Why Can't Americans Save a Dime?

[john_and_marlene 162]

The more you make the more you spend. Not 100% but up there.

Not necessarily...If you're born poor you'll always 'think' poor regardless of how much money you make or have.....

I own my home, cars, have no debts credit cards or mortgages or otherwise and make very good money.

I have substantial savings....My only liabilities are my property taxes and personal income tax.

Some of you younger folks will achieve the same in your lifetime. Ask me; I never thought I would acquire such wealth when I was younger.....

Not necessarily.... I was born poor and my spending has always kept pace with my income. My lifestyle has improved vastly along the way. I'm not currently in debt, but have been deeply in debt in the past. I don't think you can make a blanket statement like that accurately. From what I have seen, lifestyles usually change with income.

So .... the answer to how a person making 100,000 can be in debt of 200,000 is simple ... their lifestyle outpaced their income.

[Garfield fan 0]

We pay off all of our credit cards every month, have a little bit of savings, but for us medical bills make the most part of our debts. I mean they just keep "re-appearing" every year !! Hubby was bad with money before I came here, that's why we struggled in the first year but we are getting better now.

[kaydee457 13]

The more you make the more you spend. Not 100% but up there.

Not necessarily...If you're born poor you'll always 'think' poor regardless of how much money you make or have.....

I own my home, cars, have no debts credit cards or mortgages or otherwise and make very good money.

I have substantial savings....My only liabilities are my property taxes and personal income tax.

Some of you younger folks will achieve the same in your lifetime. Ask me; I never thought I would acquire such wealth when I was younger.....

Ummm. that's why I said "not 100%".

Yep, but the point I was trying to make is that some people, regardless of how fat their income gets, continue to live the life of a poor person. My grandfather was that way. It's sort of like he could never comprehend or relate to the fact that he was no longer poor.....

[onwa 6]

Well, as of one week ago today, the only debt we have is our car payment! I got through college debt free. I don't own a credit card--but am thinking of getting one to boost my credit history so we have better chances of getting a good mortgage rate. I had some medical debt--a bad emergency room situation when I was in between insurances and some money i borrowed from a friend to finish up the process of getting my so here and into our own apartment. But its all paid off!

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

The more you make the more you spend. Not 100% but up there.

Not necessarily...If you're born poor you'll always 'think' poor regardless of how much money you make or have.....

I own my home, cars, have no debts credit cards or mortgages or otherwise and make very good money.

I have substantial savings....My only liabilities are my property taxes and personal income tax.

Some of you younger folks will achieve the same in your lifetime. Ask me; I never thought I would acquire such wealth when I was younger.....

Ummm. that's why I said "not 100%".

Yep, but the point I was trying to make is that some people, regardless of how fat their income gets, continue to live the life of a poor person. My grandfather was that way. It's sort of like he could never comprehend or relate to the fact that he was no longer poor.....

Many people of his generation are like that. My grandfather too. He had one credit card (Sears) and one only charge one thing a time and only using the card when he paid off the first item. smart

[mercuryroad 0]

C'mon people.....if we all started saving tons of money as a whole then this economy would tank.

[babybunny 2]

dayum.. when I moved back to the USA, I found getting credit cards easy as he11. now I finally learned my lessions. now I manage to save.

I wanna plan for my future. only thing on the back burner is my student loans - but I am not finished yet..

[pax 0]

C'mon people.....if we all started saving tons of money as a whole then this economy would tank.

Actually, many economists have pointed out the folly of this logic. In the long run, building up piles of crushing debt will remove spending power from the economy and ultimately hurt the big picture, rather than help it. In the short-term, spending is great (hence the post-9/11 "buy stuff" message), and indeed certain sectors of the economy were salvaged by the fact that consumer spending remained strong. But if spending continues to be fueled by deficit spending, that house of cards will come tumbling down as more people have to declare bankruptcy and thus are severely limited in their interactions with the housing, retail, and auto sectors for years at a time.

Being in debt at all isn't something I'm happy about. True, I tend not to lose sleep over it, because I've always kept up with my bills and am pretty good about sticking to a budget. But I do worry. I look forward to attacking my credit card debt once the pressure of being the sole breadwinner is off so that Ewen and I don't have to postpone becoming homeowners and parents indefinitely.

[Texanadian 10]

C'mon people.....if we all started saving tons of money as a whole then this economy would tank.

Haha, cut taxes and max out your credit cards. It's the secret to the booming economy.

