Can you have compassion for someone yet still hold them responsible?

[Southernmiss]

When have I said they don't?

Everyone keeps putting additional words in my mouth I did not type.

I am trying to highlight how poorly the average American (not just federal employee) manages their money.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/24/pf/financial-mistake-budget/index.html
https://nypost.com/2018/01/18/americans-are-clueless-when-it-comes-to-personal-finance/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/162872/one-three-americans-prepare-detailed-household-budget.aspx
https://money.usnews.com/money/pers...cial-statistics-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-one

We are not the unwashed masses who have no financial sense.

Most of us are doing quite well and able to save and budget.

The difference is we don't keep preaching about those who haven't planned for the future.

We are compassionate because those furloughed have done absolutely nothing to be in this situation whether they have savings or can live several months without a paycheck or not is irrelevant.

Dh and I have taught our 4 money management-we are financial nerds. Doesn't mean they will be, too. They may stumble, we'll help them and give them advice, but we won't berate them.

We also did not expect financial management to be taught at school, unless you were in a specific class. It's one of those life skills we deemed our responsibility to teach.

I hope you are kindly and helpfully teaching others in your real world the financial skills you'd like to see the world have. And not just spewing on several internet threads.

I recommended Dave Ramsey to an acquaintance a few years back. He fell hook, line and sinker and pulled his family out of trouble. Now he's teaching classes to help others. Sometimes he's so gung ho that I feel like I created a monster. People can go overboard...

 

[msjprincess]

For many people those numbers quoted in your article seem large, but for others they simply are not, according to this article (and many others like it, but I was trying to find one without a paywall): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026

'In San Francisco and nearby San Mateo and Marin Counties it said $117,400 for a family of four was "low income", while $73,300 (£54,900) was "very low income" - the highest figures anywhere in the country.'

Many people live in places where salaries that look quite large do not get you very far, it is ridiculous to not take things like this into consideration when looking at articles like the one you are referencing. It isn't always about not knowing how to manage money, more education, and living above ones means when you live in some of these high cost of living areas. I have lived in multiple large cities around the U.S. and the difference in COL between them has been quite eye opening, and not something I even fully understood until I was actually living it and seeing how our take home pay was impacted.

Exactly. Ilive outside of NYC. When we look at our W2's at the end of the year we say"where the Hell did this money go?".

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

A compassionate act is a contractor who had to lay off some workers but is still paying them what he can to get them through until he gets another contract for them.
A compassionate act is their fellow employees taking up a collection to help them out.
A compassionate act is neighbor helping neighbor.

Going on a message board and interrupting a thread about those affected by the shut down and in effect blaming them by declaring they should have saved is not a compassionate act.
Is it possible for a person to believe that someone could have done things differently and it MIGHT ( NOTE MIGHT) have turned out better and to have compassion? Yes. But most of the time, someone with their nose in the air that just has to say that they should have prepared better that isn't going to be one of them.

 

[disykat]

My point is that because of the abysmal money management skills of the average American employee, most of the federal workers effected are feeling worse effects then necessary.

That is it.

I am not saying you shouldn't be stressed. I am not saying that you shouldn't be unhappy. Others on this board seem to be putting much more words in my mouth then I have typed.

Now you are just making up stuff. How do you know this? You were the one repeatedly saying that no one should be "affected." Then you tried to redefine "affected" to mean financially unprepared. Then you posted a poll to prove your point that we are all unprepared idiots because we insist we are affected. It didn't. Many of us are probably just as prepared financially as you are.

Are there people who will be financially unprepared? Of course. Being affected has much more to it than that. Right now the main effect is the unknown. It's pretty impossible to be totally prepared for the unknown.

 

[cabanafrau]

Apparently the word for the day must be hubris.

 

[PollyannaMom]

...Dh and I have taught our 4 money management-we are financial nerds. Doesn't mean they will be, too. They may stumble, we'll help them and give them advice, but we won't berate them.

We also did not expect financial management to be taught at school, unless you were in a specific class. It's one of those life skills we deemed our responsibility to teach...

We've definitely worked with our DS on financial skills at home. He's great about saving for things he wants, we've talked about how to use credit cards responsibly, etc. (Heck, one summer I even made him practice writing checks!) But I still like to see the schools touch on these subjects as well. Many of the kids don't have parents who are financially savvy, so learning those skills in school is their chance to change patterns in their families.

...I recommended Dave Ramsey to an acquaintance a few years back. He fell hook, line and sinker and pulled his family out of trouble. Now he's teaching classes to help others. Sometimes he's so gung ho that I feel like I created a monster. People can go overboard...

That they can!

"Life is like a pendulum - a series of overcorrections."

