Among the other sobering findings in the CareerBuilder-sponsored study was that 36% of those polled are not putting any money in retirement plans right now.  This means that not only are many Americans struggling RIGHT NOW, many may also be setting themselves up for a FUTURE that is MORE UNCOMFORTABLE than their present.  (You can read an article about this study by clicking here.)

This difficult struggle present all around the country right now IS possible to unwind if the family does have some income coming in.

The steps to take to stop the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck, although they may be difficult to execute, are simple in principle:

1) Spend less than you make each month

2) Use some (and hopefully, a lot) of the excess to reduce debt

3) Carefully allocate the excess, during and after the debt reduction period, among giving, short-term savings, and long-term savings.

Sadly, when debt is high, things get very difficult on a family whose income suddenly drops or disappears altogether.  Discretionary spending like clothing purchases or trips out to eat and the movies are easy to cut, but mortgage and car payments cannot be done away with easily.  During a downturn, then, a family with substantial debt will normally struggle significantly more than a family with little or no debt.  This is often true even though the family with debt may, in many cases, have a higher income than the low-debt/debt-free family.

All of these issues deserve more discussion, but I thought it was worth at least pointing out here.