The Real Reason You're Broke....

Bus Chick has found an article that talks about what American's seem to do best...spend money and burn oil. None of my friends seem to be complaining about the cost of a car, probably because like me they drive it once a week. Although my roommate thinks that BART is way too expensive if you're going with two other people to the east bay. But it seems that the problem is not with carpooling but rather single occupancy vehicles, more specifically their costs. Why are we trying to subsidize housing so much when people are just gonna blow that extra money on their auto...

Americans are spending more on their vehicles than ever before -- more than $8,000 a year on average -- and it's driving some to the breaking point. Credit counselor Bill Thompson of Jacksonville, Fla., estimates that one out of every four clients his agency sees has overspent -- sometimes dramatically -- on a car. "They may be spending 15% to 20% of their (take-home) pay on just the car payment," said Thompson, who supervises credit counseling for the nonprofit Family Foundations, "and that doesn't include insurance, gas, maintenance and all the other costs of owning a vehicle."

Quite Amazing, perhaps transit is a part of the affordability solution. To take a look at how to address this issue through transit, check out the Affordability Index.