Do most Americans live beyond their means?

Do most Americans live beyond their means?

Jordan Goodman (Personal Finance Author) gives expert video advice on: Why is life so expensive?; Why are things so expensive?; How much is the cost of living expected to go up in the coming years? and more...

Most Americans do live beyond their means. On a national basis, America has a negative savings rate. Means we actually spend more than we save. Now some people save a lot but a lot of people are in huge amounts of debt. There is over 900 billion dollars in credit card debt alone, in this country. Something like 3 trillion dollars in other combined debt, non-mortgage debt, things like car loans, student loans, medical debt and so on. And then another roughly 10 trillion dollars in mortgage debt on top of that. So people spend what they don't have, make up the difference with debt. In general, debt has been easy to get into. Banks have loads of money and they want to lend it out. So it makes it very tempting for people. So a lot of people do live beyond their means.