Americans Are Exhausted, Broke, and Done Pretending This Is Normal

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]You know what? They keep saying that we're in the age of disclosure and I think that they're right, but I think we also need to start disclosing something else like on a on a personal level like I think more people, especially Americans, need to start disclosing how much they are struggling financially.

[00:00:15]Like I made a video yesterday talking about how this is my first job that I've been able to land since November of last year.

[00:00:27]I'm not full-time. That job is not full-time. It is $19 an hour. It is 32 hours a week.

[00:00:36]My lease renewal I I've got my third notification about my lease renewal.

[00:00:42]I cannot afford to renew this lease and I also can't afford to move because if you move, what do you got to do?

[00:00:49]Deposit, admin fee, application fee, paying for the moving truck, taking time off of work, all this extra stuff that you have to pay for.

[00:00:57]I cannot afford to do either one.

[00:01:00]And a lot of people are in this position right now. A lot of people cannot find a job and it's not because there's a there's like a just a natural scarcity when it comes to job. It is a manufactured scarcity.

[00:01:11]They're not hiring anyone. They're cutting 90% of their workforce and getting the remaining 10% to do the work of the other 90% while not increasing their pay. The cost of everything is going up, but everybody keeps reporting record profits.

[00:01:30]Nobody can Nobody can afford to pay their workers a livable wage, but everybody has record profits. But you know who does get paid? The shareholders who do absolutely nothing for the company.

[00:01:42]This is This is the state of the economy right now. Like this is a reality. This is real.

[00:01:49]And this is where we all are. It's a lot more people that are just too embarrassed to say. You should never be embarrassed about what this system has done to you. Ever since social media has pretty much come around, you don't see people really sharing the truth of how they feel, the struggles that they're really going through, and people are becoming more and more vocal about that.

[00:02:07]In fact, it's almost the new trend to actually share how you really are feeling, how you really are struggling, especially here in America. Hey, what's up, America? I'm going to be real with you here because I see no future for people in America. After seeing the high cost of homes nationwide, the high cost of gas, the high cost of food, the high cost of rent, cars, rental cars, used cars, insurance, health care, taxes, and every other thing, how is anybody in this country supposed to prosper that's not already wealthy? Can someone tell me that? The pulling yourself up by your bootstraps argument is and over. It doesn't work now. You have average home prices of $512,000.

[00:02:52]Grocery prices are almost 100% more since 4 years ago. Same with rent. Same with mortgages. Same with used cars.

[00:03:00]Same with new cars. Taxes are slightly lower, and I do mean slightly. Wages are slightly up, but no way in hell will that meet the requirements. I just saw a story about a nurse with a $75,000 salary a year and an 808 credit score denied for getting a home. Zero student loan debt, too. So, debtless, making 75 grand a year with an over 800 credit score, not good enough for a house. So, what are we doing here? WHAT'S WHAT'S THE END GOAL? STARVATION? DEATH? WHAT'S GOING on here? No matter what you do, no matter how you spend the finances, the middle class and the poor have no upward mobility. There is no hope now. None. No hope. None. Zero. The next two or three generations are BECAUSE YOU ALLOWED SO MUCH GREED.

[00:03:53]YOUNGER GENERATIONS WILL NEVER HAVE [ __ ] BECAUSE OF YOUR GREED. I'VE ALREADY BROKEN my back trying to make ends meet working for the last 30 years. I already know I'm not going to get anything from the rich. I DON'T GIVE A But the younger generations, if you keep stealing and being greedy, they're going to all be homeless and then what do you have? RULING OVER A BUNCH OF HOMELESS PEOPLE? YOU.

[00:04:19]TRIGGER WARNING. I'M GOING to crash out right now and this is going to be a long video, but I feel like you could relate to this. So, here we go. It's great living in America. Unless you're a [ __ ] American. If you're a bank though, you're thriving while the rest of us are just trying to [ __ ] survive. I just came across a video saying that banks are at an all-time high. Like their expectations have blown through the roof of what their profit margins were going to be.

[00:04:44]You want to know why? They are [ __ ] thriving because America is starving to live. At least 95% of Americans right now are literally surviving off credit cards, off loans in general. And banks are eating that [ __ ] up over the high interest rates. The We're fighting for our lives over here.

[00:05:05]You want to know what the American dream is like? Let me tell you. Every day I wake up hoping today is the last day on Earth.

