1,000$ emergency fund relevant anymore?

[GoodSteward]

What happen to Personal Responsibility? Nobody point a gun in your head. Right, maybe it was the "Joneses" fault.

Marketers do what they do best; market their product--the Exploitation of the Masses"

They are being responsible, remember? They are buying all this stuff on:

"Same as cash"
"No payments for 90 days"
"3-6 month 0%"
"Easy lease options"
"Building my credit card rewards"
"6 easy payments!"

[Gailete]

I was shocked, but it is an advantage to growing up poor as you know that you can make it on less than normal and that you don't have to go into huge debt for things like holidays.

These people are poor but drowning in debt.
Like

What I should have said is that if you grow up poor without debt due to living frugally, you have a jump on those that become poor or were always poor and don't know how to live 'poor'. They still want what they want and since everyone has it, why not them.

[Nutria]

What happen to Personal Responsibility? Nobody point a gun in your head. Right, maybe it was the "Joneses" fault.

And I did not sue Madison Avenue or the Joneses for "making" me spend lots of money. That's because we (the DW and I) took personal responsibility for our actions.

But that doesn't blind me to noticing how effectively advertisers try to manipulate us.

Marketers do what they do best; market their product--the Exploitation of the Masses"

They spend a LOT of money studying what does -- and doesn't -- stimulate humans to respond emotionally, and they're damned effective at it.