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Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow
(www.wsj.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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For a European the way Americans spend their money and deal with their finances is really weird. My (2!) credit cards have almost no incentives and I always pay back the negative balance each month. Balancing out a credit card debt with one of my other nine credit cards is not a thing here, which demands a more conscientious way of dealing with debt. Just don‘t spend money you don‘t have.
Almost our entire economy in the US is built around spending money you don't have. You can't finance a car, sign a lease, or buy a house without having extensive history of buying things with money you don't have. On top of all of that, we continually lean further and further away from actually owning anything and instead either renting or borrowing every necessity and commodity available. At that point, why bother spending money you do own on things you don't get to keep? Especially when you continually watch people who have significantly more money than you racking up debt and then getting it forgiven just for shiggles.
Every month there's a new "unprecedented" event. Wild fires, shootings, repeated attempts to strip our rights, opioid epidemic. There's a miriad of reasons to feel like long-term investments are an exercise in futility.
Also, when an especially bad flu season can financially ruin you due to Healthcare costs, why fucking bother?
Holy shit so much this