The Joneses Are BROKE

Hate to tell everyone, but the Joneses are broke!

Seems today, that all anyone is trying to do is keep up with the Joneses. It's really sad that we're still in a recession, yet people are out buying the next big thing, moving into larger homes, signing up for expensive gym memberships, yet have no 8 month Emergeny Fund or any retirement savings. What's going to happen to these people when heavens forbid something happens to them, or they become too old to work....how will they survive? Will their 5000 square foot home pay the bills? Nope. Will their brand new car bring in a few extra bucks? Doubtful. Will their IPAD 251 get a job? Nope. Yet people live this lie just to show off and I just don't get it. People think they are entitled to things just because they were born and are breathing. They are teaching their children the wrong things to do, and those children will be the ones to suffer because the children will have to take care of them when they are too old to work and have no retirement to live off of....and who knows if Social Security will even be around....and Social Security was not meant to be lived off of.

This is an epidemic I'm seeing day in and day out, and granted, I do 'fall' for some of the hype, but we live very frugally and can afford a splurge now and again. It scares me though seeing people that I know that cannot afford these things buying them, whether they are charging on their credit cards with huge interest rates, or even cash, which maybe the rent won't get paid this month.

Maybe I'm just venting here, but does this scare anyone else? It's almost like I can foresee a similar housing crisis happen but with people in retirement can't afford to live and the government will once again bail them out and give them money? And what would happen to those people that lived below their means, scraped to get by to save for retirement and save for splurges? I guess I get discouraged because of the housing crisis. Yes, I understand that bailing out the people that got in way over their head helped stabilize the economy, but do people have no morals anymore? The majority of the people around here that I know of bought a house they couldn't afford, bought 'stuff' to make them 'happy' then got a bailout. Yet, I bought a house (condo) and when I thought we couldn't afford it, I put a halt to all outgoing money, wrote out a budget, started couponing, stopped going out all the time, cut back on eating out, etc to make sure my mortgate note got paid on time. But other people just don't care it seems....but this country enables it and bails them out....but what about those that did the right thing? Our hands are never out and yet nothing ever gets given to us. It makes me feel that doing the 'right' thing isn't always the 'right' thing to do.