Now I’m looking at getting a new-to-me pre-owned vehicle, and I want to do what I have been doing for the last several cars. Get a five year old car for around $12,000. I don’t want to get another Buick though, because my wife and son don’t like them. I’d like an SUV since the price of gas is going up and you can get used ones at super great deals, but it’s still a gas-sucking-hog! My son keeps reminding me that we only pay for gas for one vehicle, my truck is paid for and gassed by the company I work for, but I just won’t listen, because it’s still a lot of money. But cars are still so darn expensive! I don’t wanna get anything older than five years, because I get great interest rates from my local bank, but I can’t get anything with the features I want, just leather and a sunroof, for under that. I want to get a Japanese make, but they hold their value so much, you can’t afford a new one. And I’ve read that you should spend maximum 10% of your monthly income for a vehicle, but that seems high to me, $410, and I don’t want to go above $350, but I’d prefer under $300. Okay enough about cars.

People are dumb with their homes. I have a $500 a month mortgage payment, 12%, but I normally pay $600 or $650, just to pay it off faster. I have a nice home, though, 2394 square feet, two story, two and a half acres in the country.

I spend 10% of my income on groceries alone, 10% to the church, which my church is going into the ground financially anyway, and my son thinks I should quit giving as much, but I will not. I invest only $250 a month into savings, which I should do more. I never buy DVDs, I just borrow my friends. I own a few, but only like fifteen.

The sad part is, I just switched employers about three years ago, and I make $18,000 more per year, doing the same work, just with a longer commute, which is still only fifteen minutes with the company’s gas, yet I still can’t seem to afford much, I can’t seem to figure out where are money seems to be going! It’s very unnerving. I know my wife and son aren’t taking any, and we don’t seem to spend more on things than we used to. I think I may have figured it out though.

When I cash my check I put so much in savings and so much for cash, well lately we have decided to pay for everything with out credit card. Not so we can make payments, gosh no, but so we can just write one check at the end of the month. But I haven’t reworked my cash checking system, and am putting the same amount into my checking account and the same amount of cash. so we end up spending all the cash, and not having as much in savings.

But as a whole, we Americans are doing horribly financially. It’s so sad to see the younger generations spend their money so immaturely, not that I am old, I’m only 53 and have a 16 year old adopted son. But it’s sad to see these kids. Oh well. Enough of my ranting, got to go to bed and go to work in the morning.

Mine went into DVD’s until after a while the hobby (if you can call it that) got a little pricey.

Most of the time the readers of this site are easy going, informative, open minded and kind regarding the faults of others but I have been noticing a trend amongst many the personal finance sites, this one included, of a “holier than thou” attitude creeping in as the economy does cartwheels, while finance is on everyone’s mind, and when horror stories creep into the collective conciousness that we try to rationalize in a insularly comfortable way.

What self benefit do you derive from casting aspirations about people you don’t know and whose life situation you also know nothing about, in order to judge whether they are justified in bitching about spending $4 per gal. while purchasing a $20 movie?

Perhaps that $20 movie would have been a young couple’s first night out after the infant. But with the gas price, this couple had to settle for a DVD after the baby is asleep rather than a babysitter and movie out. Perhaps they make too much money for family tax relief. Maybe the baby was born at an awkward time of the year.

(What does it say about our society that women have scheduled C-sections to have the baby arrive at a tax appropriate time just to be able to afford both the baby and taxes?)

Maybe they ARE trying to be fiscally responsible with their money BY buying a $20 DVD of a movie they will watch many times rather than pay to see it once.

Maybe that pack of cigarettes is the LAST and ONLY indulgence a former blue-collar father of four with three retail jobs still allows himself and perhaps that one indulgence is WHAT ENABLES that man to get up the next day and perform this thankless routine in order to take care of his family.

Would you even take this one solace from him? Yes of course you would. Since you can take no solace from a cigarette, you cannot see how it could possibly, necessarily, be the last stitch holding a despairing man together but you’ll scream bloody blue murder for your right to the occasional beer or as JD reflected…comic book. Possible future health costs are a small consideration to doing whatever it takes to “keep on keeping on” today. If you don’t get up today, there will BE NO tomorrow. But perhaps this guy should quit smoking, give up trying to make ends meet, turn his kids into social services and jump off a bridge. But hey, at least he didn’t waste $3/day.

Perhaps the game purchase was a long anticipated reward for an extraordinary report card or scholarship received or the only present under the tree this year. The point is: YOU DON’T KNOW.

It may be beside the point to speculate on how others may have gotten themselves into a mess (and may not actually BE in a mess, you are just assuming).

Maybe the people you hear ARE “just bitchin” but the people who are really in trouble aren’t anywhere around you and you don’t know who they are because they are stuck at home laid-off, with hungry kids, and an empty gas tank.

