Americans Now Have More Debt Than Savings | Morris Invest

Yes, it's true. Many Americans now have more debt than savings. According to a recent report from The Economist of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, their findings show that even though Americans accumulated an unprecedented level of savings during the pandemic, those reserves have quickly been drained. It's unbelievable. This report said that American household savings have been depleted at a shocking average pace of $70 billion per month since September 2021. How did this happen? Well, the report found that from March 2020, which is when the pandemic struck, to August 2021, Americans were able to rack up more savings than usual due to factors like those stimulus checks, reduced spending due to business closures, but then pandemic-era savings which were quickly exhausted by March of 2024. And then simultaneously, Americans are accumulating debt at an alarming rate. So data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that U.S. household debt climbed to over $17 trillion in the first quarter of 2024. Now, this accounts for all consumer debt, including credit cards, personal loans, car loans, and so on. And this data showed that credit card balances were actually down. But it's important to note that an increasing number of borrowers are behind on their credit card payments. Borrowers who were newly delinquent had median credit card utilization rates upwards of 90 percent. This is important to understand. And I hope you're listening to this. The reason why credit card spending is down is because people have spent into oblivion and they can no longer keep using their credit cards because they have no available credit. This is a horrible position to be in. The economists from the San Francisco Federal Reserve are worried. They wrote, depletion of these excess savings is unlikely to result in American households sharply cutting their spending levels as long as they're able to support their consumption habits through continuous employment or wage gains, other forms of wealth, including non-pandemic related savings and higher debt. So it costs more than ever to live comfortably in America, which is why it's so important to have a safety net other than your credit card. Today, Americans are expected to save less in 2024 than in 2023. Yeah, it's staggering. It's not surprising, considering the prices are trending upward. Most people are struggling to make ends meet. Almost everything from housing to food prices to gas prices are up over 20 percent and they're struggling to make ends meet, let alone saving any extra money on top of that. We'll get back to that video in a minute. But first, I need to tell you about a golden opportunity for investors that's happening right now. Mortgage rates have plummeted in anticipation of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates at their upcoming meeting in September. Now, it's good news for buyers, and it has presented a unique overlap in the investing world right now. Remember when mortgage rates spiked last year? Well, a lot of sellers started offering incentives to help investors achieve positive cash flow. For example, my company, Morris Invest, and our team over at Sudira Wealth started offering clients a rate buy-down credit. Now, a rate buy-down drastically reduces your mortgage payment. If you've ever run the numbers on an investment property, you know that's a big deal. Now, here's where the golden opportunity comes in. When mortgage rates change, it can take a while for other things like seller incentives to start catching up. So even though you can get a mortgage rate in the low sixes right now, and that could be even lower by the time you're seeing this video, right now you can also lock in a rate buy-down credit on top of that. And this is huge, people, huge. With the two combined, our team's finance expert said he's But here's the catch. The window of opportunity here is very narrow. This overlap will close very soon. So those seller incentives are going to fall off very, very soon. There are two more reasons to move quickly on this. One, prices are rising week over week. And now that rates are going down, they're going to spike even more dramatically, which will be made worse by two, increasing competition. Potential buyers have been sitting on the sidelines just waiting for And now that they have, they're going to flood the market, reproduce bidding wars, pushing prices even higher. If you need a refresher on the advantages of owning real estate, like how it delivers four streams of income through number one, appreciation and equity gains, number two, principal reduction by your tenants, number three, tax benefits and depreciation, and number four, cash flow, I'll link another video in the description so you can check that out. But if you've done your research and you already understand why build-to-rent properties in high growth rental markets are a great path to financial freedom, then take action right now. You do not want to miss out on this opportunity to fast track your investing strategy. Cash in on this narrow overlap of lower rates and seller incentives while it's here. Click the link below and schedule a free call right now. It could be the most important call you make this year. So here's the truth. It's really hard to reach any financial goal without expanding your income. If you want to build up a savings account or pay off debt, in most cases, you're going to have to find ways to add streams of income to your household. Yeah, getting another job. You can only budget and shrink your lifestyle so much, even if you're able to build up a sizable savings account. At the end of the day, it's still finite. Just like we saw in this data, savings accounts can quickly be drained down to zero. And there's nothing wrong with saving money, of course. But what's more powerful is having streams of income that are constantly replenishing your reserves every month. That's why I want you to check out this next video. It's called Stop Saving Your Money Right Now. You're going to want to learn why this entire concept of saving money isn't working for most people and what you can do instead to support your lifestyle. Pay for emergencies that crop up and how you can start buying performing assets. So click this video right here and I'll see you there.