17 Facts That Prove That The Average Family Is Getting Absolutely Pulverized By This Economy

The Economic Collapse ^ | Sept 28, 2011 | Staff

[bkopto]

How in the world does the average American family survive in this economy? The median household income is a little bit less than $50,000 a year right now.

So let's call that about $4000 a month. But before any of that money gets spent, you have to take out at least $1000 in taxes. That leaves about $3000 a month to pay all the bills with.

With that $3000 you have to pay the mortgage (or rent), make the car payments, make the student loan payments, pay for power and water, pay for health insurance, pay for home insurance, pay for car insurance, pay the phone bill, pay the Internet bill and pay the cable bill.

On top of all that, every member of the family needs three meals a day and the cars need to be filled up with gasoline or they won't go anywhere.

Of course I haven't even mentioned expenses that don't happen every month such as car repairs or new shoes. No wonder so many families are feeling so financially stressed!

[NonValueAdded]

it’s grim ... desperate ... the government is undercutting us every step of the way.

[Windflier]

And forget it if you are self employed... the numbers just don’t add up...

Tell me about it. We've had to lower our prices by nearly 40% over the last five years, due to competition from contractors who use illegal labor. That has transformed what used to be a tough, but lucrative family business, into something resembling a low paying hobby. We make less now, than when we first opened the doors on our business fifteen years ago.

The last half decade has been the toughest of my entire life. Every month, my wife and I struggle from one financial horror to another. It's a life of never-ending stress for us.

[Texan]

blood in my urine

Don't ignore this, EVEN IF IT STOPS.

Blood in the urine is a definite sign of bladder cancer which can be cured it caught early. If it proceeds and breaks through the bladder wall, the survival rate drops dramatically. I know from personal experience with a family member, now a 10 year survivor.

[Moonman62]

Ivy Leaguers, every last sinking one of them.

[shield]

Thank The Lord I live in Texas. Thank God for Governor Perry.

[Psalm 73]

"....2006, I was doing just fine with my pay checks; always had money left over to save, meeting all my bills and obligations. Here we are in 2011...."

I hear ya' brother - and living extremely frugaly (is that a word?) - just this morning looked into raiding my retirement yet again....

[SoftballMominVA]

Very few families seem to have "extra money" for stuff these days. Yeah, there are the "privileged few", but most people are really struggling to get by.

The only problem with this comment....the new iphone5 will be out soon and 35% of consumers say they will purchase one.

http://teleinfobd.blogspot.com/2011/07/survery-shows-35-people-will-purchase.html

35% is an awful lot of people with an awful lot of disposible income.

[ExGeeEye]

By making a budget, and sticking to it.

My family is living on less than $28,500 and we may be taking advantage of the “down market” to buy a house soon.

[Claud]

You ain’t kiddin.

We found Dave Ramsey and really got serious about our finances right before the bottom fell out of the economy. Man we are glad we did that. But we have cut expenses right down the bone and I’m not sure what else we can do at this point. Ever go looking for ways on line to be more thrifty? Some of the suggestions are positively laughable.

“Stop buying a daily cup of coffee at Starbucks”. Are you flipping kidding me?? I don’t even drink coffee. I reuse tea bags 2-3 times when I am feeling extravagant. If not, I use dried peppermint from the garden. Cancelled cable. No expensive cell phone plan. No credit card. Cars are old but paid off. Kids’ clothes and toys almost all hand me downs. My barber is a set of clippers. I work from home 4 days a week to save on gas. Most Saturdays spent either on overtime or a business I have on the side.

Meanwhile there’s the cost of groceries. Property taxes. Medical bills...oy.

Class mobility, right now, means the middle class slipping by degrees into poverty. Not pretty.

[Baynative]

The attempts to place blame are pointless. Bush, Obama, who cares? What does it matter.

The disgusting part of all this is the media and the pundits turning their attention away from the obvious which is that Obama does not have any interest in seeing our country become strong again.

[bgill]

In the opening paragraph: The median household income is a little bit less than $50,000 a year right now.

Down at #7: The median yearly wage in the United States is just $26,261

So, which is it, huh? Editing and solid research goes a long way.

