I'm pretty damn financially stable, I can literally go years and years without making another dime. For you to cast judgment on poor people, young people starting out, etc. Cause they dont have reserves is funny. Shameful really. I suspect you are a silver spoon kid.

Well allrightythen !! I think I will go fishing.

Well allrightythen !! I think I will go fishing.

Respectfully there are many people who are not doing life wrong if they miss a paycheck and its catastrophic...some care for elderly parents, sick relatives or children of other relatives. Some are ill themselves. Some terminally. Their life was rocked by medical bills etc that caused hardship.
Not everyone fits into a Norman Rockwell life. Not everyone struggling has made bad decisions. Some have just had life happen to them.
I don't have to make excuses for them as they have nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes you gotta look past yourself and understand many have struggles that you cannot comprehend. They are doing the best they can in the situation they are in.

well said mark, I am one of those who took a major hit and lost everything as pretty much everyone on here knows.
nov. 2009 chapt. 7 was discharged and my life was f'd in a major way due to being on work comp and then having a non insured idiot snap my neck. creditors refused to work with me while on work comp, had a huge medical bill for the neck surgery and still was paying off my 20% of prostate cancer surgery.

like I said the other day, I make less a month than 99% of y'all make a week, still have about 1,500.00 in the bank and at the end of may (was gonna be last month but the covid changed things some) I will go to fork and kick back for whatever time I have left.

I am not the best money manager but I am smart enough to know to have as much as I can put back for the bs life can toss at ya unexpected.

If that's the case you should remember where you came from, if all your jobs had been taken away from you overnight thru no fault of your own back then I bet you didnt have 2 nickles to rub together after a month. Which means you are either no telling the truth or you are a hypocrite.

Yup, and many retirement programs went just that way. And many have proven that are way too many who don't have the will to invest and leave it in their 401k. Fortunately that plan did not ever pass. What about all of the money that was taken from SS to balance the budget back during the Reagan years? Has it been repaid as promised? It is not as if SS was fundamentally flawed, but has been used for so many things it was never intended to fund.
Yes, there are many who would handle their retirement investment just fine, but there are many who would not and so we end up with a bunch of people too old to work and have no means of getting basic life items.

well said mark, I am one of those who took a major hit and lost everything as pretty much everyone on here knows.
nov. 2009 chapt. 7 was discharged and my life was f'd in a major way due to being on work comp and then having a non insured idiot snap my neck. creditors refused to work with me while on work comp, had a huge medical bill for the neck surgery and still was paying off my 20% of prostate cancer surgery.

like I said the other day, I make less a month than 99% of y'all make a week, still have about 1,500.00 in the bank and at the end of may (was gonna be last month but the covid changed things some) I will go to fork and kick back for whatever time I have left.

I am not the best money manager but I am smart enough to know to have as much as I can put back for the bs life can toss at ya unexpected.

Or as soon as I was out on my own I got the cheap apartment and I got a roommate. It wasn't too hard to save up a couple months of emergency expenses because my expenses were so low. Split rent, groceries, utilities with a roommate and it's not so bad. Rinse and repeat. Don't upgrade your life until you upgrade your emergency fund. I actually had a roommate(s) until I met my wife when I was 28 years old. I was an engineer making decent money at that point and I was driving a beat up used Honda Civic. I didn't get what I would consider a nice vehicle until I had enough I could pay for it with cash. That was 2 years ago at the age of 35. Zero doubt I have been blessed in my life. Mostly with good health and hardworking honest parents who made sure they raised me right even though we didn't have tons of extra to go around. Most folks can do it if they get their priorities right. Instead we have a culture of instant gratification fueled through debt.

The more some people post the more I truly think they believe we can stay in this shelter in place mode for 12-18 months or longer and things will just miraculously be OK when we come out. The government will print more money and we can then get on with a normal life.

If this last that long better be armed if you venture out. Be a lot of homelessness and panic .The world would be a dangerous place. Hope it don’t come to that.
J D