When did we become a bunch of penny pinchers?

Are you too getting just a little sick and tired of all the advice about how to save money?  “How to save money when grocery shopping” ... “How so save money on clothes” … “How to save money on electricity” … When did we all become such a bunch of penny pinchers?

Thank goodness for Christmas.  Apparently Americans responded to all those articles about how to spend less with a big fat “Stick it where the sun don’t shine” and let their dollars roll.  ComScore, a leader in measuring the spending habits of Americans, reported that a whopping $35.3 billion was spend online, marking a 15% increase to last year.

The writers of the “How to save on …” will probably tut tut about this figure.  I applaud it.  This kind of spending will generate a need for more merchandise, resulting in more jobs.  It’s a shame Christmas comes around only once a year.  With that kind of spending, our economy would be back on its feet in no time.

Unfortunately that is not the case and more and more jobs are lost on a daily basis.  Statistics tells us that the unemployment rate is down by 8,5%.  Baloney, the unemployment rate may be down, but it’s not because all those people found jobs. 

Undoubtedly some will have found employment, but I dare say that the rest of those 8,5% simply lost their unemployment benefits.  I should know, I’m one of them.

I received no warning that my allocated weeks were nearly up, I received no notice that I had nearly reached the end of the line.  My benefits were canceled from one day to another.

I suspect that a mistake was made, so I went to the unemployment offices, but was politely sent packing.  I tried contacting them by phone by got the message “Our call volume is high.  Please try again later.  Have a nice day.”

(To be continued)