You are soooooo effing right.

It was tough for one to live on 1700 a month back in the late 70's. And things were cheaper then.

And now I have MS and can't work and my spouse works for 1/3 what his resume is worth - just to even have a job with benefits.

What we bring home now is equivalent to $20,000 less than what he made when he first got out of college.

And now we are trying to put a kid (autism/lite) through college at a state institution that offers his higher math/science degree (because kid his high IQ and is pretty brilliant - even the profs say so). Not some worthless liberal arts degree.

Plus pay all the medical bills that the insurance doesn't cover (ridiculously high co-pays, and pays almost nothing for drugs).

The only saving grace we have is that I foresaw the housing crisis and we decided to move out of the big suburb and big house, to the country on a few acres with a used mobile home.
JUST TO GET DEBT FREE (from the equity in our house - I kind of feel sorry for the people that bought it, because the appraised value went down about 35% within 2 years of them buying it).

Now, we don't have cable, or go out to eat or to the movies. We drive cars that are (well maintained, but) 14 years old and paid for.

We eat a lot of peanut butter (which is going up) and cheap chicken. Try to make and grow what we can.

We are in our fifties and struggling to make ends meet like we did when we were in college.

Our retirement funds were mis-managed and depleted by a sheister 'financial advisory' company (Ameriprise). So we have no retirement.

Basically, we are now screwed because of the mess this country is in.

So I just keep thinking: Where is the big space rock?

That is what this country has come to. We were once (low) upper middle-class. At this rate it won't be but a few more years and we will be begging on the street.


And, about the 'go get a job' group. FIND MY SPOUSE ONE, please - one that pays at least more than half of what the resume should be worth.

And the kids - Most of them can't find jobs (above min rage) either ------ BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALL BE SENT OVERSEAS.

If you are lucky, and have a decent paying job - be thankful and don't knock people who don't/can't.

Everyone is just doing the best they can to survive at this point.

And, btw, college costs at a cheap university are closer to $5000 - PER SEMESTER!

Yep - feels like slavery to me.