Higher gas, food, energy, and insurance prices are starting to squeeze people.

I wanted to take a quick poll to see how others are faring when it comes to disposable income. Disposable being the money left over after fueling your vehicles, paying rent/mortgage, utilities, other bills, food, etc.

The stuff you usually either save or spend on things like electronics, entertainment, etc..

Question:
Whats happening to your disposable income?

Choices:
Increasing
Staying the same
Decreasing
Plumetting

Question:
What is it that is having the greatest effect on your disposable income.

Choices:
Energy (Electricty, natural gas, gasoline)
Insurance (Health, Home, Life, Auto)
Food
Taxes (Property, Sales, Income)
Interest on Debt (Credit cards, Mortgage, etc)
Other
All of the above

 

For me its a little bit of everything. Food, Gas, Electricity, and even property taxes.

Luckily I don't have any real debt. Other than my mortgage anyway which is fixed rate.

But insurance is hitting me the hardest. Health, and Home being the two biggest. Is anyone else experiencing rising insurance rates? I know many of the major insurance companies are bound pretty tightly to the financial sector which is taking it badly lately. Wondering if my rate hikes are just me or if the industry is trying to bail itself out.

See some voting but not much in the way of comments? Is this a touchy subject?

Inflation is an insidious beast. Sneaks up on most people. A few cents on a loaf of bread, 5 bucks more a week to drive.

It will hit like a ton of bricks but only when you suddenly cannot pay that bill you had budgeted.

My dispinc is decreasing and the two factors are energy and insurance.
If my kids would move out and start swimming in the big pond, I'd be ok.

quote:

budgeted.

This is the only way we are going to stay in the black.

We have no debt but mortgage so we are being careful.
We have cut entertainment <eating out,movies,travel> to at or near zero.
It stinks, actually.

quote:

Originally posted by rm444:
My dispinc is decreasing and the two factors are energy and insurance.
If my kids would move out and start swimming in the big pond, I'd be ok.

quote:

Originally posted by rm444:
My dispinc is decreasing and the two factors are energy and insurance.
If my kids would move out and start swimming in the big pond, I'd be ok.

So other's insurance is going up. I have had my health insurance bumped twice this year for a grand total of $318/month in increases. My home insurance went up a measly $85/month as well.

That has hurt me far more than energy which is roughly around $170/month.. Food at maybe $100/month.

We decided to not borrow more than we could pay, kept a fuel efficient car rather than buy a SUV, and did not establish a lifestyle that we could not afford, so my family is in better shape today than we were last year.

So many Americans are whining about the prices while forgetting how they celebrated when their house prices tripled and quadrupled a few years ago. Too many of them bought more than they should have, have bigger cars, houses and debts than they should have, and have a much shorter memory than they should have.

And for those who are too stupid to see that the only thing that is constant is change, there is the media and the politicians helping them panic just a little more frantically. When gas went from $3 to $4, that equalled a $20 per tank increase in fuel. Averaging one tank per week, that means $80 per month. If people are so close to the bone that they cannot afford even twice that much in their monthly budget, then THEY ARE LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS!!

I am not referring to those who are retired and on fixed incomes, I am talking about the idiots who have jobs, spend every penny and then borrow more to keep the newest SUV, the largest house, the most toys and all the other wasteful spending we Americans are so good at.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:

If people are so close to the bone that they cannot afford even twice that much in their monthly budget, then THEY ARE LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS!!

No argument there. But its not just gas prices. Its gas prices, insurance prices, less income from investments, natural gas prices, food prices, electricity prices, you name it. And most are not yet going bankrupt. They are just curtailing their spending more than they might like.

Now $80 may seem insignificant to you. I know it seems insignificant to me too. But there are many people to which $80/month is not insignificant. And most of those probably aren't on these boards chatting away as they don't have internet services nor a computer in the first place.

I wouldn't be suprised at all to see the numbers on these boards drop over the coming year as people give up on their internet bill in favor of more important things.

