I’m in Alabama with a family of four. We have a mortgage on a house that’s now valued at $320,000 the same house was worth just $160,000 in 2018.
The reality most people miss: We haven’t changed our lifestyle one bit in the last six years. We’ve lived responsibly. Yet every month we’re forced to cut back more and more. In our area plants/factories are closing all the time, good-paying jobs are disappearing, and most of the remaining manufacturing work around here tops out around $25 an hour. I’m getting my usual 2% annual raise while everything else keeps getting more expensive.
This isn’t about young people just starting out and learning to budget. This is about responsible, working families who were doing fine, paying bills, raising kids, living within their means and now having to live like we did in our 20s.
We’re watching the country head in the wrong direction, worrying about whether our children will even have a shot at the same life we had.
And the most frustrating part? We’re constantly told “the economy has never been better.”
That disconnect is real. We’re not asking for luxury. We just want to maintain the modest, responsible life we built, without having to keep tightening the belt every single year while being gaslit that everything is fine.
Lunch just costs $28 now. Are they not supposed to eat?