The cost of living is out of control, my wife and I never go on vacation and haven't since before the pandemic, work like dogs, and we wanted to upgrade our home to get a little more space for the kids and stop paying condo fees, but due to interest rates and high prices we could barely even buy the house we currently live in.
Cost of living is absolutely out of control and wages seem to have stagnated. How are others handling this? Everywhere I look there are fast cars, full restaurants, people just getting back from Mexico. What the fuck are all these people doing for work?!
PS: I'm in Canada. Things here I feel are much worse than the USA.
It's an excellent question, and I hope you and your family remain well. I have also observed the cost of homeowner's insurance more than doubling recently, on top of all the other cost of living spikes for food, goods, vehicles, interest rates, etc. It is clear to me that there is an agenda by the large, corporate firms, e.g. Vanguard, Blackrock, and other corporate landlord companies to squeeze everyone out of their homes, even if they have previously locked in a fixed mortgage with a favorable interest rate.
I, for one, am hoping that the crash in commercial real estate hits before any such crash in residential real estate, so that these corporations will feel the pain primarily, rather than the common man. Of course, these corporations employ people and there will be a ripple effect to any crash in commercial real estate, but the best I can hope for is that the crash in commercial real estate happens soon, affects only the companies (as much as possible) and a reset and recovery for the common man resolves itself as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, the people you are seeing with fast cars, extravagant vacations, and trips to dine out for every meal are almost certainly living beyond their means but want to keep up appearances. The bubble crash should affect them more than it will affect economically conservative people, such as yourself, hopefully.