[00:05:11]I'm tired of it here. The American household on average is $80,000 in debt and that's just credit cards and like auto loans. Maybe even some student loans thrown in there, but that's not even including your mortgage. That's just credit card debt. And right now banks are eating that interest rate up while we're all surviving. You mean to tell me that the average American goes to their mind sucking job, works 8 to 12 hours to have everything deducted, have nothing left to live on, and we're forced to put food on the table by USING CREDIT CARDS.

[00:05:43]OKAY.

[00:05:44]A PICTURE THIS, RIGHT? You go to college. You get yourself in hundreds and thousands of student loan debt. You are one of the 5% of college graduates to get your job in the field you got your degree in, right?

[00:06:00]You get everything garnished from your wages because the increase on living and everything around you has gone up, but your pay has stayed the same. But then you also get taxes taken out. We get taxed just to breathe, people. We get taxed on owning [ __ ] We get taxed on working. We get taxed on on just living, okay?

[00:06:16]Then you got health insurance. That's a joke and a whole video within itself.

[00:06:20]But basically, the average American pays anywhere between $300 and $1,000 a month for health insurance. Basically, you're paying just to say I have health insurance. But then when you go to use health insurance, you have co-pays and deductibles, and they don't cover nothing until you've met your deductible. What do you mean? Why am I paying you $1,000 a month to have health INSURANCE WHEN I'M STILL PAYING MORE JUST TO use it. I digress. Then you have everything like retirement 401 taken out. Okay, great. You're going to work 30 to 40 years of your prime so that when you get to retirement age, we're going to give you monthly stipends back just so you can afford to live without a job. Meanwhile, like 80% of senior citizens that are retired now are working at Lowe's at the age of 87 because they can't survive just on their retirement. That's just a prime example.

[00:07:04]We're all struggling to keep our heads above water because we don't earn enough money after everything gets taken out. We are now forced to pay super high interest rates on everything we own. Even stuff that's paid off, we're still paying interest on. How does that make any sense? But you're sitting there, the American family, the average American family is no longer middle class. You're either poor or rich. The rich is making money off the poor because the poor can't afford to have two jobs, full-time jobs, and still be able to take care of their families and have enough money at the end of the day to put food on the table.

[00:07:41]Hence, why we are forced to live on credit card debt.

[00:07:44]And y'all are just going to keep jacking up the prices that we're never going to be able to afford to pay off. Because, unfortunately, Dave Ramsey, the average American person has nothing left after their paychecks come in and they pay their bills and they buy groceries, they have nothing left to save. So, you're sitting there with $20 to your name for 2 weeks until the next payday, and that's if you're lucky. There's some people that are in the red right now.

[00:08:06]They are working their asses off and they can't even pay all their bills on time and they're trying to decide, do you want to keep the white the light on this month or the water? No, living is just a luxury. I can't afford to put braces on my kids right now. That's a [ __ ] luxury. Going out to eat, that's a luxury. I don't know if this is happening to anybody else in America, but it's getting pretty [ __ ] annoying with me.

[00:08:26]Uh, so I had a phone plan that I started about a year and a half ago. It was about $115 a month.

[00:08:34]A little overpriced for a single line, but sure.

[00:08:36]Um, I was willing to pay it.

[00:08:38]Come a year and a half later, they're trying to charge me $167 a month for the rest of the contract.

[00:08:45]They don't specify why. They just, "Oh, it's extra service fees."

[00:08:49]I'm sorry. I'm sorry. $47 more in service fees a month I have to [ __ ] pay? That that makes no And then, I literally go to my auto insurance, which was quoted to me when I first started the policy, which was a 6-month policy at $311.

[00:09:08]$311.

[00:09:09]It's way overpriced, but I drive an Audi, so what the [ __ ] ever. I guess I'll pay the $300 a month for insurance.

[00:09:15]Then, I go back to my policy and they're telling me I owe $374 a month for the remaining 3 months.

[00:09:22]Extra accrued service fees. My storage unit used to be $97 a month for my stuff.

[00:09:28]It is now $145.

[00:09:30]They raised the price on the contract and on the agreement that I made with the company. This is the same with the insurance company. This is the same with the phone plan company that I'm putting this video on. When are we going to get sick and tired of corporate America taking our money? I'm getting real sick and tired of this. This isn't even like a political view on left or right side or anything like that. I'm sick of America stealing from its citizens. I'm sick of corporate billion-dollar conglomerate all oligarchies that continue to throw little fees and fines on us like we owe it. Like we have to force ourselves to pay cuz they contractually can keep us in a contract.

