What about me?

Wall Street, Main Street, families of America ect ect. I wish the news would shut up. Stop trying to yank my heart out to get at my wallet. People are worried about the common American household. Their government is worried about their millions as well as the millions of their friends on Wall Street. What about me? What about the people who work hard and save their money?

I'm only 26 years old. When my father was 25, he bought his first house. He never went to college and wasn't born into a wealthy family. He was just a hard worker. He got a loan for a house and within a few years paid it off. To give you some background, I'm from a small town in the mid-west. At the time, he paid 24,000 for the house. Granted its not some big city or anything, but for my father it was a lot of money. But within 2 years he paid it off. He lived frugally. He didn't make a lot of money, and he used what he made to pay off his debts. This is one of his lessons to me is to live without debt. Pay your credit card at the end of the month, get rid of any loans as soon as you can. This is how my family lived. My father is now 55 and he has done pretty well for not having a 100,000 dollar education. To me, he lived the American dream.

Fast forward 30 years to his son. I benefited from my father's savings. He never spent a lot of money on us kids, but he raised us to be responsible. He made sure I went to college so I would be better off than him. He helped me pay for it along with the loans and scholarships I received. I worked almost all throughout school at part time jobs on the campus. I double majored in Computer Science and Economics because I liked them and thought they would be good for my future. When I graduated I moved to DC to get a job. The cost of living was high. The first year or so I was just getting by, but now in my 5th year I am doing pretty well. I'm finally able to save money. I've been slowly paying off my debts. Now at 26, I begin to think of owning a house. In the middle of a housing bubble, what am I suppose to do? The minimum price for a house out here is around 350,000. If I owned a house already, maybe it would be easy to sell and upgrade. But with nothing what am I to do? I save my money. I have a decent size chunk of money in the bank. But could I, like my father buy a house and pay it off in less than 5 years? Not a chance. Not if I lived in the dark and ate ramen noodles every night.

Now that the right wing is suggesting giving the money to billionaires, and the left wing wants to give the money to people who bought houses they couldn't afford, what about me? I was willing to put in the work to own property. I do the research when I purchase things. Now I'm forced to subsidize those who live beyond their means. The money I have stored in the bank should be gaining value....it is quickly losing value. I am losing money by not being in debt. What sense does this make? I believe our forefathers would be sick if they saw us today. They might load up and go back to Europe.

I don't wear fancy clothes, I don't drive fancy cars, I don't spend more money than I could ever earn. I want to be able to build up my assets, not owe on them the rest of my life. I want to be able to leave something behind for my children. I want to teach them to be responsible with their money. How can I ever do this if the system rewards irresponsibility? I truly believe these are the feelings the founders of this nation felt when they decided to declare their independence. Now that all these people are so indebted to the banks, what are they to do when they cannot pay? Why should I pay for them? I wasn't living it up when things were good, why should I have to lower myself when things aren't so good?