Spending more or saving more

[user 188685]

With how expensive everything is nowadays,do you think more and more people are saving there money and not going out to eat or not doing a lot of things that they were doing, before everything got so expensive to do,or do you think they are spending more money?What is your thoughts on this.

 

[okidoke]

I think credit is being used more and debt is accumulating. I don’t know the stats, but it seems to me from what I see that some are just spending willy nilly while others are cutting back on groceries to pay for their utilities. There’s plenty of work here but people are too choosey and too proud to work some jobs, and then get upset when foreigners come in and are happy to clean toilets all day for little money with their relatives and save together. Some younger people are wanting a high paying job straight out of school and buy flashy cars on credit for status. Thankfully I’ve raised my kids with some brains. They work hard and save their money and enjoy themselves without spending too much.

 

[user 188685]

I think credit is being used more and debt is accumulating. I don’t know the stats, but it seems to me from what I see that some are just spending willy nilly while others are cutting back on groceries to pay for their utilities. There’s plenty of work here but people are too choosey and too proud to work some jobs, and then get upset when foreigners come in and are happy to clean toilets all day for little money with their relatives and save together. Some younger people are wanting a high paying job straight out of school and buy flashy cars on credit for status. Thankfully I’ve raised my kids with some brains. They work hard and save their money and enjoy themselves without spending too much.

It's unreal,I don't know how anyone can afford to live these days,and I see more and more people in my neighborhood selling their house,but also,they are just building more and more houses in my neighborhood,everyone has always wanted to live in Florida,it's so crazy it's like every where I look in my neighborhood,someone is building a new house.

 

[okidoke]

It's unreal,I don't know how anyone can afford to live these days,and I see more and more people in my neighborhood selling their house,but also,they are just building more and more houses in my neighborhood,everyone has always wanted to live in Florida,it's so crazy it's like every where I look in my neighborhood,someone is building a new house.

i can't speak for florida's situation, but here there's been too much reckless loaning by the banks to people that should never have been approved, who later find themselves unable to afford the repayments. maybe all that building is due to rich people developing, i dunno.

 

[user 188685]

i can't speak for florida's situation, but here there's been too much reckless loaning by the banks to people that should never have been approved, who later find themselves unable to afford the repayments. maybe all that building is due to rich people developing, i dunno.

very true

 

[TheSkaFish]

I feel like it's like there are two parallel worlds -

one world in which nothing ever went wrong, and that things are just getting better and better,

and another world where things keep going from bad to worse.

Most people are in the "bad to worse" category. I know we definitely are. Things were bad for us even before COVID, since about the 2008 Recession. Things were never really that great for us, but at least growing up, things got a little better over the course of the '90s, and it was at least livable. Today though, it's just become a joke sometimes. It makes me wish I never complained growing up, because although we lagged behind most people around here, our quality of life was still way better then than it is now.

Then again when I go out walking, I see all kinds of fancy cars, I see people doing things. Ever so often I hear loud engines in the distance, either sports cars or trucks. I wonder, who still has money to joyride these days? What do these people do for a living?

One thing that I feel has changed since about COVID or so, is that I see a lot less kids joyriding. Somebody is out there doing it, but it's not high school and early college kids anymore. We used to just drive for fun, and generations before us did that even more. Now, I don't really see it a lot.

I go to car shows in the summer, and I really envy the Baby Boomer generation sometimes. You could get a good-paying job with a high school diploma, you could buy a muscle car (and even if you couldn't afford the top ones new, you could still wait a little and get them used), the cost of living hadn't gotten stupid insane yet, you could just kinda coast through life and go through the motions, and life would all work out for you anyway. You didn't have to think too hard or invent anything, didn't have to be a STEM person. It was like the sweet spot of history, and I think it could have lasted longer if big business didn't start messing with politics.

Today, I think a lot of people have high five-figure or low-six figure jobs, that they got because they know someone, and that these jobs aren't actually that hard, and these people aren't actually that smart. Even considering that this is a professional town, it can't be that everyone here is just freakishly intelligent.

Or I'm just one of the dumbest people here, and you can't throw a rock around here without hitting a genius.

I don't know.

 

[user 139760]

I know from the streets the homelessness problem has increased ten fold. The median price for a house in Montréal is about 400 000k which, if you're a single, working class income, is very difficult to access to. You start at 30 and it takes you 25-30 years to pay off the debt. Government taxes and prices are centered around two people income households, so for people like me, that mean going after high paying jobs or working more than 40 hours a week (in my case, that's a disadvantage as any increased income is just going to be swallowed by Child Support).
Most of the people I know have loaded credit cards and active loans and debt. Are they saving? I think that's a past reality. They are trying to pay their debts at a time were prices are unusually high because of the cost of life and the salaries offered have proportionally diminished compared to what they were 20 years ago. It's been a long process combusted by a series of events all the world's governments should have seen coming.
With advances in technology, I think welfare states are sort of inevitable.

 

[user 135671]

one world in which nothing ever went wrong, and that things are just getting better and better,

This is spot on Ska, there are two worlds, it's how capitalism works in our age. the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the rich can reinvest their capital whilst the poor have to continue to work and spend every penny they have on living costs. These living costs, including utility bills and food, are profits for the rich.

 

[NoxApex(N/A)]

It's both due to Stagflation.