George W. Bush and his economic slump

Another story of people being forced to live pay check to paycheck.
I can relate...almost.

NEW YORK (Money Magazine) -- If she thought it would really fix her family's finances, Amy Schuett would make it her New Year's resolution to squeeze every bit of extra spending from the family budget.

But she's already slashed so many little luxuries - the gourmet coffee, the restaurant lunches, the weekly dates with husband Brian - that she's fresh out of ideas.
Cable TV? Unplugged. Pool membership? Down the drain.

They've even considered giving up their unlisted phone number. At a cost of $3 a month, this move wouldn't save much - even over, say, 150 years - but it shows how desperate the couple feel about easing their financial strain. "We're struggling week to week to get by," says Brian, 42. "Any money that comes in gets chewed up right away."
~snip~
And they do have four daughters to raise, ages four to nine. But still.

The Schuetts don't have any child-care bills (Brian is now a stay-at-home dad). They don't have credit-card debt. They don't splurge on fancy vacations. And they live in a nice but definitely not luxurious home on a three-acre plot in Elkhorn, Neb., just west of Omaha, where the cost of living is, well, livable.

Yet, says Amy, "We live from one paycheck to the next, we're struggling to save and we never seem to have enough money to do anything fun."

It's a statement that an awful lot of Americans can make these days. About two-thirds of families need their next paycheck to meet their living expenses, according to a recent survey by the American Payroll Association.

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
We're kinda like that because of some financial mistakes I made many years ago (and forgot about), but we're working out of it.

OHhhhh, did I mention that the copule in question pull in over $150,000 per year?