I found I really wasn't spending crazy amounts of money on goofy things, but taking a week off work and then flying down to the US to visit my sweety sure does add up on the credit card bill quickly. That's why we haven't visited each other since Aug. 2005. Once we got the visa wheels in motion, we both decided to skip visits, spent $20 on each other for Christmas, and skipped Valentine's Day. We know we'll need the money for when I come down. I'm "this close" to paying off my credit card in full.

My sister is a banker and told me that in the old days, you couldn't get much more credit than 20% of your yearly earnings. Banks just wouldn't loan you more than that unless you had a REALLY good reason. Nowadays, it's easy to have 100%+ credit above and beyond your income.

I was pretty disgusted at Wal-Mart's credit card. They offer a 27% interest rate. Now here is a company that makes so much money they could easily have a 5% rate, but noooooo they gotta gouge the credit customer for as much as they can.

Personally, I only have 1 credit card. A low interest one offered by my credit union. I have thought about getting a frequent flyers one, but I spend so little money on credit cards, that the higher interest and yearly fees would eat up pretty much the whole flying plan benefits.

[pax 0]

Store cards are the worst. I got my Victoria's Secret statement and saw that the interest rate was 24%. 24%!!! Now I remember why I stopped using it in the first place.

They don't even send you coupons anymore. What a rip-off.

[m_and_m20 0]

Store cards are the worst. I got my Victoria's Secret statement and saw that the interest rate was 24%. 24%!!! Now I remember why I stopped using it in the first place.

They don't even send you coupons anymore. What a rip-off.

Yeah, i think the coupons are only about six months to a year.....not worth the 24%!

Sears is one of the worst though....thats the one card where even if you have to file for bankruptcy, they will still make you pay it. Not that im promoting bankruptcy, but they will get their money out of you no matter what!

[pax 0]

I work part-time in a clothing store and I HATE pushing our credit card on people. It's sooooooooo not worth it, unless maybe you are so truly obsessed with our clothes that you do buy from the stores and the catalog ALL the time, and you always pay your bill in full every month. But I doubt that.

I don't "sell" the card very well because of this, I don't think. I just ask people, and if they say decline, I just move on.

[m_and_m20 0]

I work part-time in a clothing store and I HATE pushing our credit card on people. It's sooooooooo not worth it, unless maybe you are so truly obsessed with our clothes that you do buy from the stores and the catalog ALL the time, and you always pay your bill in full every month. But I doubt that.

I don't "sell" the card very well because of this, I don't think. I just ask people, and if they say decline, I just move on.

I hated that too! plus we had goals that we had to meet and whatnot, I would always get funny looks from my boss (who was a really good friend too, so i didnt take it personally) whenever i would try to sell the credit card and they would say no....i would say ok and leave it at that.

Im glad im not in retail anymore

[LenJayUS 0]

I have 0 Credit Cards - now... I did have some credit things that I let my first wife talk me into getting... and with all the pay problems I had in the army, most of those are either paid off, or in collection... my only current debt is my Jeep.. which I pay regularly so no problem there. I do have a debit card, but because you can use it like a credit card, it works for me.

I found that the best way for me to save is it use accounts that make it a hassle to get money out of. I have a savings account with the min. amount in it - that's required by my credit union. I then have a money market account with 452 in it. I just opened that up. The accounts that make it hard to get money out of though are my 6 month CD of 250.00 (just opened that up in the past 2 months).. My Deferred Comp from work (kinda like a 401K program) worth over 2122.00 (and I've only put in 1950.00 :-D). I also have a retirement account through work that has over 4.2K in it... 6% of my salary each month goes into it... If I leave the state job at all, I can get that money out... but if I retire, then I just get a monthly retirement check...

I don't save as much as I want... but I do save better then alot of people I know. I'm even thinking about upping the amount I put into my money market account (currently 100.00 a month) and my Deferred Comp (currently 150.00 a month)... but I gotta see how much extra I have to put into it each time.

Of course, when Jay and Lil Brit gets here, I'll have to re-examine what extra money I have after paying the bills and stuff. Hopefully that will happen in the next couple of months - damn CSC lol

[Fischkoepfin 1]

Credit card debt is bad, but for some people it's unavoidable to shore up some debt, like grad students who don't have parents or other sponsors to help them out during the 4 months a year they are laid off but have to continue paying the running costs plus books, etc. I don't know anyone who isn't in debt, and none of them indulges in a luxurious lifestyle.

As far as our own debt goes, we're paying things off when we can and keep up with the bills to not accumulate more debt. Just recently finished paying off the car, and are now attacking the credit cards. Student loans will have to wait until we're done (they come in very handy when paying off credit cards and help with saving money for the meager months), but then we will finally earn above poverty level which will help.