Cost of living

No offence to Dan the man, but speak for yourself as im not suffering and neither is a lot of people
Hobby car? Money to dump into a hobby car? That aint suffering
While there is no doubt prices of just about everything have gone up the thing is if you cant make it now you weren't in great shape before this economy got hit
I see jobs available everywhere I look from entry level to experienced trades people, companies begging for workers
My old boss, his dispatcher, I still see them often, been telling me all summer up until today, they have work for all the trucks and can only put out half of them, cant find drivers
So while sure gas is averaging 3.50 a gallon here, supplies and goods prices have risen, we still have plenty of work so if money is tight do what I did for 40 plus years.......get a second job
I wasn't speaking of myself but rather the people who have a family, mortgage, car, truck payments. Myself, I don't have a mortgage as our 15 year old home has been paid for for 11 years now. Second job would have been out of the question as I was already working 60 -70 hours a week. We have 2 late model vehicle's that are paid for. I know that all of the overtime that I worked during my 27 year career has paid off nicely. You sound like you planned ahead and that's good. But I think that there are folks who are feeling the pinch, the one's that have 2-3 kids as I said earlier. I've been known to help others people that I've never seen before and probably will never again.