Our internet access is paid for by the wifes' employer since she has the option to work from home<nice>.
The $80 would be nice so the two of us could go out once a month to dinner and a movie.
You know, masquerade as human.

I'm in an odd situation.

My company pays 100% of my health and dental insurance, so that isn't affected. Life, home and car are staying approximately the same.

I receive a car allowance of over $5,000 per year. Although I'm using more of that this year with rising fuel costs, I'm still coming nowhere near using it all; and I receive it regardless of how much or how little I use with the caveat that should I start to exceed it I will be given more.

My energy bill has raised 2 cents per kilowatt hour since May, so that raises my overall energy bill a little under 20%. Food costs are also higher this year; I'm paying about 20% more for that too. However, I'm receiving a large salary increase this year, which will offset those two bills together by more than 10 fold.

I have no interest on debt or any other taxes that are increasing in any noticeable way.

Again, my situation is not typical because I work for one of those extremely rare companies that pays for my health insurance, which is normally the biggest hit most people take.

Thanks to the tax rebate, my internet, and a zero percent interest cc for 15 months from Am Express I am getting a new hdtv.

Buying it via the internet saved me about 1000 dollars over say, Best Buy not to mention sales tax.

A 1000 dollars buys a lot of internet so I will keep that to the bitter end.

quote:

Originally posted by floersh:

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:

If people are so close to the bone that they cannot afford even twice that much in their monthly budget, then THEY ARE LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS!!

No argument there. But its not just gas prices. Its gas prices, insurance prices, less income from investments, natural gas prices, food prices, electricity prices, you name it. And most are not yet going bankrupt. They are just curtailing their spending more than they might like.

Now $80 may seem insignificant to you. I know it seems insignificant to me too. But there are many people to which $80/month is not insignificant. And most of those probably aren't on these boards chatting away as they don't have internet services nor a computer in the first place.

I wouldn't be suprised at all to see the numbers on these boards drop over the coming year as people give up on their internet bill in favor of more important things.

Maybe, but how many of those people are driving vehicles bigger than they need, have houses bigger than they need, have more debt than they should, and still are not on a budget even with the rising prices?

If a family has a normal income of around $50,000, then their house should not have a debt of more than $150,000 to $175,000. Their total car payments should not be more than a single weekly check, and they should not be forced to make the minimum payments on their credit cards.

If anyone exceeds those, then unless someone forced them to buy bigger houses, bigger and more expensive cars, and go deeper into debt, then they did it to themselves and do not have my sympathy. Our economy has ALWAYS gone up and down, and no one should be so naive to think that it could not happen again.

So many people believe in Darwinism, but do not believe those laws apply to them. The economy is applying those laws right now, and those who are fit will survive, and those who are not will suffer. It is madness to live like there is no tomorrow, and then cry when that day comes and you spent todays money yesterday.

The cost of gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, etc is going up so fast that EVERYTHING is costing more. The only problem is that the average wage earner, (you know, the ones that actually MAKE the stuff you wish to buy), is not getting any of the increases in their paycheck to help cover these soaring price increases. The CEO's and the share holders (the "wealthy", or Ebenezer Scrooge'sin other words) are making money by extorting the wage earner ("Joe Average" or "Joe 'striving to be average' Bob Cratchet's).

It's plain to see that our nation has become a country of people who wish to get all that they can in material wealth/goods, and they have no conscience about the people that they are affecting.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:


Maybe, but how many of those people are driving vehicles bigger than they need, have houses bigger than they need, have more debt than they should, and still are not on a budget even with the rising prices?

I have no idea. Probably more than there should be.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:
If a family has a normal income of around $50,000, then their house should not have a debt of more than $150,000 to $175,000. Their total car payments should not be more than a single weekly check, and they should not be forced to make the minimum payments on their credit cards.

No offense. But I would think that the numbers you use here are VERY generous. My only vehicle payment is less than 25% of one weeks salary. My mortgage payment is less than one week of pay. I have no credit card debt at all. And even I have been scaling back on eating out, driving, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:
If anyone exceeds those, then unless someone forced them to buy bigger houses, bigger and more expensive cars, and go deeper into debt, then they did it to themselves and do not have my sympathy. Our economy has ALWAYS gone up and down, and no one should be so naive to think that it could not happen again.

