Originally Posted by
Dahon.Steve
The reasons Americans can't save today is because they are spending it on transportation. Motorized transport. If you're on the edge of survival, not having a car can be the difference between having food on the table or not.
In my case, there was plenty of money for vacations, clothing, food etc once the car was taken away by the junker.
It can work both ways I suppose. In many cases the car is a necessary expense, when the cost of living close to the jobs is too much, and there is a lack of public transport, you simply sometimes don't have a choice. You have to live where you can afford to, and travel to the jobs, and there is not always a sufficient system to make it work without a car. It is an intrinsic problem with the way we have built up our transportation infrastructure.
Funny thing is, back in the early 20th century, nearly every city of any size had a good robust trolley or streetcar system, but the car companies bought out the systems to make room for car culture.