Why don't Americans save?

Really, that’s like telling Hilary she didn’t want it enough. But she got beat by somebody who happened to be the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

I got a paper route when I was 11 and had that for 4 years. In high school I used to call all those “make $5000 a month” poster. For most of the past 6 years I have never worked less than 40 hours and most of the time worked 60+. A few years ago I worked 2 full time jobs and put 50k miles on my car in 7 months deliverying pizza and driving as a courier.

I think everybody here has me confused with a knocked up ghetto woman with 4 kids and another one in the oven who thinks the government should pay for everything. Not me. Have I worked my butt off? Yes. Have I failed miserably? Yes. Am I going to give up? No.

On the bright side, I sent out 3 resume’s today and just got a call back (at 10:00 at night?!). Interview on Thursday.

This pretty much sums it up.

Tina Fey: It just shows all you have to do is want it.
Amy Poehler: Looking back, if I could change one thing, I should have wanted it more.

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Here’s a great article for you guys to have fun with. I guess they left out the part talking about the big screen tv’s and vacation home.

When is everybody going to realize we don’t have a lifestyle problem. We don’t have an education problem. We don’t have spending problems. We don’t have work ethic problems. We have a jobs problem. As long as we continue with our current policy’s, stories like these will only increase.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/01/22/family.economic.survival/index.html?iref=newssearch
(CNN) -- Donna LeBlanc gave her husband, a former restaurant manager, the stark ultimatum: become a pizza delivery man or their family "wouldn't make it."
The Lafayette, Louisiana, family of six was struggling with $45,000 of mounting medical debt from Donna LeBlanc's unexpected case of pneumonia and tonsillitis a year earlier. The family savings account had dwindled to $100.
"It's embarrassing for my husband to take a job he is overqualified for, and I know he feels ashamed at times," says Donna LeBlanc, a 35-year-old mother with four children. "But this is what we have to do and we're going to make the best out of it."
She watched her husband, Rob LeBlanc, 35, load Domino's pizza boxes into their family car and deliver orders until near dawn for $10 an hour.
The family first told their story of falling on hard times on iReport.com. Share your economic survivor story with CNN.
Until last summer, Rob LeBlanc had worked as a manager at a truck stop restaurant, making $55,000 a year. He lost that job to the falling economy.
Rob LeBlanc says he noticed business at the truck stop getting sluggish a year ago. Then the spike in gas prices last summer exacerbated the restaurant's dire circumstances. Many penny-pinching truck drivers avoided his restaurant altogether, he says.
Rob LeBlanc filed for unemployment compensation immediately after he lost his job. More than 4.6 million Americans were collecting unemployment benefits as of early January, according to the Labor Department.
In Lafayette, a quiet city of about 114,000 tucked away in southern Louisiana, many of the jobs center around servicing the oil and gas industry, but Rob LeBlanc was unwilling to work offshore and away from his family.
When he applied for other jobs, he was told he was either under-qualified or had too much experience.
After several weeks of searching, he took the only job he could get -- a Domino's pizza delivery man, a job that would cover the family's expenses.
"I had to swallow my pride and take whatever I could get," Rob LeBlanc says. "I kept telling myself one of these days something better will come along."
He spent nearly five months delivering pizzas at Domino's. He admits he fell into depression during that time.
But the family received good news Friday, when a private security company hired Rob LeBlanc to be a security officer. He says the company offers many opportunities to move up to a managerial position.
"My first thought was to tell my wife right away," he says. "I could hear the relief in her voice."
Taking a job as a pizza man wasn't the only sacrifice he's made for his family -- he's also selling his beloved 2003 Kawasaki motorcycle.
Donna LeBlanc earns a few hundred dollars a week exterminating mosquitoes for a bug control company. Before her husband lost his job, she had talked of going back to school to pursue a biology degree at Louisiana State University.
The LeBlanc family lives lean in their five-bedroom, three-bathroom house with its $440 a month mortgage. The couple is teaching their children about budgeting and bargaining while relying on coupons and sales. They no longer eat out and no longer have cable TV. For entertainment, they attend free movies at a church. Donna LeBlanc takes pride that they have no credit card debt.
Their children Brooke, 9, Christopher, 14, and Courtney, 13, no longer receive allowances. Soon after her father's job loss, Courtney started cleaning houses and baby-sitting and earned enough money to buy a dress for her first school dance -- off the clearance rack.
The LeBlancs' oldest child, Sean, 16, who attends high school, still hasn't found a job. He says the competition has gotten stiff, with many older workers in the area out of jobs. "I'm trying," said Sean, who has been looking for a job since October. "There are just no openings."
The LeBlancs have found some unexpected happiness. Donna LeBlanc says her husband now spends more time at home. Not being able to leave the house for entertainment has brought the children closer together over books, games and conversation.
"This experience has given us time to reconnect with each other," Donna LeBlanc says. "And it's taught us to just keep trying and believe that things will get better."

