Kinda unbelievable to me
I don't think there has hardly been a time I couldn't have come up with 4 or 5 hundred$
since I started driving a school bus back when I was 16 years old.Guess they do everything
on Credit Cards?

Click to expand...

I don't doubt that story is true
, one of the few the media puts out. When I was just out of school I would have fallen into that group and struggled for many years when my kids were younger. We financed everything, car, furniture, TV, you name it. Finally it hit me that all we were doing was making the banks richer. Saving started with the 1st quarter and that's what I did. I started putting back the quarters that I had in my pocket each day. After a year I had over $300. From then on we only financed the big things and made good down payments on them. I've never made much money and most of the time was below the poverty level but we put 2 kids through college, have our house and all our personal possessions paid for and a minimal amount of farm debt. We don't have all the latest electronic gadgets and live very much like we did in the 80's.
I see young people now that start out thinking they need a new home, car, fancy furnishings, all the latest electronics and tattoos. They dig themselves a hole that they can never fill. They become slaves to their possessions and can't understand why they are so unhappy. I started out on that path but I was lucky that someone helped to turn me around.

There was one month, the total jobs created were less than the number of people McDonald's hired that month.

I listened til the 08 election. The bad economy was all in our heads, yet several jobs my dad turned down to work on a large project (which got delayed because the engineers screwed up) were canceled in the 2 weeks it took to figure out the engineers screwed up.

ld

I'd have a hard time coming up with an "extra" $400.00. Most people I know would too if you didn't allow credit cards. Savings accounts? I had a doosey when I retired. I had it all planned out on how I was going to do things. Then the in- laws started getting sick and needed help, mother got cancer bad, daughter got married and they needed help, son got in trouble several times and needed help, wife needed help, taxes went up, costs rose, cars died, tractors broke, credit card interest went from 3% to 15%, the roof needed replacing, son in law left, etc., etc.. etc. Now I have no savings, daughters car just lost engine, dealer wouldn't fix issue with wifes car which cost over a grand at an independent garage , son is doing okay in Texas, in laws/parents are either dead or in nursing home ( at the cost of their home), prices still rise, taxes and regulations rise, etc. etc. But I'm paying my debt down. I don't spend on every toy I want. I scrimp and save. I deny myself a lot of things I'd like. Wifes doing the same thing. Kids are slowly picking it up, the not spending habit.

I think my story could be repeated a million times over anywhere in the nation. It's not that people like this style of doing things, it's just the way it is.

Just for chuckles- I arrested this guy one time for doing something along the lines of an assault (don't recall details) on 2 women. His story was that they had stolen $2800.00 from him. DA at the time told me I had made a bad arrest because of the women taking the money (??? still doesn't make sense-you don't beat other people for any reason, 'specially girls). I asked the DA if he believed the guys story and of of course the DA said yes. So I asked him, "Where is an ex-con, jobless, drug dealing scumbag going to come up with $2800.00?". Stopped the DA right in his tracks. "Oh......yeah....I hadn't thought about that...........".

(quoted from post at 17:46:02 06/06/15) Who's fault is it? What kind of an education do they have? What kind of skills do they have? ....

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Exactly. Several people stated here that they got out of school and went right into a factory. Well, that was then, this is now. You've got to offer the world a marketable skill. Just going to college and getting a degree doesn't cut it either. There are a lot of jobs in the auto industry that you used to be able to work into that now require a degree. But that's just the entry ticket.

Then there's work ethic and economic prudence. When the wife and I graduated from college in 1974, we had entry level professional jobs. 20 or 30 years later, I found a notebook in the basement where she had listed our monthly bills and income down. The bills were slightly more than our income and she wrote "WE SUCK!" across the page. We both got a good laugh out of that.

How did we make it? We cut back and as we got raises, we made sure we saved, even a little. We never had CC debt that we couldn't pay off at the end of the month. I.e. we lived within our means. That is a phrase that a lot of people (especially young ones) don't understand. But they buy $5 lattes, have huge cell phone bills so they can surf the web from their smart phone, tattoos and piercings that cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars, cigarettes hanging from their mouths (over $6/pack). I was behind a waitress at a party store who was scrounging through her tip purse to buy cigarettes and a bottle of booze. Was frantic that she didn't have enough. Somehow I couldn't sympathize with her plight.

Our early struggles made us financially cautious. We did take vacations and go out to eat, bought nice cars, have a nice house. But we always made sure we had at least 6 months salary in the bank. And we've had tough times, too. When I was in my 40's my business failed and I went without a paycheck for over a year trying to save it. Survived off my wife's check with 3 small children. Didn't touch our savings, though it didn't grow at the time. Then in my 50's lost my job twice and was unemployed for over 6 months each time.

Can't raise $400? I'd be doing everything I could to get out of that situation. Working multiple jobs, cutting grass for neighbors. If there's a will, there's a way.