[00:10:10]It's getting old. How did my bills go up over $400 in the past month from accrued fees? They can't even specify why those fees were raised. We need to hold these people accountable. These CEOs, CFOs, these owners of these corporate businesses. Billion-dollar wallets packed. All these rich, horrible people where it's like, "Well, they earned it fair and square." Yeah, by people over and ripping people off.

[00:10:36]Accrued fees, fines, and until their pockets are so lined they don't even know what to do with their money. While the rest of us sit here and struggle and feed off of breadcrumbs on the ground going, "It's the government.

[00:10:50]It's the Democrats. It's the Republicans. It's everything else but exactly what corporate America is standing for right now."

[00:10:57]They don't give a about us citizens.

[00:10:59]They only give a about their company and they just want to sit there money hungry just shoveling their face full of our money.

[00:11:06]So, I'm being evicted from my apartment.

[00:11:08]Yeah. Let's talk about it. Um so, I live in a part of Florida.

[00:11:16]I mean, Florida itself is disgusting, but I live in one of the worst parts of Florida. And there's nothing here. And for the past year, I have financially struggled to the point of mental insanity.

[00:11:31]I have been stealing my groceries.

[00:11:35]I have been basically stealing anything I can just so I can survive. I'm like a little squirrel.

[00:11:42]And the stress from the financial instability has made my bipolar symptoms come back up. Oh, no.

[00:11:52]So, now they want me to medication.

[00:11:55]I didn't need to take medication for 4 years, but now I need medication.

[00:12:00]So, I'm getting in my car.

[00:12:03]I'm driving to my mom.

[00:12:05]And we're going to live out of our cars.

[00:12:07]We're going to camp. We're going to save as much money as we can. We're going to get vans.

[00:12:14]I'm done living in this system.

[00:12:17]I will forage for my own food if I have to.

[00:12:21]I'll kill animal if I have to.

[00:12:24]I'm done being part of this rat race.

[00:12:28]This society is not normal. This isn't normal.

[00:12:34]Okay?

[00:12:37]So, I don't normally ever come on here and post anything except of my dog because he's absolutely gorgeous.

[00:12:46]But, um >> [sighs] >> I am extremely frustrated being a full-time employed person living in Florida and not being able to afford to live.

[00:13:02]I have spent my whole day off trying to find a, you know, more affordable place to live because I can't afford $1,300 a month in rent and then a $650 car note and then $300 in insurance and then you got utilities and then, you know, it's just I it's either I eat or I pay my bills and then even then it's like, "Okay, well, which bill is going to be late this month? And I'm so sick of it.

[00:13:31]Like all these apartment complexes and and realtors and even private renters so hard. And I mean that with everything in me.

[00:13:45]I nor anybody else should be working 60 plus hours a week and not be able to live. I'm about to crash the I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just me losing my mind. I don't know.

[00:14:02]I don't know, but I'm about to lose my [ __ ] cuz I cannot I just can't take it.

[00:14:09]I am so livid right now. Hear me out. Health insurance in America is a joke.

[00:14:15]>> I just saw a video of a girl being like, how are we going to do this like for the rest of our lives? Um and I just have to say low key, I feel like a lot of young people right now in the workforce I see comments all the time that are like, I'm betting on the world to end.

[00:14:34]It's like, yeah, me too. Like how up of a of a of a economy of a society of a of a country are we living in right now that your young people, your new to the workforce young people are basically like we bite basically have like ideations because we don't want to do this forever. There's no reward for our work anymore. What's the reward? Like oh, you get to go to sleep at night. I feel like the lack of money that people have now is really just starting to compound anxiety, depression, anger the short fuse.

[00:15:17]People are just getting It's It's It's even worse to me this year than it was last year, but fuses are getting shorter. You see people that any kind of issue comes up, whether they're in a store, just just anywhere, people are just automatically they're getting the shakes, they're they're getting angrier faster.

[00:15:35]Uh they they they had nobody had people are not having the amount of patience they used to have.

[00:15:39]It really comes down to emotional intelligence and people are not able to manage this anymore and you I start I'm starting to see people break. Um I see people constantly all day and it just seems like it's starting to just kind of compound and I don't know where this is going to go.