 

[mjkacmom]

Exactly. Ilive outside of NYC. When we look at our W2's at the end of the year we say"where the Hell did this money go?".

Very true, if our family income was under $55,000 my kids would be eligible for free lunch, under $78,000 eligible for reduced lunch. I have a friend who had a great paying job, lost it, just got a new one five years later. Fortunately they had a lot of savings, they sold their $600,000 house for a $350,000 fixer upper, he found whatever work he could, and his wife went to work for their church. I don’t care how much you have saved up (including my sister who’s divorce attorney told her she’d never have to work ever again) things happen. Heck, how about some early onset Alzheimer’s and you could be in the hole with a million dollar nursing home bill. My girlfriend is in the hole, she can only work part time because of her 13 year old non verbal autistic child, her soon to be ex is refusing to pay court ordered alimony and child support (he owns his own company so they can’t garnish his wages), she needs to pay rent and fees her kids, so has credit card debt for the first time ever. Life happens.

 

[LSUmiss]

Why do you view being prepared in such a negative manner?

So is FEMA staffed by a bunch of angry, judgmental, resentful, employees because their job is all about preparation?

P.S. I maintain a couple weeks of bottled water and food on hand at all times. What sort of abomination applies there?

It’s not that anyone thinks negatively of being prepared. They think negatively of you judging others for not being as prepared as you are.

 

[LSUmiss]

My father made it 69 before ampullary pancreatic cancer took him.

Of course there has to be balance but that is not an excuse to life like their is no tomorrow.

I hear you, but sometimes there is no tomorrow. And, maybe you would feel differently if your father sacrificed & prepared more. You disclosed that your dad didn’t live that way so that colors your experience. Mine was extremely self-disciplined & denied himself many things & experiences & never got to enjoy the money he had worked so hard to save “just in case”. Watching him face death & talk about the things we never got around to doing together as a family still breaks my heart. I don’t want my DS to have that experience so that colors my opinion. It’s a delicate balance & we all have to just choose what we think is right for our family. And, it would just be a matter of 2 differing opinions if you hadn’t added the judgment part that you labeled as “personal responsibility”.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

It’s not that anyone thinks negatively of being prepared. They think negatively of you judging others for not being as prepared as you are.

 

[LSUmiss]

What does it even mean to "hold someone responsible" in these situations? I don't quite get it, honestly.

I'm thinking of building a house on a river. 50% of the property is in the 100 year flood plain. I will purchase flood insurance and build the house according to all county and city requirements. If my house floods, how is the average person going to hold me accountable? Does that mean judge me in a negative manner?

And to me that IS being prepared. I live in a flood zone so I have flood insurance.

 

[amberpi]

No one even brought up unexpected legal bills...let’s set up this one. You fall in love, get married, have kids, and one day your spouse hits you in the head, is found cheating, or just walks out on you. Poof! Happens every day. Now you have a legal custody battle costing tens of thousands of dollars and you have to put some of that on a credit card or take a personal loan. Would you feel compassion for that person or should they have an emergency “when I get dumped” fund? I keep thinking of these situations that no one prepares for and that I have so much compassion for. You don’t think “well, you should have known you’d come home day to your wife and the milk man” or “welp, should have been ready for your partner to abandon you. “ what rubbish.
And I promise to stop sharing what if’s now.

 

[LSUmiss]

$0

I started my first job out of college making $20,500 in 1994. The company I worked for had a 401k and if I contributed 6% they would add an additional 3%. So from day one I put 6% in the 401k. I never saw that money, never got used to making it, never got used to spending it.

The company also offered an employee stock purchase program. For as little as $25 a pay period you could buy company stock and get an immediate 50% match. So if you put in $25, you got $37.50 in stock that you only had to hold for 30 days before selling. Yet less then 10% of employees participated with the number one reason I can't afford that. How can you not afford a 50% return on your investment in 30 days?

I also setup a $50 a month automatic transfer from checking to savings.

At the start I had $0 in savings.

In the mean time my wife and I used the stock purchase money to fund our first post honeymoon vacation.

We started with $0 in savings, started saving, and enjoyed our money from day 1.

You do realize those are opportunities other ppl don’t have, right? I’m a social worker. No one ever offered me stock options in my career. I suppose I should have prepared better by getting a better career. But, then we also wouldn’t need social workers if all those ppl who made poor choices were “held accountable”.

 

[siren0119]

You do realize those are opportunities other ppl don’t have, right? I’m a social worker. No one ever offered me stock options in my career. I suppose I should have prepared better by getting a better career. But, then we also wouldn’t need social workers if all those ppl who made poor choices were “held accountable”.

