7 Things the Middle Class Can’t Afford Anymore

1. Vacations 2. New vehicles 3. To pay off debt 4. Emergency savings 5. Retirement savings 6. Medical care 7. Dental work

I'm with you. Everybody is always yip-yip-yapping about how much better the "middle class" had it years ago.

To those people, I issue the following challenge. Go down to the strips malls this Friday or Saturday night, where all the casual eating joints are. You know the ones. Applebees; Longhorns; Olive Garden; Texas Roadhouse; Macaroni Grill; Cheesecake Factory; and the dozens of other restaurant chains that are exploding all over America put the sprawl in suburban sprawl.

See if you can get a table without at least a half hour wait.

They can't open these places fast enough as more and more people decide they don't want to cook at home anymore.

With an average check of about $52 for a family of four (not including tip), a family going out just twice a week will easily spend close to $500 a month. And many families go more than twice a week.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on a rant about restaurants but that's just one example of how middle class families of today are living much better than they did a generation ago. Then throw in the smartphones, video game consoles, tablets and all the other electronic marvels that even the rich could only fantasize about just 20 or 30 years ago.

So yes, the middle class is getting squeezed. No doubt about that. But their standard of living is such that none of them would trade places with a middle class family of 1957.

What really irritates me most is those who are not saving for retirement, yet living lavish lifestyles today. We all know that when the time comes, the government is going to seize the retirement savings of those who did prepare so that the ones that didn't prepare can be taken care of.

Just like today, those of us that are working, must pay higher taxes in order to support the millions upon millions of able-bodied young people who are out of the workforce and on the dole.

Being on a budget is the best raise you could give yourself. I have watched dozens of families, myself included, go through the Dave Ramsey FPU series and make real, significant changes the their financial position.

It can be done, it is being done and is starting to gain tracking in some school systems.

As for the raises, etc; I am in sales, so the raises and pay cuts are a lot of my own doing. We can swing greatly from year to year, but do budgets based on the most conservative estimates.

My best to you, fellow FReeper.

INBN

> 8. Barack Hussein Obama

Isn’t that the truth...I have to say that list is pretty damn accurate and must have been put out there by someone that has gone through the fires of hell economy Obama created as we have. The list is spot on, no kidding. What really pisses me off are all the phoney baloney numbers that the administration publishes and stands by when our own experience tells us how much of a lie it all really is

> As of late, around 20% of people near 65 have not saved anything for retirement at all...
Some, due to misfortune or illness, I can understand; but I suspect many just don’t give it much thought....and you can’t fix stupid.

We had saved quite a bit of savings but Obama’s economy killed our inbound income and jacked the cost of everything which didn’t take very long to deplete. That was with us cutting back andmaking changes in our lifestyle to offset the bleedout. Didn’t matter though. It’s hard to stop something that ‘s setup to do exactly what its’s desgned for when you have radical Alinskytes who’ve knelt at the altar of socialism and studied hard to Cloward-Piven us into bankruptcy. It’s by design folks. If it happened to you look no further than the WH as the instigator of the current pre-planned assault on the financial security of the middle class. They know exactly what they’re doing.

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