Why Americans Can’t Keep Their Paychecks 

People who have emergency funds are not living life.

@@thewaltersshow609This couldn’t be further from the true. Lol

Love Caleb. He’s intense but his message is precise

​@@thewaltersshow609hahaha feed the troll

@@thewaltersshow609either a troll or a numbskull, same same

Fix it. Go get a pay raise. Go learn a skill. Get a part time. Have you heard of overtime?

​@@kingiam9271 If your wages don't go up at a rate equal to your costs for the same services, your employer is demanding the same skills for less money. Getting a raise is always good, but you're being a dismissive prick who's unaware of reality.

Increase income to make up for it

@@kingiam9271salaried employees don’t have overtime and with inflation many salaried employees are paid like factory employees were pre covid

Can call yourself a "Survivor" too...

lol, never thought of that. It seems like maybe people are doing that now. hahaha.

​@@mhedden033were all survivors. We survived when millions of our siblings died in the great purge.

Mental illness is running rampant in this country

Its called boredom theory. People make up problems because they dont have actual responsibilities

Save at least 20% in your 401(k). Use online calculators to determine your ideal contribution based on age and income. This strategy ensures a comfortable retirement and capitalise on compound interest for growth.

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I think having an investment advisor is the way to go. I've been with one because I lack the expertise for the market. I made over $490K during the recent dip, highlighting that there's more to the market than we average folks know.

Hello! who is the consultant that assists you with yours and if you don't mind, how do I get in touch with them?

I'm not actually asking here, but how much did you spend on the wedding? Could you actually afford to own a house or did you just do it because you thought that's what you were supposed to do? I understand kids cost money, and maybe dealing with them exhausts you which leads to more expensive decisions for convenience rather than thrift. Also, and this is an actual question, before kids, what about being married actually cost more? If you're living together that should allow some cost savings, and then single men probably tend to spend less than women and maybe women demand more spending. I bet there are plenty of costs to be cut if you actually thought some things out, but it sounds like lifestyle inflation and probably a house you can barely afford. We all make choices and they have consequences.

@cenzo_rex "I watch people like Graham and Caleb Hammer talking about controlling your costs and not succumbing to lifestyle creep, but in my case and probably a lot of other people's cases, my lifestyle creep was getting married and having kids!" I would use the term "drag race" instead of creep.

I appreciate this point of view! Since the tax code favors married ppl with kids it feels skewed towards them, but then yall have way more expenses so it’s prob a wash

Penalized for having families lmao 😂

I watched something like that too where there are couples who are not having kids just so they can stay financially stable

And probably the realist thing anybody has ever said, coming from a fictional movie and all.👍

Unless you make a lot of money and are in a high paying career field. And you have multiple sources of income. And a side hustle. And you invest into dividend paying stocks. It’s actually not that hard, but people don’t have financial discipline. I do all of these and I have multiple kids. It’s called time management and discipline. Most people don’t have that.

@@rafaelpaun1907 Most people don't HAVE most of the things your talking about. Some people are location locked. This is just so ignorant. Most people don't have multiple sources of income because it takes that high paying career to get ANY of these other things started. Most people make 60k a year, thats not anything.

@@MrFrankEast your wrong. And that’s just excuses to not make good money. You HAVE The ability to learn high paying skills and side hustles and stuff, just people don’t do it. I was once making like 35k a year, I know what it was like to not have anything extra. It’s called being smart and working hard. People can do it.

@@rafaelpaun1907 Its not possible for everyone point black period. Its not impossible but its factually impossible for everyone. Not everyone can learn high value skills. That costs money and the area/location to USE those high value skills. Im sorry you aren't making big bucks or LEARNING big buck skills in Brockhaven Mississipi.

I have a car payment of $188 a month I used a trade-in put $12,000 down on a 2020 Buick Encore in 2021. I could have paid cash but I got a loan at very cheap interest and choose to invest my money other places

Depends on you’re credit score it’s not the same for every person and the loan percentage you get to pay back

I just buy cars in cash

I agree with Dave Ramsey on this premise. You shouldn’t be buying a 70k vehicle unless you are almost a millionaire. OR you are putting back atleast 15% to retirement and all baby steps are done for AND you are comfortable with pushing your retirement date back.

