Quote Originally Posted by brutal View Post
What happened to having a minimum of 6 month salary/expenses saved? Most of those fed jobs, and especially ATC, are well paying jobs.
What I remember from high school was a recommendation of 2-3 months salary/expenses to be saved/available as cash or very liquid assets, not 6. Personally, I have about 8 months salary in cash simply because I didn't see any investments I felt comfortable with over the past few years and because I was raised to be frugal (read: cheap as f--k). I put about half of that into rotating certificates of deposit since the bank pays such horrible interest on savings accounts right now.

I have noticed that people have been raised to not be able to distinguish between want and need for the last generation or so. That current generation is all about instant gratification. That's probably a combination of the post-WWII consumer economy that replaced the traditional thrifty Yankee culture, a post-9/11 cultural reaction, and a continuing cultural transformation away from personal responsibility.