28. In An Emergency They Would Need Money
According to The Atlantic, 47% of all Americans do not have $400 in cash ready to pay for an emergency. Even if someone is making a decent amount of money with a middle-class job, they have built up a lifestyle where they live paycheck to paycheck. If something happens where they needed last-minute cash, they would have to resort to putting it on a credit card. That doesn’t have to be a medical emergency that keeps them out of work for months; something as simple as needing new car tires could spend their finances spiraling and cause them to fall behind on their bills.
That is a dangerous position to put yourself in because all it takes is losing your job or one terrible emergency to derail you completely. Everyone should try to save enough money to pay for three months of expenses if they lost their job and needed time to transition to a new one. On the bright side, at least this person in the middle class likely has a good enough credit score to qualify for a loan. But truly wealthy people have ample savings because they have not built up a lifestyle that merely flaunts how much money they have. If a rainy day should come, they may have to make some sacrifices but will not risk going bankrupt.