When I got my D.U.I I lost my car in the crash. I bought a cheap Kia for 1400 with a breathalyzer. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

inflation sucks but you put in your comment why you dont have much money left. you chose to have kids. its not always salaries. choices have a lot to do with it

​@@General_Zod99you're right, we chose this. But it should NOT financially put us in a hole. There's plenty of studies showing how social programs supporting families has a great ROI for the government. Yet here we are not investing in that and just forcing families spending more than their house on childcare

@@billiesbabyblue1 i dont want my taxes going to that. its not the goverments job to take care of you...people in general not you specifically. i spent more years than i like to admit in debt busted my ass and now only money i owe is my house. bout to be 43, no kids and a home because i made good choices.

​@@General_Zod99 all I want is the economy generations before me did. I want the same opportunity to invest the same percentage of my income into my retirement instead of spending record highs on everything

@billiesbabyblue1 again it's all about the choices we make in life. Instead of complaining about someone before you had do something about it to bring more money in.

In your situation, sounds like you have sufficient funds to both save and enjoy life. That seems to make absolute sense. What bugs me is people who spend for all kinds of experiences, then complain they can’t save/won’t be able to retire. Sounds like they’re making decisions that will hurt them long term, and it’s hard to feel bad for them.

These people aren't saving AND spending, they're using any money they would and should save because they have nothing on "experiences". You can have friends without reckless unnecessary spending. Money isn't the only way to have a good time and if you don't have much, you probably shouldn't be wasting it willy nilly on having a good time. Your travels and experiences aren't going to help pay your rent or fix your car so you can go to work. The people that came before you had to work physically hard from sun up to sun down every day without "travel" and "experiences" other than the harsh realities of real life just to allow themselves and their families to survive another season and here just a couple generations later we're so worthless that without world travel and expensive experiences you can't even imagine going on with life. At some point this kind of society is setting itself up for an incredibly rude awakening to the realities of human existence. We're living in an insane bubble of wealth no humans have ever before experienced and people are pretending they have it so bad. I promise you, continuing on this path guarantees that some generation in the very near future is going to experience the real world and their parents will have set them up for miserable failure instead of success and a sense of reality. We're all guilty, the wealth blinds us all even as we invent our fake struggles. But we need to wake up very quickly.

@@steveguillory7568 Yes, I am talking about people who have sufficient funds and continue to be super savers at the detriment of their lives. As I say, saving is good. And I don't agree with the premise of "you need to spend your money." If you don't know how to manage your money, that's one thing. But if you have over a million or even a few hundred thousand and you can't bring yourself to take a vacation because it costs money, that becomes a detriment to your quality of life. The Choose FI podcast had an episode about this where the hosts had been super savers, but once they had some security, they learned to let go a bit while still being smart about their money. It's easy to become addicted to saving...but I know that's not the problem most people have.

And he was lucky not to be hit with medical debt. I developed multiple sclerosis at 24 and that destroyed my finances with insruance. That meant $750 annual MRIs per year, $40 doctor visits, $1000 bottles of medication for a 30 day dose, $500 hospital trips, and $250 Urgent Care visits. Plus the $100 I was spending on insruance every month. And being sickly limits my ability to work but I'm not disabled enough for financial help. I had my health insruance subsidized because I couldn't afford anything better. I got a better job with better benefits, so that eased the burden a lot but I still have a lot of catching up to do. I didn't have lifestyle creep, I had "one 30 day supply of medicine or car payments for the next three months". Cause the clunker I drove died during the chip shortage. Parents gave me two options: get another car or be ready to take transport/Uber everywhere.

💯 seen it WAYYYYY too many times.

Take care of your car and it'll take care of you.. Great advice.

Correct

For a 2014 mustang I changed my oil every 3,000 miles, is that good?

