Here begin the adventures of a daring young couple on the flying fiscal trapeze. They are hard-working citizens of Bluffton, Ind. Their story is not necessarily reflective of life in that community, but of the lives of millions of young Americans much like them, who want what they want when they want it.
By ROBERT BRIGHAM
When Dave and Betty Jacobs got their $331 income tax refund, they went on a spending binge. But because the Jacobses, like most young couples, are always in or close to debt, the "binge" consisted almost entirely of paying off some of the bills they had run up. There was $50 due on their heating bill, $50 in gas for the car, $55 to Sears, $8 to Montgomery Ward, $31 for light and water, $28 for dry cleaning, $6 for TV repair and $4 to the greenhouse where Betty Jacobs indulges in one of her few luxuries-buying rosebushes.
These bills-eating up all but $99 of the refund check-were the ones they wanted to settle. But they also had to worry about the next house payment, new shoes for their two daughters and a number of other charges that make their life an endless series of nibbles, pinches, and bites. By the time they had finished their binge, there was less than $20 and Betty Jacobs had to postpone her hope of getting a new dress.
Although the refund was a once-a-year event, the pattern of using almost all their money to pay off what they owe is a very familiar one to Dave and Betty Jacobs. This is the way they live year in and year out, for their desires always run ahead of their income. Like millions of other young American couples, they live beyond their income but not beyond their credit, staving off perpetually imminent disaster with the aid of checkbooks, instalment plans, easy terms and the optimistic conviction that, as Dave Jacobs says, "We'll make it somehow. Things will always be better-maybe a lot better."
Dave and Betty know where their money goes, but they have nothing so formal as a family budget. "I've tried a dozen times to work out a budget," Dave admits. "I start adding up all we spend, but I never get more than halfway through when I see we can't possibly do it."
In a literal sense Dave Jacobs is right: they can't possibly do it. Although they already owe $16,000 (mostly for a mortgage on their new house), in an average month they spend $31 more than their income. How they manage to do it is an ingenious object lesson in modern American living.
From his job as a designer at Bluffton's Franklin Electric, Dave earns an average of $511 a month. But before he ever get his hands on the paycheck, $50 is taken out for withholding taxes and social security, and another $87 is removed by the Franklin Electric credit union to pay off a loan that helped furnish Dave and Betty's new home.
From a take home pay of $375 Dave and Betty have to make certain other inescapable payments. The house, with its mortgage, taxes and utilities, gobbles up $161. Life insurance and hospital insurance take $26, and the operating costs on the car Dave drives to work are $30 a month.