[00:15:57]Bills are not getting cheaper.

[00:15:59]Nobody's getting paid more money. As a matter of fact, companies out there are quietly reducing things like perks, benefits, bonuses.

[00:16:08]So, in a way you're actually making less money probably than you might have made in the last several years.

[00:16:14]And at the same time everything just continues to go up.

[00:16:17]Um aggregate numbers I've been everything put together you're probably almost double your expenses that you were before COVID. If you add up every single bill you have, um I just don't know where this goes. Uh people just don't they don't you know, people are not making eye contact with you out in public.

[00:16:35]Less and less people are smiling. Um people just seem on edge, they seem agitated.

[00:16:41]They're just in their own world and it it's like everybody's got their their brain on a hyperactive thing, you know, about about stress, about money and man, the lack of money is just going to break people.

[00:16:55]You know, money buys money doesn't buy happiness, but money buys your peace, it buys options, it buys your ability to to survive and and to and and to enjoy the things around you. And if you ain't got the money, well, everything else around you crumbles and man, I don't know, man.

[00:17:12]But people are just getting less and less pleasant to be around and they're just getting more agitated. I'm telling you right now, if we have not lived frugally for years, if we haven't been making certain financial decisions like we have been, we would be in a lot of trouble right now because things are just really hard in the economy.

[00:17:32]My husband has been a proponent of staying debt free, of living well below your means for many years, and it was so hard for me to get on board with that in the beginning, and I'm just so glad that I did because I don't know right now how we'd be making it. It It's so hard. It's really hard. And things that we continue to do to live a very frugal life is we cut back on eating out, we cut back on our food costs. So, if we can't afford certain luxury items, we just don't get them anymore.

[00:18:05]And sometimes we do want to splurge a little bit if we have a little bit of extra money, but otherwise, we really try to just cook from scratch.

[00:18:14]Don't buy brand name things. I mean, we really try and just stick on a budget.

[00:18:19]Things that I've done before is actually just take out money from the bank and put money in little envelopes, and I'll budget to say, "Okay, this is the food budget for the month. This is the entertainment budget for the month." Um you know, so on and so forth, but just cutting back on food. We also really cut back on any type of subscriptions, which everything is like a subscription service now. Almost everything. But really cutting back on those because it adds up. $10 here, $15 here, $5 there, $50 here and there.

[00:18:50]Um sometimes you'll download apps on your phone and they'll have a subscription service, and it'll just renew and you forgot to cancel it. Things like that. I mean, really just watching out for that.

[00:19:01]Um for entertainment, we try and do as many free things as possible. So, we love going on walks. That's free. We love seeing what um type of events the city might be putting on uh just anything like that. Anything that's low cost. If we're going to the movie theater, we're going when we can pay the cheaper prices. We're not going like on a Friday or Saturday night. All those little things add up and those are things that we've been doing for a long time. And then when we need things, we really look for used items. We'll go on Facebook Marketplace. We'll look on Craigslist. We'll go to thrift stores, even though thrift stores are getting more expensive now, too, right? But these are the types of things that we do just to lower the cost of everything. If we have extra items or something that we don't need anymore, we'll sell it and try and make some extra cash. And that's always a good thing to do as well. If you need some extra money, if there's anything that you can sell right now that you don't need that isn't that valuable to you, go ahead and sell it.

[00:19:56]That's something that everybody can be doing and usually, you know, you can make some extra cash like that. And then also we pay really close attention to our finances. It's important to track all the dollars that are coming in and coming out of your account because that's when you're really going to see if there are some extra things that you can cut out because at this point, I think it's really important for everybody to try and live as frugally as possible. And that's just our mindset.

[00:20:21]Other people think that they shouldn't have to live like that. Um but, you know, that's been our mindset and it's done well for us for many years. And again, I'm grateful to my husband because I was a super spender back in the day. I mean, I would get a paycheck from work and then the paycheck was gone. I was spending it after bills were done. I did not have the mindset of trying to save anything. I wanted to get uh clothes. I wanted to take the vacations. And just spend all the money, you know, I might save a little bit, but then it was saving it to spend on the next big thing that I wanted to get. And uh that was really, you know, a challenge for me, but if I could do it, then anyone that's watching this video can do it as well. So, anyway, share your comments and thoughts down below.

[00:21:06]Thank you for watching. I appreciate you being here, and I hope to catch you in the next video. Take care.