Annual Household Income – USA Today – 2010

Average looks to be around $40-42K, if you are working.

Dog

Hard to have a couple kids, a spouse and live the American dream on them wages I’d think.

Al

Quote:

---

Hard to have a couple kids, a spouse and live the American dream on them wages I’d think.

Al

---

Danged tough to even be retired and make it that cheap. Personally, I doubt that even with your home paid for, you could afford taxes, insurance, and every day expenses on that kind of money- -jerr

Sad Real Sad

I beleive it, big difference in standard of living once you get out of metro areas. Part of the reason so many big assembly plants are being built down south, cheaper labor.

Quote:

---

Danged tough to even be retired and make it that cheap. Personally, I doubt that even with your home paid for, you could afford taxes, insurance, and every day expenses on that kind of money- -jerr

---

Well I earn about 1/2 of that…
Retired,still have house payments,and don’t feel I’m doing that bad.
I have money in the bank,don’t need food stamps,and still can enjoy a fish’in trip or 3 a year by watching what we spend..
I guess it’s what kind of lifestyle your happy with.

Quote:

---

I beleive it, big difference in standard of living once you get out of metro areas. Part of the reason so many big assembly plants are being built down south, cheaper labor.

---

And with cheap labor comes poor quality.

I grew up in the South. The poor quality statement is only your opinion.
The reason labor is cheaper is the cost of living is a lot lower than in the North!

foreclosure and repossession the new american dream. Some people need to learn to live within their means

Quote:

---

foreclosure and repossession the new american dream. Some people need to learn to live within their means

---

Unfortunate but true!! Well said!

---

And with cheap labor comes poor quality.

---

That’s an incorrect statement. If it were the case all you would have to do is give everyone a raise and the quality of the product would increase. I can tell you that’s not how it works in the real world.

Quality is a product of the processes, not labor.

Well I earn about 1/2 of that…
Retired,still have house payments,and don’t feel I’m doing that bad.
I have money in the bank,don’t need food stamps,and still can enjoy a fish’in trip or 3 a year by watching what we spend..
I guess it’s what kind of lifestyle your happy with.

---

Even before I retired, I could always manage to elevate my spending to my level of income. Were it not for my bride, I’d be living in a van down by the river jerr

Yes people do need to learn to live with in there means. I know alot of people who were, but when you lose your profession over night, it is real hard to plan for. Just think if you had a high paying job, and all of sudden there was no work! What do you do? quality is quality control!

Nobody plans to lose their job and it is disheartening but rather than sit at home on unemployment looking for that high paying job people used to have they need to suck up their pride and take a less desirable job. You dont have to like your job it’s just a perk if you do. There are a lot of jobs out there maybe not at 50 k a year but there are jobs. PS does anybody know a female making a 100k a year who owns a truck and boat looking for a cabana boy?

Quote:

---

Hard to have a couple kids, a spouse and live the American dream on them wages I’d think.

Al

---

Agreed – I pay that amount (gross) for daycare…..

That’s 2010….just so we don’t get too depressed…things are looking up

Todays numbers

I’m curious to see if our slight positive turn will be erased this summer by $4-5 gas. As fuel prices go, so do product prices.

Quote:

---

I’m curious to see if our slight positive turn will be erased this summer by $4-5 gas. As fuel prices go, so do product prices.

---

As Chris Granrud said awhile back.

Nothing effects the economy like gas prices.

Should be good for motorcycle sales but beyond that I would say it won’t be good.

I had ProStaff obligations at Bass Pro all weekend. It was very interesting to see the spending habits at each of the last 7 years of Spring Fishing classic Sales. It was great to see a better turn out and more “splurge” items this year. Last year was the worst that I had ever witnessed. To a certain level, fishing and hunting equipment is a luxury item and that is usually the first things to be cut from a budget.
Like so many others, I’ve had a huge reduction in gross income. It’s tough, but mandatory to adjust spending to reflect what is really coming through the door. My concern is for those that are willing and able to work, that is currently forced to be well below the poverty lines. Besides the sacrifices of monetary things, the kick to their confidence level can be devastating. We can all say go out and get a job….but it isn’t that easy sometimes.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Hard to have a couple kids, a spouse and live the American dream on them wages I’d think.

