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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
My heart goes out to this woman and her family, and to other families that are getting hit hard. I can only say that 2 months of savings is never enough. NEVER ENOUGH. I grew up hearing 6 months of savings, I planned for 12 months of savings. I hear financial analysts as they describe it as "in a post 9/11 world 24 months of savings." It sounds like she was pretty much living paycheck to paycheck.
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Hitting that nail on the head. Savings, savings and more savings. I went through some pretty rough times due to medical bills resulting from an injury not long after 9-11. I was extremely lucky, had savings, I'm guessing between 6-9 mos, hard cash. Also had business that manged to stay afloat even in my long absence. Even with that the medical bills can be astonishing. Even if you have insurance, which I did, any thing the insurance denies you'll have to pay and fight later or stop receiving treatment. Least that's what happened to me.
How people expect to survive on one or two months cash in the bank is beyond me.
Another item you brought up that Iagree with is cutting back when hard time hit. When things got tight for me, even with cash in the bank and a couple CD's, I stopped Sat. Tv, no movie rentals and ate a lot of top ramien and tuna.
When I lived in the States I used to hear people say they were broke, "we're behind on the house and on our bills" in one sentence and then say "Well, we have to eat out once and while." Or "We need a new TV, the remote on this one's acting funny." You're remotes acting funny? You're behind on your freaking house payment! Screw the TV, time to head to the Good Will and buy some board games and puzzles. On your way back buy some tuna or peanut butter.
Other then savings- people tend to think they NEED way more then they actually do, IMHO.