The OP also mentioned he had less than $5K in student loans coming out of school. While not absolutely impossible, that is extremely unusual in this day and age, especially for occupations that require high level degrees. Even high level certifications in skilled trades can set you back more than that.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

No one even brought up unexpected legal bills...let’s set up this one. You fall in love, get married, have kids, and one day your spouse hits you in the head, is found cheating, or just walks out on you. Poof! Happens every day. Now you have a legal custody battle costing tens of thousands of dollars and you have to put some of that in a credit card or take a personal loan. Would you fell compassion for that person or should they have an emergency “when I get dumped” fund? I keep thinking of these situations that no one prepares for and that I have so much compassion for. You don’t think “well, you should have known you’d come home day to your wife and the milk man” or “welp, should have been ready for your partner to abandon you. “ what rubbish.
And I promise to stop sharing what if’s now.

Let's play one more what if game. I promise it's a good one. What if I'm preparing for a shut down and on the way to the bank to deposit more money to prepare for a shut down, I get run over by a truck?
Meanwhile on the Dis. "What a loser that CW4D was. It's his own fault. He made a bad decision to walk to the bank on that particular sidewalk. He should have been more personally responsible."

 

[smilie]

You fall in love, get married, have kids, and one day your spouse hits you in the head, is found cheating, or just walks out on you. Poof! Happens every day. Now you have a legal custody battle costing tens of thousands of dollars and you have to put some of that in a credit card or take a personal loan. Would you fell compassion for that person or should they have an emergency “when I get dumped” fund? I keep thinking of these situations that no one prepares for and that I have so much compassion for. You don’t think “well, you should have known you’d come home day to your wife and the milk man” or “welp, should have been ready for your partner to abandon you. “ what rubbish.

This is the situation I found myself in. He left and took all of my savings with him. Ruined my credit and I had to start over with a 5 year old. There were times I couldn't afford things and it made me feel like less of a mom. But I guess I should have been prepared right? I was taught how to be financially stable, was financially stable. Then in the blink of an eye I was living paycheck to paycheck. I'm sure had the OP known the exact ins and outs of my situation, sure he would have shown compassion. But apparently I'm lumped into the general thought that people don't have a financial mindset and should have prepared more. When it comes down to it, you don't know most of Americans. You don't know their personal situation. To set up a poll based on the examples you stated is ridiculous TO ME. Maybe not to you.. But after my experiences in life and having been at the lowest point in my life and shown compassion, yes I will show compassion to someone in any circumstance. Because life is damn hard and everyone deserves compassion. But to sit on the internet and ask people would you show compassion to someone if this or that happened, is extremely judgmental.

 

[LSUmiss]

Again you are really misunderstanding my point.

My point is that because of the abysmal money management skills of the average American employee, most of the federal works effected are feeling worse effects then necessary.

That is it.

Or b/c of the abysmal state of politics these days ppl are having to unnecessarily worry themselves.

 

[LSUmiss]

I graduated with $4800 in student loan debt that was slowly paid off using a budget.

I did not have credit card debt because I did not spend more then I made.

From day one I made a budget and we stuck to it. That budget allowed us to live within our means.

I did get married right out of college and my spouse did not work.

There is nothing magical about a budget.

There is when you don’t make enough to cover neccessities in that budget.

 

[msjprincess]

Let's play one more what if game. I promise it's a good one. What if I'm preparing for a shut down and on the way to the bank to deposit more money to prepare for a shut down, I get run over by a truck?
Meanwhile on the Dis. "What a loser that CW4D was. It's his own fault. He made a bad decision to walk to the bank on that particular sidewalk. He should have been more personally responsible."

Well you should have anticipated that.


What if I prepare for a shutdown but it's not enough? The longest shutdown in history was 21 days. What if I triple that and have over 2 months worth of expenses saved. Then the shutdown goes on longer. How much should I prepare for?

 

[mousefan73]

The more I’m on these boards, the more I think that the majority of people here are very wealthy, well-off, grew up With a huge support system financially and or simply living in their Fantasy bubble.

If I read one more time here on being lectured on money management, financial planning, safety net planning etc. or “we always live below our means“ that’s why we have $100,000 saved so we can live without an income for a year. I will simply vomit.

Why don’t people simply understand that there are many Americans who simply cannot save money. And struggle to remain in their means to pay bills. They are living paycheck to paycheck and are happy they can cover the rent/ mortage and keep the heat on. Tell me you fancy money managers out there on DIS, as you guys are also financially sophisticated. how does a family that is bringing home maybe 2000/3000 a month yet has expenses for maybe 1800/2800 or even maybe more save for long term unemployment. ??How would they be able to save money to cover themselves for six months of living expenses. And the sad thing is many people make even less.

People should get off their high horses because the fact is we are all one cancer diagnosis away from bankruptcy.