[Baynative]

These condition are far more widespread and oppressive than the media will dare to publish.

The first comment under the article on the linked site:

Angar
September 28th, 2011 at 6:15 pm · Reply

I’ve got a friend who for years has been a very successful commission only salesperson. Now that times are bad for him he has:
Cancelled his cable TV. (Gets local news and programs with rabbit ears)
Cancelled his Internet (Gets it free using his laptop at McDonalds)
Cancelled his garbage service (brings his trash to “work” with him and throws it in their dumpster)
Cancelled paying his mortgage (he’s underwater and there’s no way he could pay it anyway)
And the kicker is, after 2 decades in his industry and a long track record of financial success: HE’S STILL NOT ABLE TO KEEP HIS FAMILY FED AND CAN’T FIND ANY OTHER WORK!!

[stuartcr]

Your ISP monthly bill must be a major expense for you.

[TheOldLady]

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[gopheraj]

It might be that they are including two person income in the median household income instead of one.

[mouse_35]

bgill said:

In the opening paragraph: The median household income is a little bit less than $50,000 a year right now.
Down at #7: The median yearly wage in the United States is just $26,261

So, which is it, huh?
____________________________________________________________________________
If you have two people working in the household you have two wages. If both made the median wage, the household income would be $52,522.00. Household income can also include child support payments, transfer payments such as SSI and SS payments. That is why the median household income would be different than the median wage. The two statistics are measuring different things.

[bgill]

In late 2006, I was doing just fine with my pay checks; always had money left over to save, meeting all my bills and obligations. Here we are in 2011 and as soon as I am paid, it is literally out the door. My wife is doing an outstanding job with the meals and making our dollar stretch; but at this point, I simply don't know how much longer we can hold up with the price of everything we NEED sky rocketing and those "needs" never being factored in with "inflation". And no, we have not "lived outside our means". Our means now do not cover what American Socialism has wrought on us.

We're in the exact same boat. We grew up frugal and remain so today but even that's not enough. Paychecks were always tight, but we were never hurting. The last few years, we're hurting. Every month now days it seems we barely squeak by or barely don't. If we could just catch a break for a few months, we'd be fine and have a little breathing room but that's never going to happen. Two months ago, we squeaked through on the good side. Last month, the house insurance put us over. This month the car is in the shop for overdue repairs but I'm going to have to baby the bald tire because that's just not in the equation right now. I'm having to hold off on the car insurance until the last day hoping to throw it over into the following pay period. Also, the rise in health insurance this month meant the paycheck decreased, again. Next, property taxes will be due and we'll be up the creek without a paddle.

Then there's the extras that probably aren't needs but are above wants. Kids in college and first apartments this fall. A wedding present purchase that we couldn't avoid this week. More than our fair share recently of family funerals and hospital and after hospital care that have taken big bites out of the budget. Thankfully, the pantry and freezer are full and every bit of food is eaten or is frozen and is never thrown out. Everything is used, reused, recreated and used up. (FYI to family - last year you got Christmas themed table runners that I made out of leftover holiday fabric scraps but you're getting matched-to-your-decor table runners this year since I have a boatload of free upholstry scraps.)

What the blazes happened?!? Sure, we all know what happened but it still boggles the mind when you've always been responsible, paid your bills promptly, never owed anyone and lived within the budget.

[bgill]

The average family has 13 different credit cards?

That does seem high but probably accurate. Dad would have at least 2 major cards, 2 gas cards, and 2 other cards for a hardware store or such. Mom would also have at least 2 major cards, 2 gas cards, at least 2 clothing store cards, and 2 more general merchandise cards (department store, bookstore, etc). Teen kid would have 1 gas card. That's 15 cards. If mom and dad shared a major card account and dad put teen kid on his gas card, that would be 13.

[bgill]

No iphone 1 or 5 here. They’re above my paygrade. My big extravegant cell phone expense is a $5/mo account I got for grandma. Not that she ever uses it, but helps my peace of mind.

[AwesomePossum]

Carter was also in attendance.........he was off to the side mumbling to himself........

8:}