Newsflash! Living Paycheck to Paycheck Gets Harder

"NEW YORK (AP) - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder.What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner. Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help. While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade....In the meantime, rising costs show no signs of abating.

Gas prices hit a record nationwide average of $3.23 per gallon in late May before receding a little, though prices are expected to soar again later this year. Food costs have increased 4.5 percent over the past 12 months, partly because of higher fuel costs. Egg prices were 44 percent higher, while milk was up 21.3 percent over the past 12 months to nearly $4 a gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average family of four is spending anywhere from $7 to $10 extra a week—$40 more a month—on groceries alone, compared to a year ago, according to retail consultant Burt Flickinger III." (by Anne D'Innocenzio for AP)

Here's an interesting article I read, that falls under the catagory of, "Well, duh" Then again, maybe it is just now that those who make more than the average family are noticing it more.

The pinch!! We've been in it now, as a family, since 2001. We bought our house in 1998, and we were so proud of ourselves, and our wisdom: we paid far less than what the bank told us we could "afford" (had we bought anything more than what we did, we'd be in a cardboard box right now). Financial advice point number one: never buy what they say you can afford--buy the best house that suits your needs at the most reasonable price you can find, even if that means moving a little further out of the suburbs--you don't know what the future holds, and all debt is a gamble on the future staying as it is right now or getting better. Now, if we were to run one of those analysis on our finances, I think the bankers would tell us we can't afford the house we have. LOL Thanks be to God for His grace in this area....He truely has shown Himself to me to be Jehovah Jireh, my provider.

I've actually gotten used to the fact that in 2001 my husband's income plummeted while our expenses began their ascent up the mountain (our annual income was cut down to about 1/3rd of what it was the previous year. yeah, ouch!). Several friends around the same time also went through a pinch too, and some even lost jobs altogether. Through the last 6 years of this experience, we have been taught of the Lord how to be content, and how to be better stewards, and again, I can only praise Him for that...because my flesh was saying other things...

The interesting thing is that those who were unaffected years ago by this are now starting to feel the pinch too. For a while I had friends who were thankfully unaffected by what was going on, and who couldn't understand how I couldn't afford $20 for piano lessons each week for the kids when that was such a good deal, or why I bought the cheap groceries though they were not necessarily the healthiest (because, the alternative was fasting--which I also did a few times during that time!). Now they are needing to learn how to tighten down more and more as their income goes down while prices go up. This is part of the reason why I am endeavoring to do the regular blog posts about what's for dinner at my house, and how much it cost, so as to spark some ideas in those of you who are struggling in this area.