@@actualsnow345 this should be sufficient :) your owners manual will tell you the recommended service interval. This does not take into account accelerated degradation of the oil and detergents in the oil caused by spirited driving. If you drive any harder than a grandma, slightly sooner than the recommended interval is a good idea.

Ultimate false dichotomy.

These people make sense. This is why I will not purchase vehicles that were female owned.

or drive less and save your health, the planet, your pocketbook

The idea being that any of us walking to the office is going to save the planet. Got it. I don't even know where to start with those people.

@@cedricol aww you don't even? that's so sad. Oh well.

I hope by "wants" you mean saving

@@Restrocket 25% saving is already perfectly adequate for most people.

:o

There’s a lot of answers to that one question.

I mean the goal will always be to do both in my book. Life has obstacles and opportunities that come alone and I’d hate to be caught not being able to get over a hurdle or miss an opportunity because I was too busy only YOLO’n my way through life.

Hope this is a joke

‘Recovering super saver’ translation, I didn’t buy beer for a fortnight 😂

I know right?!

​@@TheGrahamStephanShowwhile that is true, it's important to enjoy life as well. You could get injured or die prematurely and then what is all the money going to do for you, if you can't at least enjoy some of it now?

I wonder to what extreme. Like were they couponing as much as a second full time job?

​@@TheGogogogogogoI understand this argument but spending money is not the only thing that brings people joy. You can have a good life without spending a lot.

I’d prefer being a super investor, but saving is a good start.

I don’t like it

Definitely not a psychological ailment. Fear is a natural response to an uncomfortable experience. It's a defense mechanism and is normal.

.$374 total in March. Most people can't even comprehend what hundering down financiaily means these days. Has been like that since the 1930s'. I think we'll all find out soon enough though. I'm learning to like drinking only water myself.

Lololololololol man you got something big stuck up your pie hole.

I live in Santa Monica California this is the first time I have homeless living in front of my house 😢

That’s a very broad question that doesn’t have one exact answer, from mental health, jobs/education, one giant health bill, lack of financial education and poverty.

We know. Overwhelming majority is drugs and mental health. It’s quite rare for it to be a condition of poverty, and when it is, those people usually recover relatively quickly. There is a lot of help and services out there for those people.

How is drug abuse not on your list 😂

Understanding the underlying social conditions that drive the drug use.

😂 it will sell. Hell, I will buy a T shirt. Maybe can give us a link! 😅

It's still a job. Still takes shitton of work

My man. Please don’t wait for your car to tell you something’s wrong beforehand…

Do NOT go double. A little over is ok, depending on the type of oil, but you shouldn't be consistently doing this. Once sensors go off, you are in the bad place.

With GDI and turbos being so common now, I'd be more cautious with oil changes.

Yep. Our household income is 190k in kansas. I live a very easy life

I agree, I would have loved a financial education class. I am so thankful that one of my daughter’s graduation requirements is a financial education class. She is taking three of them and rarely spends any money she receives and makes from odd jobs. Fingers crossed she can grow up better off than me!

Just 800?

it's almost as if all those crazy preppers and survivalists are on to something

25% without the match is hard. We're at about 23% with the match, but not all of it retirement savings. Because our both jobs have a hight risk of layoffs we are saving up a 12month emergency fund. I think found a healthy balance point. 16% into retirement account then the balance into an emergency 6month bridge (brokerage) account. We already saved 6months of cash into a fdic money market account. When the bridge account reaches 6months I'll just put everything into retirement accounts.

you looking for RU-vid and Google help to manage your finances is scary

I’ve been personally victimized by my wallet bro too🤣🤣

Victimhood is life. 🙄

I have more money to spend now... FEEL BAD FOR ME!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure life was nowhere near as carefree and easy as you describe. I wouldn't last a day doing what my forebearers to this country had to do just to survive from one day to the next and neither would most of us. Today is as easy as its ever been in human history and people can't even deal with that.

@@michaelrudolph7003 lol true. But my point was specific towards the need of legal currency. Nature is free. Tough but free.

Totally!!