Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

If I took a job at a unprofitable startup that was VC backed, I would understand the risks and ask for the appropriate compensation and have a larger cushion than normal. On the other hand, the only reason for working at a government job is short term stability - you “know” the federal government has access to capital to pay you and the long term stability of pensions, lifetime healthcare etc.

But now, on the federal level, you have a president who is shutting down the government over a $5 billion dollar “wall” that everyone in the know is saying won’t be effective - including John Kelley. On the state level, pensions are in danger because of politics, the voters, and the unions.

On the bright(?) side, at least it seems like banks and credit unions are willing to work with people who are affected by the shutdown. I’m sure they wouldn’t be willing to work with someone who couldn’t make a payment because a startup couldn’t achieve “product market fit”.

It's human psychology. Below a certain level, your mind will simply talk itself into spending your available money to make you happy.

You don't need that car. A car half the price would have been plenty good enough. But you did it anyhow.

You don't need fancy breakfast cereal that costs twice what the generic stuff at Aldi costs.

You don't need all those electronics and toys. You don't need to eat out that much.

If you made less money, you'd do less of the above right until you simply couldn't afford any of it.

And you'd continue to be about as happy as with all that money, assuming you were still paying for the necessities.

I'm not trying to convince you to give up those fancy drinks. I'm just explaining that you could choose to live more frugally without almost no repercussions, but you won't.

I'd like to read more about the history of the people in the article.

The biggest issue as far as I can tell is that it's easy to 'lose' at any stage. You can make a ton of decisions starting from about age 15-20 that influence your degrees of freedom at age 40 (in the article there's a family of 3 that seemingly have little savings, for example).

If you were born to a non wealthy household, the reality is that you simply don't get to go through life not focusing on money. Your income, investments, and career have to be at the forefront of your mind, always. And even then there's a ton of chance involved.

> she and her software engineer husband

I think housing costs are a big part of this. Things are almost perfectly stacked in favour of current property owners: oppose any new housing development near you which keeps land prices and rents high, while those wanting to buy or rent can’t or don’t vote and can’t as easily encourage more building as current owners can discourage it.

And it’s so simple (not easy, but simple) too: build more to reduce housing costs which is effectively a raise for most people. We’d need to stop treating housing as a primary investment vehicle though.