"living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,"

Is the era of easy credit over for the long haul?
By ADAM GELLER – 1 day ago

An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to "come on up under the canopy and put your hands on" a new set of wheels.

But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.

"It's just rough times right now," Clark said. "Rough times."

For Clark, and for a nation of consumers heavily dependent on credit, there are growing signs that those rough times could prove to be more than just a temporary problem, that they could be the beginning of a stark, new reality.

Is America's long era of easy credit over?

Experts say that even when the current credit crunch eases, the nation may finally have maxed out its reliance on borrowed cash. Today's crisis is a warning sign, they say, that consumers could be facing long-term adjustments in the way they finance their everyday lives.

"I think we're undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue," said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com. "This entire credit crunch is a wakeup call to anybody who was attempting to borrow their way to prosperity."

A prolonged period of tighter credit is ahead, experts say.

U.S. consumers will find it much harder to get a credit card, and to carry large balances. Late fees will rise and lines of credit will be reined in. After years of buying homes with interest-only loans, or loans that allowed people to borrow more than the value of the home, substantial payments and downpayments will be required. Interest rates are also likely to rise.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ixd-MpE9eW2GcjDKm2I5_MuSbgWQD93P4UI81

'within your means' is very difficult. That is an issue that must be addressed.

This country overwhelming has issues with entitlement.
People are usually capable to live within their means when they stop trying to keep up with the Jones', stop trying to have brand new, best of everything, and start prioritizing and paying for necessities first.
I truly feel for people who work their butts off and make true attempts to live within their means, but a situation arises that they are unable to. This happened to me after I had my reality check and began budgeting and prioritizing... its sucks, but such is life - unpredictable and shit happens.
But generally, most people that I have known in my life have been living off credit and getting away with it to maintain a higher standard of living than their wages would afford them.
Everyone doesn't need a NEW car, a NEW house, a cell phone, name brand clothes, or organic food, or whatever their desire is.
Society could use a dose of reality and I hope current economic climate is the answer.

I do also think that those families exist who are genuinely stuck, doing everything they can to make ends meet, and still coming up short, and I think those people should get help - but I also think too many families try to play it off as being in that situation when in reality, they aren't willing to take a step down in their standard of living and do what they need to do.

Society needs to get back into the mindset of saving up for a large purchase, and of not trying to buy the "best" all the time. . . It is ok to live in an older home, drive a beater, and beans and rice it until you save enough or your situation improves. But thats not any fun.

happen because of medical bills? With all the corporate theft and the way the rich have stolen just about everything from the rest of America, I am SICK of the little guy getting the blame.

Back in the 1960s, a family could be supported on one income. In the 1980s, we needed two incomes, so many women went to work. Then in the 2000s wages started declining, while the price of everything has skyrocketed. So people started taking money out of their homes and using credit cards to get by. Now that bubble has popped too, so we're faced with this mess.

:wow:

http://www.freep.com/article/20081013/BUSINESS07/810130384
Middle Class Mired in Debt

snip...

• The average household now holds more than $110,000 in mortgage and other debt, against annual personal savings of around $400, according to figures from the Federal Reserve Board and other government bodies that track the economy.

• American consumers today collectively owe $2.5 trillion on their credit cards and in car payments and similar loans. That's up 150% from 1994, an increase more than four times greater than inflation over the same time.

• New college graduates carry more student-loan debt than ever. The nonprofit Project on Student Debt reports that by the time they graduate, nearly two-thirds of students at four-year colleges and universities have student loan debt, compared with less than one-half of graduating students in 1993. Over the past decade, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled from $9,250 to $19,200 -- a 108% increase, or 58% after accounting for inflation -- the project reports.

Ever since the Carter years when he beseeched Americans to get wise.

I think that it will make Americans much more confident when they're in control of their financial lives.

...and predicted that it would be a next big thing, replacing of course conspicuous consumption and the glitz or the rich.

I like the term very much myself - when I am bicycling to work in old work clothes, or trimming back the weeds in the lawn I don't water any more, I feel very much a style leader, well ahead of the curve.