[Bookie]

What strikes me about so many of the people I know (well enough to chat about finances) isn't that they're paricularly extravagant, it's that they are commited to a standard of living that leaves them no margin. The bills are met, the obligations are satisfied, the Joneses are kept up with, but that takes it all. There's no slack in the budget, and no room for error.

In their own way, they are thrifty. They shop sales, buy domestic caviar, fill up the SUV at the cut-rate gas place, and hold frequent garage sales. With working wives, these families have adequate income to cover the take-out meals, cleaning women, commercial laundry, and daycare expenses, but things do get tight some months.

Franky, they're stretched. Christmas can throw them for a loop. Summer camp for the kids is a fiscal crisis. There's only so much they can do with two incomes, however well they manage, and if anything should ever rock that boat . . .