It is more to the point to start questioning the state of our nation’s economy and fiscal policy, our political meddling in business competition and natural cycles, and as others have said, concentrate on how much fruit of the peoples’ labor is confiscated by a multitude of hidden governmental layers necessitating the choice between a little (notice I said “little” and not “flat screen TV”) personal pursuit of happiness and eating or getting to work.

Remember all work and no play makes EVERYONE a dull boy and little more than a corptocracy slave (hel-looooo). Innovation and entrepreneurship is dependant on having the time to think and the pleasure to make dreaming worthwhile. It took JD a year or so to make the switch out of family business. It takes longer for those of us who have always been a civil or corporate employee–especially in the service fields of the kind of work you are supposed to do for the love of it and expecting fair compensation is blasphemy. That window is rapidly closing for the rest of us still striving thanks to rising costs due to fiscal irresponsiblity.

There is very little dream left in this old girl of a republic. Open your eyes: look at the numbers, look at the infrastructure (i.e. bridge inspection failures), look at the opportunities we had that are now cut off from our young people, look at the debt with which we enslave our grandchildren and the ever increasing expectation of care by government cradle-to-grave. This self-same government which is less and less able to meet these promised allottments even while forcing subsidation from the rest of us with 60% or more of our income-for-labor (include all sales, import, export, vice, income, fed, state, local, SSI, TSA, surcharges, and subsidy tax).

Be careful how you pass judgment. Because of our socialistic “democracy”, no matter how helpful places like this site are, and no matter how diligent individuals may be with their own finances–we as individuals only have so much control over resources regardless of the poppycock the pundits spit at us.

Loose your job, spend your emergency fund, spend your retirement (after paying the government for the privilege of using it to feed yourself in the interim), still have no job through no fault of your own (takes money to move and increasingly NOWHERE TO MOVE with a brighter economic future except maybe China), and then see how much control over your own fate you have. I hope you know dandelions are edible.

Think the government will take care of you with food stamps, subsidized housing, shelters, welfare, and unemployment? Most of us who have EVER BEEN SELF SUFFICIENT are considered “ineligible” by our own government even if circumstance makes us temporarily not so, even if we have paid 20 years into this supposed safety net. Even the Warren Buffets of the world are not immune and most of us, however responsible, are far from the insulated tower Buffet inhabits.

(I’m not talking retirement/SS here; I’m talking 45 year olds who did “everything right” according to what their “betters” told them would produce the dream).

The Great Depression affected all and regardless of what the media say, it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. The pundits and the government won’t be able to help us when it does. Those who expect the powers-that-be to “do something” to either stop or fix it (to OUR benefit, not their own) will be caught in the middle just like poor New Orleans. What makes you think Bernanke is going to be any better than Brown was at FEMA?

We’ll have to rely on each other and we can’t do that if we’re too busy assigning blame and thinking of “the other” as part of the problem.

One day, regardless of your carefulness, but for the grace of whatever you seek grace from…go you. Remember, corptocracy has a vested interested in not starting a panic amongst the sheeple (and yeah, we ARE sheeple to them, even JD) so don’t expect any warnings when things REALLY start to tank. We will only get warnings not to listen to those crazy tin-hatters like me who say the sky is falling. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Something is contributing to this economic free-fall where the individuals of our society have seen no increase in real wages, decreases in production and increases in taxes (expected rebate not withstanding). The “American Dream” is a nightmare existence for many normal, mainstream, legal/natural, mid-continental, former middle class Americans–nevermind the disenfranchised of us. A lot of these people ARE NOT in credit trouble and because of that fact are actually under the media radar. Check out the data on the runs at local food pantries.

It’s not just “us individuals”, people. We’ve got a much bigger systemic problem that no one is addressing because WE ARE CAUGHT UP IN THROWING STONES AT EACH OTHER in this great big glass house that WE ALL live in. Citibank, Bear Stearns et al and Bernanke would rather us throw stones at each other than at them.

And whatever else, don’t forget that the government is responsible for the same financial overspending that you blame your fellow humans for–and that, collectively, is ALL OF OUR FAULTS (even if you “didn’t vote for him”). Sheeple see, sheeple do but it’s still the sheeple’s fault–never the directing shepherd.

You consign “those people” to the dustbin and you consign yourself and the rest of us as well with pursuit of happiness for none.

Nothing but death and taxes. That is what your judgments proclaim is a fiscally responsible life. Now, do you really feel that way or have you just engaged your fingers prior to your brain?

Interesting stuff.

I literally spent hours hovering over trying to glean what the chart said about trends, blockbusters, indy movies, etc.

Also agree that it would be great to see expenses of Average American: I’ll bet taxes and interest on debt combined is about 33.33%

Thanks for mentioning Dave’s rant – I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before.

