Shopping malls are jammed on the weekends. Just try getting a table at a Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden or Chilis on a Friday or Saturday night. You will often find the wait an hour or more.
Big screen TVs, smartphones, tablets and other gadgets are flying off the shelves. Premium supermarkets like Whole Foods and Trader Joes are jowl-to-jowl with people. Upscale fast food and coffee outlets like Chipotle, Panera Bread and Starbucks are doing heavy, heavy volume.
Take a look at the size of the average home and the luxuriousness of the average automobile. With cars especially, options that were considered a luxury10 years ago are considered bare-bones today (what, no heated seats and no 9-speaker audio system?).
We are a culture of consumption where going out to eat is the norm and eating at home is a rarity. With regard to home entertainment and electronic gadgets, we deny ourselves nothing.
Not that there's anything wrong with living well, but if you aren't putting aside at least 10-15% of your income, well there are plenty of ways to cut back so that you can do so.
Amen.
I’m with you, Sam. I’m continually AMAZED at some of the younger set that work for me. I pay them above minimum, but these are certainly NOT ‘career’ jobs. Just jobs.
And yet, they have cash for $100 hair cuts/colors, tattoos, piercings (where they don’t show!) bring in Starbucks coffee & pastries every morning, versus a mug from home and a BORING bagel, nails done, smartphones, cable TV, long weekends at the indoor water parks for their illegitimate offspring, etc.
I make (EARN!) 4x what some of them are making, and I live well below THEIR means, LOL!
But - nobody listens to me. ;)
SS disability or any disability for that matter garners you a big payoff....