I think if anyone making $50k/year bought a house above $125k they did it to themselves. Thats got to be about 50% of their monthly take home.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:
So many people believe in Darwinism, but do not believe those laws apply to them. The economy is applying those laws right now, and those who are fit will survive, and those who are not will suffer. It is madness to live like there is no tomorrow, and then cry when that day comes and you spent todays money yesterday.

Well we shall see. I think darwin is going to take a great number of people who might think they are fit!

i've been out of work since december, started school may 1st, everything is close to the same except gas is putting a squeeze on everything, even though i get a gas check once a month, it'll only cover about teo weeks worth, but my ex-employer is paying for scholl and gas..so just complain about the food going up to create a fuel that is actually produces worse mpg then gas,,,oh well

I guess I should have put a few reasons for ones disposable income going up in the second question of the poll..

Sorry about that guys..

My figures came right from a high school economics class, so perhaps they are a bit generous. The house figures were upgraded from 2.5 x gross household income to 3.5 x gross household income in the 1980's. The car figure was from 1979, so perhaps that too has been updated. In our case, we bought a house that was slightly more than 2 x gross family income, so we are actually paying less than the prevailing rent in our area. Our house payment takes about 30% of my net, and we paid off our car in 1999, so we do not even have a car payment. Meanwhile, I make $8K more this year than last, and will make at least $11K more next year, so it would take alot more inflation than we are seeing right now to reverse that.

quote:

Originally posted by dwgerard:

Meanwhile, I make $8K more this year than last, and will make at least $11K more next year, so it would take alot more inflation than we are seeing right now to reverse that.

$8k raise.. Nice.. Good for you.. I got a $6k raise. Of course $4,200 of that is chewed up in insurance premiums, $1,800 gone to higher energy costs, and $1,200 gone to rising food costs. So I'm still running about 12 hundred behind the curve each year. A tad bit more than that after taxes are taken out. Hopefully, energy costs don't keep rising. Which I believe they will.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: floersh,

I have my health insurance fully paid by my employer, I have always chosen to only work for companies that do that.

I am still making more than I spend each month. I have seen more of my money going to gas, but that is the biggest increase that has effected me. I paid off my truck a year and a half early, which was better than my last car which was only paid off one year early. I kept that car 16 years until it started costing more to maintain than it was worth.

I normally carry a $0 balance on my credit cards, only putting big ticket items on it and then paying them off within a few months. I do not see credit cards as money.

I was in a position to buy a house in 2000, but then got divorced. when that had all settled and I went to look at buying again, I refused.

I saw the prices streaming upwards and thought the prices were well above the value of the homes. I will not spend more than 30-40% of my pay for a house. Looking at all the people who got burned, i made the right choice. I do wish that I had bought in 2000, though it probably would have had to be sold in in the divorce.

When we split, we slit up the debt we had, about $8000 a piece. I went up to about $10K getting restarted. I worked to pay that down. It took about 6 years but I did it. My ex on the other hand lived way beyond her means and fairly quickly went up to about $35K in debt and then declared bankruptcy. This was with us each having the kids 50% of the time and me paying her child support on top of that. We basically had the same income to live on as a result.

If you live within your means you do fine, if you try to live above it and have everything just because your neighbor does, you will not do so well. You might get by for a while, but it will always bite you in the end.

quote:

Originally posted by The_Bonesaw:
Again, my situation is not typical because I work for one of those extremely rare companies that pays for my health insurance, which is normally the biggest hit most people take.

My company used to pay for my TRIARE supplemental insurance (which effectively gave me free health care) until the %$#^% insurance companies bought off the government and made them stop. So now I pay $150 a month for a supplemental policy.

When my company found out about it they bumped my salary up $165 per month.

