Ima be real with you:

It's not a bad thing for a person to live within their means.

Now, now, I understand it's not so cut and dry. Fuck me, I'm in poverty and have cancer, it's not exactly a situation I'm able to find "means" for, period. Trust me, I get it.

However, as a country, we've been living on borrowed time when it comes to the credit economy.

Abuse of credit by private companies is part of the problem and part of why price-gouging is so bad.

They hand out high-rate credit cards to anyone with a fucking pulse, and then have those cards maxed out shortly to help cover rising costs. As those costs continue to rise, people continue to offset their meager earnings with paying for things with credit, until soon enough, every paycheck goes entirely to paying credit bills while the credit cards keep maxing out to get bills paid.

It's not bad for a person to live within their means, and the US's easy credit system means plenty of credit companies don't care that they're handing out cards to people who can't really afford it, because that means they have a permanent, endlessly paying customer who they can sue the shit out of if they fail to pay up one day.

Part of the reason companies have been able to raise prices so high so fast is because of the prevalence of easy credit and US citizens willingness to turn to that to cover increases. The credit industry is really the wallpaper covering the cracked plaster of the wall that's about to fall, it's part and parcel to the reason why price increases were able to be handled by citizens. Not because they suddenly could afford it, but because they turned to easily accessible credit lines.

Credit isn't overall a bad thing, but the US credit system is out of fucking control, and Buy Now Pay Later is part of that, too. Our entire financial system is completely fucked, just ask the GameStop stock guys. (Don't buy gamestop stock, just ask them about it, and look at the proof, the fucking game is rigged.)

Anyway, that's my two cents, credit companies are why inflationary increases were able to be handled, not because people suddenly had higher purchasing power. In the end, that's a bad thing for everyone to be living endlessly off of credit.

And yet these types of predatory fees are a very American thing (and of course probably many parts of the world I have no experience with) for the comparison below I will focus on US vs Europe.

Most European credit cards debit the full amount at the end of the month. If you don’t have enough money in your bank account, there is no overdraft fee. The overdraft becomes a loan which you pay a couple percent interest. Then eventually if you don’t pay that for long enough and the interest rising a bit more, the bank reaches out to you, and offer to close your count and make a payment plan for you. Otherwise it goes to collections.

The above happened to me when I was a student. I was able to quickly open another bank account for like 2 euros with another bank as well, and eventually paid off my debt.