 

I just got my yearly notice from Carefirst BCBS. My health insurance is going from $235 to $272 a month. A 15% increase in one year in a deflationary economy! In 2003 when I got it, it was $160. I’m trying to think. I think I went to the doctor two or three times last year and paid for my one prescription out of pocket. And you wonder why people aren’t saving. Do you think my employer is giving me a 15% raise to make up for this? Is anybody’s? No, we’re told to work harder for the same thing. Let them Man stick it to you. But I bet nobody wants to talk about this. You guys want to talk about the mom with 5 kids on welfare with their big screen tv or maybe Obama's birth certificate.

 

your health insurance is only $272 per month? where do you work? can i use u as a reference? thats a great rate.

 

It'll be one way but the other gets cut.

The company I work for (hourly, not salary) announced we were getting a pay raise...which turned out to be just under 2%. No surprise there.

However, they then turned around and eliminated all matching 401K contributions starting next week "until the economic conditions improve."

Not to fully complain, I am working on an exit strategy which involves taking a side job as well for extra pay, but spending as much available time as I can reading, studying, and applying all the learning bits to this field. I too, intend to take the chance and dive in entrepreneurial wise...at this stage really, I don't have much if anything to lose and could gain a lot!

Sadly, others will just sit there and toil, hoping things can get better yet not doing much to better themselves...

 

I looked at Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue Shield a couple years ago. Basic rates start for a single person for as little as $200/month. $225 I think had a much better coverage plan overall.

My employer covers a lot, so we pay like $80ish a month overall...but I'm on the Massachusetts state plan which is even a bit cheaper!

Like Sandy said, I too, think about what I'm using and projecting. I like never go to the doctor's, maybe have a couple of checkups/tests each year elsewhere, rarely take any medications (have asthma which is allergen-induced, even then that's only a 1-2 time a year flair-up). So the costs are still worth it now, as those tests alone would cost probably 2-3 times the amount overall...otherwise take those away, wtf am I paying for? (aside from the "just in case" scenario)

 

yea...80% in 6 years, 13% or so per year on average.

Many companies however held rates very steady or didn't raise them as we were in a "boom economy" (so-called)...so profits go through the roof...and even more so because pay rates were also held in check or minimized.

Now that growth isn't as big, or as much, suddenly not only are all the cuts being made, rates and costs are seeing double-digit "growth"...which could equate from anything as 30 cents for a food item to 30-40/month for a health plan, to thousands in education...

 

My company doesn’t provide benefits. I’m a loser pizza delivery driver in case you haven’t read the rest of the thread. Trying to be a responsible person, I bought my own individual policy. I’m the only one on the plan, no one else. It is a standard hmo. Perhaps its lower than you might think because I chose the highest co-pay’s possible to lower the monthly premium, as I don’t go to the doctor much. When I go to my eye doctor (I have glaucoma) I pay $30, whereas you might pay $10. My prescription plan has a $150 deductible, I think. Also there is no dental, but I pay $10 a month for a dental network that gives discounted rates. So if you have the super duper plan, I see how it would cost more. Also I’m 24, I don’t know how old you are.

Anyways the point is there is no justification for a 15% increase in our present deflationary environment. You want to know why they raised it? Because they are the Man and they can. I’ll have to admit though, I have had zero problems with this policy. I have never even called them one time. They honor my referrals to both my eye doctors, whom I’ve had 2 minor surgery’s with. Which is exactly why I’m reluctant to look into an alternative.

 

Your paying for somebody else’s huge bills, just like they’ll pay for yours whenever that might happen.

How did Mitt do with the Massachusetts plan anyways? He touted it a lot, but we haven’t heard much about it. Do you you think that could work on a national leverl?

 

You’re exactly proving my point. We’re told to work harder, learn more, get a better job just so we can make the same money. It’s crazy. Nobody’s getting a 15% raise, so why do the health insurance company’s? I really hope your endeavors work out. You have to hit it big now to get ahead. Otherwise you’re stuck on a treadmill. As soon as you work harder they’ll just turn the speed up.