Somebody voted taxes. Are they getting ahead of themselves or is there a state/city raising its income, property, or sales taxes right now trying to cover the rising cost of gas?

I expect it any time out here. But it hasn't happened yet. Instead they have the cops out on bikes..

Its only a matter of time before the other shoe falls.

quote:

Originally posted by floersh:
Somebody voted taxes. Are they getting ahead of themselves or is there a state/city raising its income, property, or sales taxes right now trying to cover the rising cost of gas?

I expect it any time out here. But it hasn't happened yet. Instead they have the cops out on bikes..

Property taxes went up in many states.
Mine went from $1,990 last year to over $4,000.00 this year.

quote:

Originally posted by L0A1:

Property taxes went up in many states.
Mine went from $1,990 last year to over $4,000.00 this year.

Wow.. Thats a 100% increase!! I was waiting for the other show to drop here. But that would have a significant impact on my disposable income..

Crap... I know its just around the corner.

quote:

Originally posted by floersh:

quote:

Originally posted by L0A1:

Property taxes went up in many states.
Mine went from $1,990 last year to over $4,000.00 this year.

Wow.. Thats a 100% increase!! I was waiting for the other show to drop here. But that would have a significant impact on my disposable income..

Crap... I know its just around the corner.

Yea, s u c k s to be in Florida right now.

Winters in the northern and colder states is going to be a real disaster.

Elderly and others will be hard strapped to afford heating their homes.

We need to bring back coal as an alternative.

quote:

Originally posted by 4403771:
The cost of gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, etc is going up so fast that EVERYTHING is costing more. The only problem is that the average wage earner, (you know, the ones that actually MAKE the stuff you wish to buy), is not getting any of the increases in their paycheck to help cover these soaring price increases. The CEO's and the share holders (the "wealthy", or Ebenezer Scrooge'sin other words) are making money by extorting the wage earner ("Joe Average" or "Joe 'striving to be average' Bob Cratchet's).

It's plain to see that our nation has become a country of people who wish to get all that they can in material wealth/goods, and they have no conscience about the people that they are affecting.

Yeah, I heard about a system that is based on a concept of, From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Would this work out better?

quote:

Originally posted by L0A1:

quote:

Originally posted by floersh:
Somebody voted taxes. Are they getting ahead of themselves or is there a state/city raising its income, property, or sales taxes right now trying to cover the rising cost of gas?

I expect it any time out here. But it hasn't happened yet. Instead they have the cops out on bikes..

Property taxes went up in many states.
Mine went from $1,990 last year to over $4,000.00 this year.

When property values county-wide dropped last year...the county commissioners simply increased the tax rate. God, how I hate local politicians.

I am retired, my home is paid for, my truck is paid for. I have a medical
bill that cost me about $200.00 to $250.00 a month. It cost me about 21
gallons of fuel each month to go about 525 miles. ( diesel.) My biggest
expense is a Credit Card bill that i had to use when I medically retired.
It took the OPM ( Ofiice of Personal Managment ) almost a year to get
my pay straightend out. I have not met any blue coller worker who has
the resources to go for a year without a paycheck. I still had a house
payment at the time of retirement, and I never missed a payment.

I tell everyone, if you draw a paycheck I do not care if you think you
can not afford a savings account or not. Even if you have to just put a
few dollars a week or month in a savings bond, do it. Do not try and keep
up with the Jones,

I have met too many people with jobs at places like general Dynamics,
LTV, Voight, and even the Post Office. Once they start making some good
money they go out and buy everything that they think makes them happy.
Then when they get laid off when work slows down. They all want to play
the PLEASE help me. Even workers at the Post Office where lay offs are
next to non existant and you have people who are married and both work
at the PO. These people are broke within the first week. The PO pays evry
2 weeks. Husband and wife at the PO could earn as much as $70,000.00 to
$80,000.00 a year. But most could not have any disposable cash a week
after payday.

People who have a job paying more than $45,000.00 a year and say they
do not have any disposable income, are living outside their means. Or they
are just do not understand how to manage money. JMHO