Al

---

Danged tough to even be retired and make it that cheap. Personally, I doubt that even with your home paid for, you could afford taxes, insurance, and every day expenses on that kind of money- -jerr

---

Not sure if I agree with it being dang tough to get by on this level of income. Maybe not fun but with setting a household budget and living with in your means its not that tough and your standard of living can be pretty darn good if you make it that way.

Wealth does not mean happiness. It just means you can by more stuff to try and make yourself happy. My income now for our family of five has been below that number for a number of years now. Im the happiest I have ever been in my life. Plenty of time to spend with the family and life seems much more real now. Not a bunch of superficial crap to cloud it.

One funny thing about setting a house hold budget and doing away with all these things we didnt need is now that we are seeing a little extra income coming in again we have to think about what we are going to spend it on that means something. Being poor can be tough but 40k a year is not poor.

I remember while in college, I had to turn in my parents W2 forms for my financial aid. Between the two of them they had made $14k the year before. I never knew we were poor, and we had everything we needed. Rich or Poor is a frame of mind.

As a side note, I am making a complete change of occupation in the near future making some changes to our lifestyle. After researching some of the things considered essential to most people (internet, cell phones, cable tv) I cannot believe the costs associated with this stuff. $150 cell phone bills in addition to a $200 phone every 6 months, $75 to watch TV that stinks anyways, and all this other nonessential things. Take this stuff away and have an additional $250 a month.

Stop and look at what you really need in life and I would bet you can live very comfortably within your means.

Farmboy, good for you. We did something similar about 10 years ago (not the career change, that was 30 years ago). One thing we did keep was the cell phones. We do not buy new phones very often and when we do the guys at the store usually chuckle at the antiques we are using. I do like the smart phone though and dropped my home and cabin internet providers. I tether off my phone using PDAnet. We have the Sprint true unlimited data plan and it is 3G speeds in most of the areas we are in. It is not blazing, but it is not unusable either.

Like you said, if you look around, there are many places that we spent $10-50 per month needlessly. Some are nice to have, but certainly not necessary. We called it “simplifying” and we have never looked back. Eating out was first place we cut. We didn’t go out all that often and we still do it, but only occasionally and with some frugality.

Ya know, sometimes in life wanting more than what ya need isn’t all bad.
We all could live with out fishing, boating, bowling, whatever, we really don’t need them, but it sure makes life a bit more pleasant.

When I was younger my folks qualified for welfare, but wouldn’t take it, we got by and had what we needed,but no offense to anybody, I don’t see anything wrong with wanting a few of the luxuries in life.

Life should be more than just getting by..imho
Al

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I beleive it, big difference in standard of living once you get out of metro areas. Part of the reason so many big assembly plants are being built down south, cheaper labor.

---

And with cheap labor comes poor quality.

---

THAT is so completely untrue!!!
Labor is only a small portion of quality. It is only a small portion of the cost of making goods.

Labor or “manpower” is only 20% of what makes a product good, AFTER the design and engineering are complete!

What makes a product “good” is the 5M’s of manufacturing.
They are:
Manpower (the people who make the part or Labor)
Machine (the equipment you use to make the part)
Materials (what the part is made from)
Method (The instructions or procedures you use to make the part)
Money (Sometimes, it is worth to have a 2-5% reject rate of what you make (Scrap factor) to save on time and efficiency to make a part).

So, again, cheap labor is only a small percentage of what makes something good. Again, before you even get into the making of the part, you still need design and engineering.

This applies to every concept of production, mining, or farming (which are truly the only ways money is generated).

This “cheap labor equals poor quality” reminds me of how the unions used scare tactics in the airline maintenance industry when major repairs were performed in Asia due to the outrageous cost of labor the unions demanded for performing maintenance on commercial aircraft. They used scare tactics that airplanes would fall from the sky. Never did happen, did it?
And what happened? The Northwest Airline Mechanics union broke and Delta came in. The mechanics voted against the union under Delta.

Our household runs on an income of about $65,000. It’s a [censored], but with luck I can go fishing once in awhile. Eat out – Nope. Big boat – Nope. Just have to go cheap on everything and get by. You do what you have to.