All people need to do is mind their consumption, and limit expenditures to things that they really need. I personally don’t drive anywhere that I don’t need to go, and neither does my wife. 5 years ago that was a different story – I used to go for Sunday afternoon drives in the countryside. No more – I can’t afford it today. (I also tend to not purchase things that I don’t need, but that’s a story for another day.)

http://www.infosthetics.com

They find tons of cool graphs/graphics/videos, several of which have come from the nytimes….

I am not linked to it in any way I should add!

I.e. it may be fascinating to play with the graph, but don’t take it too literally.

For my fellow financial info geeks, look at:
http://www.bigpicture.typepad.com/

Cars: Typical car payment (per NADA) is $464/mo. Invested over 40 years, that is over $5 million. HOPE YOU LIKE THE CAR!

Smoking: A pack a day at $3/pack is $90/mo. Many people start smoking in high school, so say 16. From age 16, to age 76 (and you might live that long if you don’t smoke), is $12 million!

And for fun, let’s look at Cable. Using the average from this chart, 1.2% on cable, and the Average Household income (wikipedia says $46,326[1]), thats $46/mo. Invested over 40 years, that is $540,000.

Some simple decisions to spend less can lead to wealth.

I also find it interesting that according to this chart, 8% of the 15% for food is spent on restaurants and only 7% on ‘groceries’.

As for gas prices, Dave went on a rant the other day (5/6, 2nd hour, downloadable for members of his web site), where he busted on America for spending record amounts on video games (GTA4, which made $500 million its first week) and movies (Ironman made $100 million opening weekend), whilst complaining about increasing gas prices.

Looking at the averages again, $46k/yr and 5.2% on gas, that’s about $200 a month, which is up 26% from last year, or about $40. If +$40 a month for gas busts your budget, you’re overspending on something else. Guess what, gasoline is a need, for transportation. GTA4 and Ironman are not!

[1] – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Joe#Income_at_a_glance

Citrus fruits are also down almost 10%, I wonder why that is.

Thanks for that link – am Australian so going to see if we have our own nerdy pages to look through.

This one also an interesting look now and then, worldometers..

http://www.worldometers.info/

Keep up the great work, every day an inspiration.

Lorraine

Lotto: Average lotto player puts $32/mo into lotto. Thats over a million dollars over 40 years (working life time). EVERY TIME. Not one in six bajillion!

Cars: Average car payment is $464/mo. That’ll be over 5 million in 20 years. HOPE YOU LIKE THE CAR!

Smoking: A pack a day at $3 is $90/mo. From age 16 to 76, and you might live that long if you don’t smoke, is over 12 million dollars. Hope the nicotine buzz is worth it.

Additionally, Dave ranted the other day (5/6, second hour) about how the price of gasoline going up isn’t people’s issue, its stupid overspending. Based on averages, he said that typically people are spending an additional $40/mo in gas than they were a year ago. I know that’s true for us! And yet, Grand Theft Auto 4 ($60) sold enough copies to bring in over $500 million its first week[1]. The movie Ironman ($10+) made over $100 million opening weekend[2].

I’m pretty disinterested in hearing people bitch about gas prices when they’re spending frivilously on games they don’t need to play and movies they don’t need to see. Gas == transportation == necessary. Games + Movies == Entertainment == unnecessary. Is this rocket science?

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7503847
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/business

…because spending on Bacon Salt has gone up?…

Pie charts (that is, in the vein of the classic pie chart) aren’t good for comparing more than 2 “buckets” of numbers, and this isn’t even a pie chart. The point of having an area that you can evaluate is that it has some common characteristics with the other areas that are being compared. So, for example, bar charts give you an area (the height times the width of the bar), and you should be able to assume that: A) the widths are uniform; B) the heights are on the same scale; C) the baselines are equal. In this case, the areas’ shapes are so random, it’s hard to really compare one to another. Tufte would be apoplectic if he saw this chart.

Also, a quibble in their (lack of) disclosure: the Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn’t released consumer spending percentage data any more recent than the data from 2006. So NYTimes (or GRS) readers who look to this chart to reveal trends since the economic slowdown are going to be misconstruing and misinterpreting the data. While it’s true that the BLS does monitor prices, and while it’s probably true that the % change in *prices* is reflecting 2007 to 2008 differences, the Times really would have served its readers by rendering the data differently.

It’s too hard, as a reader, to differentiate between the area of the different sections (% of spending in 2006) and the color of the sections (change in prices in those categories from 2007 to 2008). Splitting the data into a couple of bar charts and one or two other visualizations would probably have yielded a little more clarity.

Nevertheless, the visualization is interesting, and does offer some good, quick opportunities for analysis. Thanks, JD, for pointing it out.

Since data nerds might be stumbling onto this post for a while, I’ll point out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is offering a Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) Microdata Users’ Workshop in DC, on July 14th and 15th (2008). More info (hahaha) is here: http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxworkshop.htm.

I know that taxes aren’t part of CPI, but it sure would be interesting to see how much people spent on taxes (federal, state, local, etc) year over year.

And it is totally addicting to play with. Thanks…I think.